http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=data%20access&type=text&output=html
Kingsley Idehen's Blog Data Space
2026-04-18T02:54:58Z
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
About data access
156
1
10
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/953
<p>The W3C RDF Data Access Workgroup's (DAWG) SPARQL query language is one of the many interesting aspects of the recent Virtuoso Open-Source release. </p> <p>To assist with the general understanding of <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/sparql_demo/">Virtuoso's SPARQL Implementation</a>, we have released an online version of the <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-dawg-uc/">RDF DAWG SPARQL Test Suite</a> (hosted by a live <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/tutorial/">Virtuoso Demo & Tutorial Instance</a>).</p>
Virtuoso & SPARQL Demo
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1106
<p>Mike Pizzo has commenced a much needed<a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/data/archive/2006/12/05/data-access-api-of-the-day-part-i.aspx"> 4-part article series covering the history of Microsoft's various Data Access</a> related APIs. Naturally, Part 1 covers: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Database_Connectivity">Open Database Connectivity</a> (ODBC) which is the first of a series of purpose specific Data Access APIs.</p> <p>Here is a very important excerpt:</p> <blockquote> <cite> ... <p>And then something happened. Visual Basic became popular as a scriptable "automation language". ODBC, being a C-style interface, was not directly consumable from VB. However, some of you clever folks figured out that Microsoft Access supported executing queries against ODBC Datasources, and that Access did support scriptable automation through its Data Access Object (DAO) API. Voila! Now you could write applications against ODBC sources using VB.</p> <p>However, DAO went through <b>Access's internal "Jet" (Joint Engine Technology)</b> database engine, which defaulted to building local keysets for each result in order to do advanced query processing and cursoring against the remote data. This was fine if you needed that functionality, but significant performance overhead and additional round trips when you didn't. </p> <p>Enter the Visual Basic team who, responding to customer demand for better performance against ODBC sources, came up with something called Remote Data Objects (RDO). RDO implemented the same DAO programming patterns directly against ODBC, rather than going through Jet. RDO was extremely popular among VB developers, but the fact that we had two different sets of automation objects for accessing ODBC sources caused confusion.</p> <p> But apparently not enough confusion, because our solution was to introduce "ODBCDirect". Despite its name, ODBCDirect was not a new API; it was just a mode we added to DAO that set defaults in such a way as to avoid the overhead of building keysets and such</p> ... </cite> </blockquote> <p>To this very day (unfortunately!) ODBC has been maligned by the perpetuated misunderstanding of JET's DAO layer that sits atop ODBC providing advanced query processing (i.e. Virtual DBMS functionality) alongside a client-side keyset cursor model implementation.</p>
Microsoft Data Access API Backgrounder: ODBC
2007-01-03T18:35:51Z
2007-01-03T13:35:51.000001-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/689
<blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p><a href="http://sapventures.typepad.com/main/2005/02/tmobile_respond.html">T-Mobile responds to Paris Hilton Sidekick hacking</a> </p> <p>[via <a href="http://sapventures.typepad.com/main/">Venture Chronicles by Jeff Nolan</a>]</p></blockquote> <p align="left" dir="ltr">This incident is an interesting one to follow as there is a little more to it than the purported T-Mobile stance: "..Paris may have given out her password.." .</p> <p align="left" dir="ltr">I have written about database and <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=//p[contains%28.%2C%27security%27%29]&type=xpath&output=html">data access security matters</a> on numerous occasions, and my underlying message has always been that there are many dimensions to security vulnerability that aren't catered for when the distinct functional domains of data access and data storage intersect (I am almost certain that the infrastructure at the bottom of this controversy will comprise at least one or more of the following: data access drivers (free and closed- or open source), relational database engine (closed- or open source), and a web application scripting language (closed- or open source).