Summary · Context · Proposal · Timeline/Resources
Acknowledgements
Status: obsolete -- see newer version
member-confidential for now, but likely to be discussed with various collaborators, proposed to the W3C membership, etc.We propose to continue the W3C Metadata Activity as a Semantic Web Development Initiative:
The Web was designed as an information space, with the goal that it should be useful not only for human-human communication, but also that machines would be able to participate and help. One of the major obstacles to this has been the fact that most information on the Web is designed for human consumption, and even if it was derived from a database with well defined meanings (in at least some terms) for its columns, that the structure of the data is not evident to a robot browsing the web. Leaving aside the artificial intelligence problem of training machines to behave like people, the Semantic Web approach instead develops languages for expressing information in a machine processable form. [@@quoted from roadmap; cite or not?]
@@other context:
The Consortium has been changing constantly since it was formed. Having completed a catching up and stabilizing phase with HTML 4.0 and HTTP 1.1, W3C has started state-of-the-art common specifications such as in Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) and Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P). It is also forging ahead with a new idea - the Semantic Web - a unification of data everywhere, through the Web, into effectively one large database. The Resource Description Framework (RDF) and the Extensible Markup Language (XML) are the two layers which provide a stable foundation for a very exciting set of developments to come.-- Tim Berners-Lee Director, W3C (from the W3C Folio)
@@XLink, Digital signatures, P3P, XSLT, XML Schema, RDF Schema
@@Dublin Core, INDECs, DOI, ...?
(@@IN PROGRESS: placeholder text by danbri, 2000-04-20 to note that we want to address the URI/resource problem in this activity)
The identification and description of resources are closely related. Social and legal processes are the mechanisms that ultimately ground the identifiers and vocabulary constructs used in our machine-processable data structures. Deployment experience in the RDF Interest Group suggests that there is a need for guidance, best practice notes, and Web architecture clarifications in the area of Web identifiers (URIs). In particular, there has been considerable discussion about appropriate strategies for identifying (amongst other things) persons and organisations for Web data interchange. Rather than proposing a separate URI activity, we propose to track these issues in the context of the broader Semantic Web Activity. @@refs: URI activity draft (textual fodder?), TimBL identifying peersons design issuse paper?,
To do:
We propose to extend the duration of the RDF Interest Group for another two years(@@) and to concentrate and intensify our Live Early Adoption and Demonstration (LEAD) efforts to automate W3C Process, communications, and operations.
@@Tim, do you want to put some meat on this skeleton?
@@using XML Signatures...
@@coordinationg implementation work:
@@... W3C implementation work to date:
Other implementation work:
@@Continue the discussion of an alternative XML syntax for RDF within the RDF Interest Group. When a proposal seems to be reaching a stable state, propose a Working Group to carry it to Recommendation.
@@same for logic layer?
@@propose interop meetings?
@@what to say about this list?
We propose to deploy approximately @@ person-years of effort over a two year(@@?) duration, starting approximately Feb 2000:
(@@who? Ralph, DC, DLL, Eric, Danbri, Henry?)
@@OCLC, Nokia, HP?
Semantic Web Planning meeting of 9 Dec
sw99 (archive)