[Wasabi] Kicking of the Metadata spec - brainstorm

[Sebastian Trüg]

On Thursday 08 March 2007 12:40:54 Mikkel Kamstrup Erlandsen wrote:
> 2007/3/8, Sebastian Trüg <strueg at mandriva.com>:
> > On Wednesday 07 March 2007 21:13:19 Mikkel Kamstrup Erlandsen wrote:
> > > From a technical standpoint I think rdf and ontologies are great, but
> >
> > from
> >
> > > an application developers viewpoint they seem overly complex for most
> >
> > tasks
> >
> > > I could think of. Most things can be done if you just know a list of
> > > metadata fields to query.
> >
> > The thing is that in Nepomuk we do much more than just local search. The
> > main
> > focus is more on creating relations between resources and exploiting
> > these relations for the benefit of the user. RDF and ontologies provide a
> > lot of power in this area.
>
> Yes, I am not doubting that rdf and ontologies are the right solution for
> your targets. I just think that they are too complex for what the current
> aim of the wasabi project is (not that this is bad in any way).
>
> > Another concern is that a full sematic framework raise the bar for
> >
> > > implementations. It should be possible to have real simple
> >
> > implementations
> >
> > > of the specs - or atleast provide a good portion of the functionality
> >
> > via a
> >
> > > simple implementation (fx. a daemonless service spawned by dbus
> >
> > activation
> >
> > > on each call).
> >
> > That is true. But one could think of a simple mapping from the
> > full-fledged
> > version to a simple key-based variant which makes up the wasabi metadata
> > fields. When searching certain fields nobody wants to enter the full URI
> > of
> > some metadata type or element.
>
> Yes, I was thinking along thoswe lines too.
>
>
> Actually each RDF property and class is supposed to have a human readable
>
> > label. This label is not necessarily unique but it would probably suffice
> > for
> > a simplified query interface. Thus, the API could support the usage of
> > the full type and property URIs and the mapping from the simple labels.
>
> The question was raised a whle back whether we should have
> internationalized keywords for searching, Ie "type:music hendrix" should be
> written as "type:musik hendrix" in the Dansih locale for instance. Whether
> or not to translate the actual query language like the "type" selector is
> another (but related) matter. Unfortunately this has not received much
> discussion.
>
> I think it would be great to have as much internationalization as possible,
> but I have not given it a whole lot of thought I must admit.
>
> > Also, embedded devices should be able to implement the Wasabi specs (or
> >
> > > again - the essential parts atleast). I must admit I have no idea on
> > > the feasibility of this - it might not be a problem at all.
> > >
> > > The ideal solution would be to allow a full fledged semantic framework
> > > underneath it all, but expose apis that does not require developers to
> >
> > know
> >
> > > about rdf and ontologies. There could be a "semantic api" or some
> >
> > optional
> >
> > > extensions to the current apis to allow usage of the full semantic
> > > sweetness.
> >
> > we could even think of wasabi as being the "simple" standard which maps
> > to the
> > full-fledged semantic information. In the end it is most important that
> > the
> > information can be reused.
>
> Agreed. Ideally the current apis+specs would be a subset of a full semantic
> solution. If this where the case if would be easier for apps to use
> whatever was available.


> So I take it as you didn't find a spot-on candidate language either..?

right. :)

> The problems with sparql and rdfq is that they are not designed to do
> "fuzzy searches" in the broader sense of the words - ie that queries match
> using stemming, levenstein distance, transliterated diacritics, or word
> proximity, stuff that you find in many modern indexers.
>
> Again it would be really nice if the nepomuk query language could be a
> super set of the Wasabi query language. I *think* this could be possible
> because the current wasabi query language proposal is actually very close
> to rdfq ( http://www.w3.org/TandS/QL/QL98/pp/rdfquery.html).

This is exactly what I thought the workshop would be good for. Sadly not many 
have replied yet apart from you. Let's hope they will...