[oslc-core] Meeting notes and using rdf:RDF as root element
Dave
snoopdave at gmail.com
Mon Jul 12 15:01:55 EDT 2010
I resolved this issue.
I captured it as issue #19 in the RDF/XML section:
http://open-services.net/bin/view/Main/OslcCoreV1Issues
I added added OSLC Core spec text that specifies the scheme you proposed:
http://open-services.net/bin/view/Main/OSLCCoreSpecDRAFT#Three_options_for_RDF_XML
For those catching up: the basic idea is this: OSLC specs can allow
either abbreviated RDF/XML, full RTDF/XML or both forms and use
content-negotiation to determine what is returned. This will allow
specs to require abbreviated RDF/XML now and later add full RDF/XML
without breaking clients. The new spec text describes these three
options, how content negotiation works and how to do abbreviated
RDF/XML with Jena.
This shouldn't change anything for provider implementations, but
XML-only consumers will need to know to ask for application/xml or
risk breakage later.
As always feedback is most welcome.
Thanks,
- Dave
On Fri, Jul 9, 2010 at 1:36 PM, Arthur Ryman <ryman at ca.ibm.com> wrote:
> Dave,
>
> Seems like we are making good progress. Here are the points we need to
> settle.
>
> 1. Be more formal about the OSLC subset so that RDF folks can easily
> generate it e.g. using RDF/XML-ABBREV rules, and so XML processors can
> create more robust code.
> 2. Use HTTP content negotiation to differentiate between full W3C RDF/XML
> and the OSLC subset.
>
> Regards,
> ___________________________________________________________________________
>
> Arthur Ryman, PhD, DE
>
>
> Chief Architect, Project and Portfolio Management
>
> IBM Software, Rational
>
> Markham, ON, Canada | Office: 905-413-3077, Cell: 416-939-5063
> Twitter | Facebook | YouTube
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> From:
> Dave <snoopdave at gmail.com>
> To:
> oslc-core at open-services.net
> Date:
> 07/09/2010 11:18 AM
> Subject:
> Re: [oslc-core] Meeting notes and using rdf:RDF as root element
> Sent by:
> oslc-core-bounces at open-services.net
>
>
>
> Arthur, this is starting to sound pretty good and it addresses my main
> concern with the RDF/XML subset approach, which is: what do we do if
> sometime in the future we decide to allow full RDF/XML?
>
> With your approach, clients that want the subset ask for it with
> application/xml and that will always work no matter what we decide to
> return for application/rdf+xml
>
> - Dave
>
>
> On Fri, Jul 9, 2010 at 9:15 AM, Arthur Ryman <ryman at ca.ibm.com> wrote:
>>
>> I suggest that the "correct" way to serve each community is to:
>> 1. not alter the meaning of application/rdf+xml, and
>> 2. allow domains to define "real" XML formats and use application/xml
> for
>> them. We could regard the OSLC RDF/XML subset as a "default"
>> application/xml representation.
>>
>> We can handle this situation satisfactorily through standard HTTP
> content
>> negotiation. Let's confine the discussion to the XML-based
>> representations. Here are the principles:
>>
>> 1. Use application/rdf+xml for content that conforms to the W3C RDF/XML
>> standard, without any restrictions
>> 2. Use application/xml for content that is well-formed W3C XML. A
> special
>> case of this is an XML document that starts with <rdf:RDF> and conforms
> to
>> the OSLC RDF/XML subset.
>> 3. If a consumer (client or service) cannot process W3C RDF/XML, then it
>> MUST NOT use application/rdf+xml in its HTTP Accept header.
>> 4. If a provider (client or service) cannot generate OSLC RDF/XML, then
> it
>> MUST NOT return application/xml content.
>>
>> Here are the cases:
>> 1. The client can process incoming W3C RDF/XML. This is the maximally
>> interoperable case since OSLC RDF/XML is a subset of W3C RDF/XML. The
>> client sends
>>
>> Accept: application/rdf+xml
>>
>> The server can return either OSLC RDF/XML or W3C RDF/XML and gives it
>>
>> Content-type: application/rdf+xml.
>>
>> 2. The client can only process incoming OSLC RDF/XML. The client sends
>>
>> Accept: application/xml
>>
>> If the server can generate OSLC RDF/XML then it returns it
>>
>> Content-type: application/xml
>>
>> Otherwise the server responds with
>>
>> 406 Not Acceptable.