</p> <p align="left" dir="ltr">Here is a hypothetical situation relating to this matter. Lets assume that Paris did inadvertently give away her password, would it be too much for her to assume that T-mobile's data access infrastructure should be capable of controlling access to her data using any combination of her password and the following:</p> <ol dir="ltr"> <li> <div align="left">Data Access Device </div></li> <li> <div align="left">Data Access Device host operating system</div></li> <li> <div align="left">Network IP or Mac Address </div></li> <li> <div align="left">Data Access Application</div></li></ol> <p align="left">If a very simple combination of the elements above formed part of the T-mobile authentication and data access security matrix, we would be looking at a much clearer picture of the vulnerability scenarios for this hack that would be confined to the following:</p> <ol> <li> <div align="left">She inadvertently gives out her password and also hands over her sidekick device to the hacker </div></li> <li> <div align="left">She inadvertently gives out her password and then the hacker successfully logs on to her sidekick (it does have a <a href="http://www.t-mobile.com/products/overview.asp?phoneid=229040&class=pda">web browser</a> and email implying a tcp/ip stack etc..). But I would expect Paris to be within her rights to assume some basic firewalling would be in place by default</div></li></ol> <p align="left">T-mobile should have a data access security infrastructure that would have a rule that restricted sidekick accounts (by default) from direct access from remote locations to address book data for instance. Account owners should be allowed to enable this feature after receiving clear notification about security implications.</p>
Database & Data Access Vulnerability: T-Mobile responds to Paris Hilton Sidekick hacking
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/19
<p><a href="http://c.moreover.com/click/here.pl?r71463748">Hack attacks on banks increase</a> ZDNet May 12 2003 10:30AM ET [via <a href="http://www.moreover.com/">Moreover - ZDNet</a>]</p> <p>Looks like data access security issues are beginning to resonate somewhat (we are still a few miles away from the implications re. native vs. open data access standards). </p> <div> </div>
<a href="http://c.moreover.com/click/here.pl?r71463748">Hack attacks on banks increase</a>
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1624
<p>After a long period of trying to demystify and unravel the wonders of standards compliant structured <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">data</a> access, combined with protocols (e.g., HTTP) that separate: </p> <ol> <li>Identity,</li> <li>Access,</li> <li>Storage,</li> <li>Representation, and</li> <li>Presentation.</li> </ol> <p>I ended up with what I can best describe as the Data 3.0 Manifesto. A manifesto for standards complaint access to structured data object (or <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id0x1a0bc238">entity</a>) descriptors.</p> <h3>Some Related Work</h3> <p> <a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/alexj/" id="link-id0x1a3c5b70">Alex James</a> (Program Manager <a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/efdesign/" id="link-id0x1a3c5bd8">Entity Frameworks</a> at Microsoft), put together something quite similar to this via his Base4 <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Blog" id="link-id0x13c374c8">blog</a> (around the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a> 2.0 bootstrap time), sadly -- quoting Alex -- that post has gone where discontinued blogs and their host platforms go (deep deep irony here). </p> <p>It's also important to note that this manifesto is also a variant of the <a href="http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/card#i" id="link-id0x1a29f338">TimBL</a>'s <a href="http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html" id="link-id0x1a4e8580">Linked Data Design Issues</a> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Meme" id="link-id0x199efc30">meme</a> re. Linked Data, but totally decoupled from RDF (data representation formats aspect) and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id0x199efc58">SPARQL</a> which -- in my world view -- remain implementation details.</p> <h3>Data 3.0 manifesto</h3> <ul> <li>An "Entity" is the "Referent" of an "Identifier."</li> <li>An "Identifier" SHOULD provide a global, unambiguous, and unchanging (though it MAY be opaque!) "Name" for its "Referent".