ISSUE-55: Are provenance URIs really needed

are-provenance-uris-needed

Are provenance URIs really needed

State:
CLOSED
Product:
Accessing and Querying Provenance
Raised by:
Luc Moreau
Opened on:
2011-07-29
Description:
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?
Related Actions Items:
No related actions
Related emails:
  1. Closing issues on PROV-AQ (from graham.klyne@zoo.ox.ac.uk on 2011-12-01)
  2. Re: PROV-WG Reminder: Review PAQ before FPWD vote (from GK@ninebynine.org on 2011-11-16)
  3. Re: PROV-WG Reminder: Review PAQ before FPWD vote (from L.Moreau@ecs.soton.ac.uk on 2011-11-15)
  4. Re: PROV-WG Reminder: Review PAQ before FPWD vote (from p.t.groth@vu.nl on 2011-11-15)
  5. Re: PROV-WG Reminder: Review PAQ before FPWD vote (from L.Moreau@ecs.soton.ac.uk on 2011-11-15)
  6. Reviewing outstanding issues on PAQ document. (from GK@ninebynine.org on 2011-09-15)
  7. Re: PROV-ISSUE-55 (are-provenance-uris-needed): Are provenance URIs really needed [Accessing and Querying Provenance] (from GK@ninebynine.org on 2011-08-26)
  8. Re: PROV-ISSUE-55 (are-provenance-uris-needed): Are provenance URIs really needed [Accessing and Querying Provenance] (from L.Moreau@ecs.soton.ac.uk on 2011-08-25)
  9. Re: PROV-ISSUE-55 (are-provenance-uris-needed): Are provenance URIs really needed [Accessing and Querying Provenance] (from GK@ninebynine.org on 2011-08-25)
  10. Re: PROV-ISSUE-55 (are-provenance-uris-needed): Are provenance URIs really needed [Accessing and Querying Provenance] (from L.Moreau@ecs.soton.ac.uk on 2011-08-22)
  11. Re: PROV-ISSUE-55 (are-provenance-uris-needed): Are provenance URIs really needed [Accessing and Querying Provenance] (from L.Moreau@ecs.soton.ac.uk on 2011-08-22)
  12. PROV-ISSUE-55 (are-provenance-uris-needed): Are provenance URIs really needed [Accessing and Querying Provenance] (from sysbot+tracker@w3.org on 2011-07-29)

Related notes:

As part of the response to ISSUE 53, http://www.w3.org/2011/prov/track/issues/53 the material around provenance discovery has been reorganized to show ways of using SPARQL to access provenance without using an explicit provenance URI.

But I think it is still the correct position with respect to Web Architecture to presume a normal case where provenance is a web resource with a URI.

As the document now offers ways to access provenance without a provenance URI, I'm marking this for pending review.

Graham Klyne, 5 Aug 2011, 11:34:23

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