[oslc-core] Some comments on OSLCCoreSpecDRAFT

[Olivier Berger]

Hi.

(Short intro first : I've been involved only on -CM so far (and actually
only implementing and not much specifying ;), and haven't read
thoroughly the prior exchanges, so forgive my naive comments bellow.)

I've read http://open-services.net/bin/view/Main/OSLCCoreSpecDRAFT and
have a few comments.

I've been very pleased with the rationale explaining the seek for
simplicity in the specs of OSLC, but then I'm a bit disappointed when
reading further :

* Abusing the "resource" word : 

I'm not sure I understood the whole of the intentions in calling
everything resource, but I think it is too much generalized... yes,
everything is a resource in Web 3 world, hence in OSLC... but I believe
it would make it much more understandable to call only resource the
artifacts that are managed : created, retrieved, updated and deleted
through the REST APIs of the services. The rest should be "methods",
"services", "endpoints", "callbacks", "descriptors", or whatever better
illustrates their role.

This applies for "Service Resources", "Creation Resources" and "Query
Resources", in the document, I think.

In the OSLC-CM V1 specs I've read before, I think the word used was
"Methods" : i.e. a URL which is used to activate a REST HTTP transaction
in order to manipulate resources.

* Then, abusing the "URI" instead of "URL" in places

Much in the sense of the previous comment, I think that URI of resources
which are Methods of a REST API should be called URLs, period ;)

-> s/Creation Resource URI/Factory Method URL/g and similar edits would
make the specs much more simple to read.

* I'm confused about the Query Resource : is this supposed to be some
REST API Method living at a URL or some actual Collection Resource (as
in OSLC-CM V1), that is indeed a Resource that has a URI (which may be a
resolvable URL indeed) ? ... then, in the latter case, shouldn't it be
named "QueryResults Resource" instead, or something less confusing ?

* About the Shape Resources : I've not exactly understood the whole of
the point, but ain't it reinventing existing standards like OWL and
schemas/ontologies ?

* RDF Examples : I'd suggest to add proper RDF/XML headers and not only
excerpts of the contents/resources.


Also, as being involved in implementing OSLC-CM V1, I'd be curious as to
how much these new core specs would impact on OSLC-CM V2 and needed
variations in implementation of the servers, but that's a topic for
another discussion I think.

I hope these comments will be useful, even though I've not (yet) read
everything related to the Core group (minutes, archives, etc.).

Best regards,
-- 
Olivier BERGER <olivier.berger at it-sudparis.eu>
http://www-public.it-sudparis.eu/~berger_o/ - OpenPGP-Id: 2048R/5819D7E8
Ingénieur Recherche - Dept INF
Institut TELECOM, SudParis (http://www.it-sudparis.eu/), Evry (France)