>>
>> --------
>>
>> Instead of using application/xml as sugested above, another way to
> handle
>> this is to use the quality indicator on the Accept header. The quality
>> indicator (from 0 to 1) says how well the client can process the media
>> type. Since OSLC RDF/XML is valid W3C RDF/XML, we could assign a quality
>> level to it, e.g. 0.5. The way to indicate that you can process only
> the
>> OSLC subset of RDF/XML would be:
>>
>> Accept: application/rdf+xml; q=0.5
>>
>> The OSLC subset would then use
>>
>> Content-type: application/rdf+xml
>>
>> Regards,
>>
> ___________________________________________________________________________
>>
>> Arthur Ryman, PhD, DE
>>
>>
>> Chief Architect, Project and Portfolio Management
>>
>> IBM Software, Rational
>>
>> Markham, ON, Canada | Office: 905-413-3077, Cell: 416-939-5063
>> Twitter | Facebook | YouTube
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> From:
>> Jim des Rivieres/Ottawa/IBM at IBMCA
>> To:
>> oslc-core at open-services.net
>> Date:
>> 07/08/2010 05:34 PM
>> Subject:
>> Re: [oslc-core] Meeting notes and using rdf:RDF as root element
>> Sent by:
>> oslc-core-bounces at open-services.net
>>
>>
>>
>> Arthur,
>>
>>> The OSLC subset and generation rules result in RDF/XML documents that
>> are a subset of all possible valid RDF/XML documents.
>>
>>> If we supported full RDF/XML I wouldn't need to spend time on the
>> syntactic details.
>>
>> This is quite deliberate. If OSLC swallows RDF whole, we end up in a
>> position where everyone consuming and providing OSLC domain specs will
>> only be able to do so using full-fledged RDF/XML parsers. No consumer
>> would ever be able to parse a resource with a regular XML parser, or use
>> simple XML tools like xpath to extract a couple of values of interest.
>>
>> This is explained in
>>
> http://open-services.net/bin/view/Main/OSLCCoreSpecDRAFT#OSLC_Defined_Resource_Representa
>
>>
>> Here's the relevant passage:
>>
>> RDF/XML defines an extensive set of XML elements and attributes for
>> representing an RDF data model. RDF/XML provides a lot of flexibility
> and
>> if we allowed each OSLC workgroup to decide now to serialize OSLC
>> resources to and from RDF/XML, we would require each workgroup to master
>> RDF-XML, we would end-up with different serializations for each domain,
>> the XML produced would not be XML-tool friendly and in the end
>> interoperability would suffer.
>>
>> To ensure that the RDF/XML produced by OSLC services is uniform, easy to
>> understand and as simple as possible, we define a set of step-by-step
>> rules for generating the RDF/XML. We use a very limited set of RDF
>> elements and attributes, the rdf:type element and attributes rdf:about,
>> rdf:resource= and =rdf:nodeID.
>>
>> I, for one, think this was the right direction for OSLC Core to go.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Jim des Rivieres
>> Rational AMC Technical Lead
>>
>> ----- Forwarded by Jim des Rivieres/Ottawa/IBM on 07/08/2010 04:17 PM
>> -----
>>
>> From:
>> Arthur Ryman/Toronto/IBM at IBMCA
>> To:
>> Steve K Speicher <sspeiche at us.ibm.com>
>> Cc:
>> oslc-core <oslc-core at open-services.net>,
>> oslc-core-bounces at open-services.net
>> Date:
>> 07/08/2010 03:46 PM
>> Subject:
>> Re: [oslc-core] Meeting notes and using rdf:RDF as root element
>> Sent by:
>> oslc-core-bounces at open-services.net
>>
>>
>>
>> Steve,
>>
>> I am not referring to the use of <rdf:RDF> element since that is a part
> of
>>
>>
>> RDF/XML. I am referring to the exclusion of those features of RDF/XML
> that
>>
>>
>> are not part of the OSLC subset. The OSLC subset and generation rules
>> result in RDF/XML documents that are a subset of all possible valid
>> RDF/XML documents. There is no guarantee that when I serialize an RDF
>> graph using some toolkit that the result will fall within the subset
>> defined by OSLC.
>>
>> For example, the document might contain multiple <rdf:Description>
>> elements for the subject nodes instead of "inlining" the triples under
>> some main subject node, or a subject node might not use the expected
>> rdf:type abbreviation if it had multiple types. There are other
> features,
>> such as rdf:parseType="Resource" and rdf:parseType="Collection" that are
>> not in the OSLC subset, but that might get generated. Those are simply
>> abbreviations that produce more compact and readable documents, but that
>> are not in the OSLC subset. A serializer could generate them.
