Re: PROV-ISSUE-55 (are-provenance-uris-needed): Are provenance URIs really needed [Accessing and Querying Provenance]

Hi Graham,

Sorry, message sent too quickly.

I read the proposed changes, and the document offers two different
solutions for the cases where there is a URI for provenance and for the case
there is no such URI.   I am fine with the two cases.

Text of section 2 is not as balanced I feel.

It starts with "A general expectation is that  ... access provenance 
information ... dereferencing its URI",
which seems at odd with  ... "If there is no URI associated ..." in the 
third paragraph.

It would be better to be clear up front, and say that there are two cases.
Case 1: where there is a URI, case 2: where  there is no URI.

Luc

On 29/07/11 09:07, Provenance Working Group Issue Tracker wrote:
> PROV-ISSUE-55 (are-provenance-uris-needed): Are provenance URIs really needed [Accessing and Querying Provenance]
>
> http://www.w3.org/2011/prov/track/issues/55
>
> Raised by: Luc Moreau
> On product: Accessing and Querying Provenance
>
>
> I would like to initiate a debate about a fundamental assumption of the PAQ document: "A general expectation is that web applications may access provenance information in the same way as any web resource, by dereferencing its URI.".
>
> I can see that this "expectation" may be valid in a number of circumstances. But in various projects, we have implemented provenance stores as stand-alone services, accumulating provenance about things.   Whenever the provenance of something was requested, we were querying the storage system, and returning the set of assertions that was appropriate.
>
> The use of a provenance-uri is counter-intuitive in this context. I would even argue it puts an undue burden on the provenance store.  Indeed, the provenance store would have to maintain a reverse mapping provenance-uri to thing-uri, so that the query about that thing can be re-issued, if required.  (Of course, see ISSUE-54 on the requirements set on provenance-uris and what they refer to.)
>
> What do people think?
>
>
>
>
>

Received on Monday, 22 August 2011 21:56:55 UTC