I'm quite confused from the meeting reports whether there was some argument accepted that LSID metadata in RDF should represent the \content/ of the current concerns of TDWG, including TCS, DC, ABCD, SDD, and the impending new groups, or merely \describe/ the databases against which answers are rendered in those content standards. For example, if a taxon concept is given an LSID, is the metadata returned expected to be a replacement for the current XML constrained by TCS? RDF certainly can encode a taxon concept and address the relations it encodes, but I'm unaware of applications of LSID metadata of objects in a database where the datum is encoded, though in many cases RDF could rationally make a claim to do so. I agree with Sally:Where's the robust, widely accepted killer app? I hate long email posts, and the present rules of the GUID wiki don't yet permit comment, so I have posted something on the SDD Wiki. I'll move it when the GUID wiki is open. http://wiki.cs.umb.edu/twiki/bin/view/SDD/RDFConsideredHarmful
Depending on the resolutiuon to my cofusion expressed in the first paragraph, I am somewhere been vigorously opposed and neutral on RDF, for reasons in the above linked RDFConsideredHarmful.
I'm also amazed that a whole crew of volunteers seem to be persuaded (or appointed) to drop everything they are doing and take on what may or may not be a substantial piece of software engineering to in the next three months. Either there were a lot of persuasive arguments that I couldn't see in what I've been through so far in the report, or somewhere there is sitting an LSID resolver package that just needs a little configuration. mod_LSID??? I guess I'll learn which from Greg Riccardi. I sure hope it's the latter.
Bob
On 2/12/06, Roderic Page r.page@bio.gla.ac.uk wrote:
For my take on McCool's articles see http://iphylo.blogspot.com/2006/02/rob-mccool-on-rethinking-semantic- web.html
Regards
Rod
On 11 Feb 2006, at 20:44, Bob Morris wrote:
Rethinking the semantic Web. Part I McCool, R.; Internet Computing, IEEE Volume 9, Issue 6, Nov.-Dec. 2005 Page(s):88, 86 - 87 Abstract:
The semantic Web is a compelling vision, in which the World Wide Web will include a notion of meaning in data and services. Intelligent agents will exchange information and rules for how to interact with that information, with or without human intervention; appointments will be automatically scheduled; and automated agents will select and invoke services. Information will be easy to find without depending solely on keywords. In part one of this column, the author propose several reasons that this vision hasn't yet been adopted despite substantial research funding in the US and European Union (EU). These reasons will provide the foundation for a new approach, which propose in part two.
McCool is one of the architects of a number of RDF and RDF related systems. This doesn't bear very much on LSID vs. something else, but it does argue that RDF is burdened by its weight and hasn't achieved certain of its aims. A question arises about whether this has implications for other applications that have ontological overtones, including many of TDWGs.
The second columm is in the January issue of the same journal.
On 2/10/06, Sally Hinchcliffe < S.Hinchcliffe@kew.org> wrote:Hi Rod,
Your comment facility is down or I would have added this to the blog ... I think that most of the talk re serving XML from LSIDs was by way of an upgrade path rather than as a final goal. As you say (rightly or wrongly) the community has put a lot of effort into XML schemas and it worried me (and others) that tying LSIDs to RDF might mean that the LSID baby got thrown out with the RDF bathwater as the community rejected it wholesale. But I was persuaded this wouldn't happen and now I face some scepticism here at Kew about the benefits of RDF so a killer app would be good...
On the meeting itself, yes it was frustrating (and interesting and useful as well) and it struck me on my return that we might have got further had we had some professional (and neutral) facilitators - not to say that the chairs didn't do a good job getting us all to a decision in the end, but that we are all (me included) so parti pris and bound up in the subject that herding cats didn't even come close ... For the next meeting the decisions will be harder and more concrete and there will be a lot to decide. It might help having people who know how to facilitate useful debate and close off some of the blind alleys and circular pathways we have a tendency to wander into Sally
For those at the workshop, it was great to meet you and to discuss GUIDs. I've posted a personal view on proceedings on one of my
blogs:
http://iphylo.blogspot.com/2006/02/globally-unique-identifiers.html
.
Comments are welcome.
Regards
Rod
--
Professor Roderic D. M. Page Editor, Systematic Biology DEEB, IBLS Graham Kerr Building University of Glasgow Glasgow G12 8QP United Kingdom
Phone:+44 141 330 4778 Fax:+44 141 330 2792 email:r.page@bio.gla.ac.uk web: http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/rod.html reprints: http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/pubs.html
Subscribe to Systematic Biology through the Society of Systematic Biologists Website:http://systematicbiology.org Search for taxon names at
http://darwin.zoology.gla.ac.uk/~rpage/portal/
Find out what we know about a species at http://ispecies.org
*** Sally Hinchcliffe *** Computer section, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew *** tel: +44 (0)20 8332 5708 *** S.Hinchcliffe@rbgkew.org.uk
Professor Roderic D. M. Page Editor, Systematic Biology DEEB, IBLS Graham Kerr Building University of Glasgow Glasgow G12 8QP United Kingdom
Phone: +44 141 330 4778 Fax: +44 141 330 2792 email: r.page@bio.gla.ac.uk web: http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/rod.html reprints: http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/pubs.html
Subscribe to Systematic Biology through the Society of Systematic Biologists Website: http://systematicbiology.org Search for taxon names at http://darwin.zoology.gla.ac.uk/~rpage/portal/ Find out what we know about a species at http://ispecies.org
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Bob Morris