</li> <li>A "Referent" MAY have many "Identifiers" (Names), but each "Identifier" MUST have only one "Referent".</li> <li>Structured Entity Descriptions SHOULD be based on the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity-attribute-value_model" id="link-id0x1a2a15c0">Entity-Attribute-Value (EAV) Data Model</a>, and SHOULD therefore take the form of one or more 3-tuples (triples), each comprised of: <ul> <li>an "Identifier" that names an "Entity" (i.e., Entity Name),</li> <li>an "Identifier" that names an "Attribute" (i.e., Attribute Name), and</li> <li>an "Attribute Value", which may be an "Identifier" or a "Literal".</li> </ul> </li> <li>Structured Descriptions SHOULD be CARRIED by "Descriptor Documents" (i.e., purpose specific documents where Entity Identifiers, Attribute Identifiers, and Attribute Values are clearly discernible by the document's intended consumers, e.g., humans or machines).</li> <li>Structured Descriptor Documents can contain (carry) several Structured Entity Descriptions</li> <li>Stuctured Descriptor Documents SHOULD be network accessible via network addresses (e.g., HTTP URLs when dealing with HTTP-based Networks).</li> <li>An Identifier SHOULD resolve (de-reference) to a Structured Representation of the Referent's Structured Description.</li> </ul> <h3>Related</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="http://twitpic.com/1g02q8/full" id="link-id0x1a3d1428">Referent, Identifier, and Descriptor/Sense (The Data Perception Trinity)</a> illustration</li> <li> <a href="http://twitpic.com/1g03vo/full" id="link-id0x1a353a20">Referent, Identifier, and Descriptor/Sense Trinity</a> (as exploited in <a href="http://esw.w3.org/Foaf%2Bssl" id="link-id0x135ed828">FOAF+SSL</a> based Secure WebIDs) illustration</li> <li> <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/kidehen/understanding-linked-data-via-eav-model-based-structured-descriptions" id="link-id0x1961ae30">Demystifying Linked Data via EAV Model based Structured Descriptions</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1388" id="link-id0x1a28db38">What do people have against URIs and URLs?</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1567" id="link-id0x1a4cedc8">The URI, URL, and Linked Data Meme's Generic HTTP URI</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1543" id="link-id0x19ac04c8">Simple Explanation of RDF and Linked Data Dynamics</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1547" id="link-id0x13c24748">Linked Data and Identity</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://esw.w3.org/Foaf%2Bssl/FAQ" id="link-id0x199ef720">FOAF+SSL FAQ</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-lod/2010Apr/0278.html" id="link-id0x1a361640">LOD Community Thread</a> (showing evolution of this manifesto based on feedback from members such as <a href="http://richard.cyganiak.de/foaf.rdf#cygri" id="link-id0x1a361668">Richard Cyganiak</a>).</li> <li> <a href="http://code.google.com/apis/base/starting-out.html#terms" id="link-id0x18e0b578">Googlebase Data API Docs</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://code.google.com/apis/gdata/docs/2.0/basics.html" id="link-id0x199c77b0">Google Data Protocol</a> (GData)</li> <li> <a href="http://odata.org" id="link-id0x19d1e578">Microsoft's OData Protocol</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pmWojisM_E" id="link-id0x1a40a998">Magic of De-referencable Names and actual Data via Binky Video</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/jyri/building-sites-around-social-objects-web-20-expo-sf-2009" id="link-id0x19ad7e70">Social Objects Presentation</a> (aka. Social Linked Data Objects) - by <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/jyri" id="link-id0x19e71700">Jyri Engeström</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reference_%28computer_science%29" id="link-id0x199c6178">What's a Reference?</a> </li> </ul>
Data 3.0 (a Manifesto for Platform Agnostic Structured Data) Update 5
2010-05-25T21:10:28Z
2010-05-25T17:10:28.000001-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1475
