W3C

– DRAFT –
DCAT Task Force Meeting

11 September 2026

Attendees

Present
Jakub, RiccardoAlbertoni, Simon
Regrets
AntoineIsaac
Chair
riccardoAlbertoni
Scribe
Jakub

Meeting minutes

<RiccardoAlbertoni> rsagent, draft minutes

<RiccardoAlbertoni> r

<RiccardoAlbertoni> https://www.w3.org/events/meetings/eeef3fdc-fea7-497c-8db6-a407879f5846/

Repository Migration & Ownership

Simon: have experience from OWL Time ontology, key is moving directories with full history

Simon: new repo is not a submodule now

Simon: successfully pushed the dcat directory, but did not test the rest of the functionality

Simon: Contained history since 2017

Simon: Still missing - issues transfer (automatable), pull requests cannot be moved

RiccardoAlbertoni: Also to be moved: implementation report, wiki, DCAT releases
… for DCAT3, proper release functionality not used, but should be used in future

Simon: Implementation report should definitely be moved. Unsure of wiki
… is it repository per deliverable? Is the implementation report a deliverable, or a dependency?

RiccardoAlbertoni: The implementation report was not a separate deliverable. It should be in the same repo with DCAT
… let's discuss who takes ownership of the repo migration
… It makes sense that Simon gets admin permission and replicates what has been done elsewhere, RiccardoAlbertoni will take up missing items

Simon: Then the moved DCAT resources should be removed from the original repo?

RiccardoAlbertoni: This should be discussed at the WG plenary meeting
… created a couple of issues regarding RDF representation management and things that would help in future maintenance of the repo

Simon: Will proceed with the move of the DCAT directory to the new repo

ACTION: to simon Will proceed with the move of the DCAT directory to the new repo

ACTION: Simon to move the directory

Maintenance Scope vs. Versioning Policy

RiccardoAlbertoni: Tried to use issue labels for Classes of change
… Classes 1 and 2 can be published in the current REC upon voting in the WG

<RiccardoAlbertoni> /www.w3.org/policies/process/#revising-rec///www.w3.org/policies/process/#revising-rec

actions?

<RiccardoAlbertoni> https://www.w3.org/policies/process/#revising-rec

RiccardoAlbertoni: Different kinds of recommendation revisions
… in the W3C process
… we need to decide whether we are going to deliver a new REC or not
… for minor changes, we maintain the list of current editors, for new features and substantial changes (class 4 and 3) we may remove editors of the previous version

Simon: only periferally involved in DCATv3
… not really up to speed with the scope and scale of the work to be done with DCAT
… was this presented at the WG plenary?

RiccardoAlbertoni: We have many issues, most of them reformulation, explanation, guidance improvement
… already requests for new properties though
… e.g. the new dcat:datasetSeries property, which is probably easy
… for that, we do not need to collect an actual use, it may be enough to just say it makes sense to have it
… Jakub had some ideas about machine readability of DCAT
… might be substantial change or feature

Jakub described what is missing in the DCAT REC from the machine-processability point of view - machine-readable representation of the DCAT REC as a whole, perhaps using PROF vocaulary, and machine readable representation of profiles of terms from other vocabularies in the context of DCAT

RiccardoAlbertoni: Jakub should open an issue on this and explain
… every new feature in REC requires independent implementations

ACTION: Jakub open issue on what could be done for improving machine readablity of DCAT

RiccardoAlbertoni: we are not 100% sure we will deliver DCAT4
… it is a difficult process

Simon: we also considered a living standard, but that is hard to do for W3C

RiccardoAlbertoni: Next actions are to finish the repo transfer, so that we can start working
… class1 and class2 issue resolutions could be merged, class3 and class4 should not be merged
… we need to decide about providing a new DCAT release or not before that

RiccardoAlbertoni: This is the first time we are not starting with a new deliverable, which is more straightforward than having the options now

actions?

RDF Automated Maintenance (w3c/dxwg#1639)

RiccardoAlbertoni: experimenting with gh actions for automatic generation of RDF representations in other formats. Goal is to keep the diff to minimum.
… goal is to change only RDF Turtle files, generate the others
… let's take it step by step, first work on smaller issues
… integrate Echidna later

Simon: There is experience in the SSN ontology, just got it working

RiccardoAlbertoni: Maybe we could first integrate with Echidna? Every merged PR going into the working draft could be dangerous

Simon: merged about 30 PRs in the SSN ontology, feedback gets back quickly. But there was a policy decision early in the process that merging in the main branch requires 2 positive reviews
… when the reviews took a long time, it was frustrating.
… the review process reduced the number of small merges.

RiccardoAlbertoni: alternatively, we could have a side-branch for quick publication, and keep the main branch as an editor draft
… so only once more changes are reviewed, they get to the main branch, in a more controlled way
… we already have the 2-review requirement in place

Simon: Is the main branch gh-pages?

RiccardoAlbertoni: now yes, gh-pages

Priority Issues for Discussion - Versioning in DCAT 3: Omit PAV subproperty definition (w3c/dxwg#1632)

RDF Automated Maintenance (w3c/dxwg#1639)

Summary of action items

  1. to simon Will proceed with the move of the DCAT directory to the new repo
  2. Simon to move the directory
  3. Jakub open issue on what could be done for improving machine readablity of DCAT
Minutes manually created (not a transcript), formatted by scribe.perl version 248 (Mon Oct 27 20:04:16 2025 UTC).

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All speakers: RiccardoAlbertoni, Simon

Active on IRC: Jakub, RiccardoAlbertoni