>>
>> On a related thought, consider the issue of "enforcing" conformance to
> the
>>
>>
>> OSLC subset.
>>
>> Currently, the OSLC subset is described implicitly, i.e. as the result
> of
>> applying the representation rules. This means there is no programmatic
> way
>>
>>
>> to check conformance of an RDF/XML document with the OSLC rules.
> However,
>> I don't think it would be a good use of our time to create an OSLC
>> validator. We don't want to enshrine this subset since it's very likely
> to
>>
>>
>> change (and probably coincide with RDF/XML eventually).
>>
>> Here's a real-world example. Today I reviewed a design for calendar
>> events, based on the RDF representation of the iCal standard. Here's a
>> sample RDF/XML representation:
>>
>> <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
>> xmlns:jc="http://jazz.net/xmlns/prod/jazz/calendar#" xmlns="
>> http://www.w3.org/2002/12/cal/icaltzd#"
>> xmlns:foaf="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/">
>> <VCalendar>
>> <jc:calendar_owner rdf:parseType="Resource">
>> <foaf:mbox rdf:resource="mailto:user at local.net"
> />
>> <foaf:nick>user</foaf:nick>
>> </jc:calendar_owner>
>> <component>
>> <Vevent>
>> <jc:ownerResource
> rdf:parseType="Resource"
>>>
>> <foaf:nick>user</foaf:nick>
>> </jc:ownerResource>
>> <dtstart rdf:datatype="
>> http://www.w3.org/2002/12/cal/icaltzd#dateTime">2010-01-01T09:00:00Z</
>> dtstart>
>> <dtend rdf:datatype="
>> http://www.w3.org/2002/12/cal/icaltzd#dateTime">2010-03-31T18:00:00Z</
>> dtend>
>> <transp>TRANSPARENT</transp>
>> <rrule rdf:parseType="Resource">
>> <freq>WEEKLY</freq>
>> <byday>MO,TU,WE,TH,FR</byday>
>> </rrule>
>> </Vevent>
>> </component>
>> </VCalendar>
>> </rdf:RDF>
>>
>> This is valid RDF/XML. It uses standards like iCal and FOAF. However, it
>> is invalid wrt to OSLC subset. Note the use of rdf:parseType="Resource".
>> Also note the use of the iCal dateTime datatype, which is not on the
>> approved list of datatypes. I don't think it's a good use of anyone's
>> time to try to hammer this into a shape that matches the OSCL subset.
> I'd
>> rather just focus on the data and interface. If we supported full
> RDF/XML
>> I wouldn't need to spend time on the syntactic details.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
> ___________________________________________________________________________
>>
>>
>>
>> Arthur Ryman, PhD, DE
>>
>>
>> Chief Architect, Project and Portfolio Management
>>
>> IBM Software, Rational
>>
>> Markham, ON, Canada | Office: 905-413-3077, Cell: 416-939-5063
>> Twitter | Facebook | YouTube
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> From:
>> Steve K Speicher <sspeiche at us.ibm.com>
>> To:
>> Dave <snoopdave at gmail.com>
>> Cc:
>> oslc-core <oslc-core at open-services.net>
>> Date:
>> 07/08/2010 02:39 PM
>> Subject:
>> Re: [oslc-core] Meeting notes and using rdf:RDF as root element
>> Sent by:
>> oslc-core-bounces at open-services.net
>>
>>
>>
>>> > Furthermore, when I try to generate RDF using
>>> > the toolkit, it will not conform to the OSLC subset so I'll have to
>> write
>>> > my own serializer. We are therefore in the paradoxical situation of
>>> > embracing RDF as our data model yet making life more difficult for
>>> > implementers that want to use RDF toolkits.
>>>
>>> This could be a real issue and probably warrants some testing with
>>> Jena and other RDF serializers. Can anybody comment in this issue?
>>>
>>
>> I inquired on this to a team that I know has been using RDF/XML (Jena)
> for
>>
>>
>>
>> some time, they said they didn't have this issue. In fact, they had to
> do
>>
>>
>>
>> some unnatural acts to remove <rdf:RDF> root element, so adding that
> back
>> has made things much simpler.
>>
>> - Steve
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Oslc-Core mailing list
>> Oslc-Core at open-services.net
>> http://open-services.net/mailman/listinfo/oslc-core_open-services.net
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>>
>>
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