<p>Recent <a href="http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/perturbation" id="link-id1bdb9ec8">perturbations</a> in <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">Data</a> Access and Data Management technology realms are clear signs of an imminent inflection. In a nutshell, the focus of data access is moving from the "Logical Level" (what you see if you've ever looked at a DBMS schema derived from an <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id18735f38">Entity</a> Data Model) to the "Conceptual Level" (i.e., the Entity Model becoming concrete).</p> <p>In recent times I've stumbled across Master Data Management (MDM) which is all about entities that provide holistic views of enterprise data (or what I call: <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Context_%28language_use%29" id="link-id18f07ec8">Context</a> Lenses). I've also stumbled across emerging tensions in the .NET realm between Linq to Entities and Linq to <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SQL" id="link-id19429e88">SQL</a>, where in either case the fundamental issues comes down to the optimal paths "Conceptual Level Access" over the "Logical Logical Level" when dealing with data access in the .NET realm.</p> <p> Strangely, the emerging realm of RDF <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id115b3780">Linked Data</a>, MDM, and .NET's Entity Frameworks, remain strangely disconnected.</p> <p>Another oddity is the obvious, but barely acknowledged, blurring of the lines between the "traditional enterprise employee" and the "individual <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Netizen" id="link-id0x1ffd8640">netizen</a>". The fusion between these entities is one of the most defining characteristics of how the Web is reshaping the data landscape.</p> <p>At the current time, I tend to crystalize my data access world view under the moniker: <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1474" id="link-id1544ee60">YODA</a> ("You" Oriented Data Access), based on the following:</p> <ol> <li> Entities are the new focal point of data access, management, and integration </li> <li> "You" are the entry point (Data Source Name) into this new realm of inter connected Entities that the Web exposes</li> <li> "You" the "Person" Entity is associated with many other "Things" such as "Organizations", "Other People", "Books", "Music", "Subject Matter" etc. </li> <li> "You" the "Person" needs Identity in this new global database, which is why "You" need to Identify "Yourself" using an an HTTP based Entity <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Identity_%28object-oriented_programming%29" id="link-id145d0438">ID</a> (aka. <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-id1873ad08">URI</a>) </li> <li> When "You" have an ID for "Yourself" it becomes much easier for the essence of "You" to be discovered via the Web </li> <li> When "Others" have IDs for "Themselves" on the Web it becomes much easier for "You" to serendipitously discover or explicitly "Find" things on the Web. </li> </ol> <h3>Related</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="http://www.infoq.com/news/2008/11/DLINQ-Future" id="link-id17501eb0">Is LINQ to SQL truly dead?</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1420" id="link-id10fbf920">Virtuoso, Linked Data, and Linq2Rdf</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1224" id="link-id19c44b00">Enterprise 0.0, Linked Data, and the Semantic Data Web</a> (*an old post*)</li> </ul>
Entity Oriented Data Access
2008-11-04T03:51:48Z
2008-11-03T22:51:48-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/506
<p dir="ltr">My little addition to the observation below re. InfoPath: when will this tool actually make use of ADO.NET or ODBC in a manner reflective of these data access APIs? There are supposed to facilitate database independence, but InfoPath simply does not want to know anything other than SQL Server or ACCESS?</p> <p dir="ltr">So we all buy and deploy copies of InfoPath, and then get rid of our non SQL Server and ACCESS databases? Wow!</p> <p dir="ltr">How about InfoPath emitting XForms compliant forms? Even better, what about</p>
Customer demand for a ubiquitous InfoPath runtime
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/499
<p dir="ltr">My little addition to the observation below re. InfoPath: when will this tool actually make use of ADO.NET or ODBC in a manner reflective of these data access APIs? There are supposed to facilitate database independence, but InfoPath simply does not want to know anything other than SQL Server or ACCESS?</p> <p dir="ltr">So we all buy and deploy copies of InfoPath, and then get rid of our non SQL Server and ACCESS databases? Wow!</p> <p dir="ltr">How about InfoPath emitting XForms compliant forms? Even better, what about</p>
Customer demand for a ubiquitous InfoPath runtime
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/282
<p>I had been anticipating the release of Web Matrix 2.0, but was pretty disappointed with the blatant attempts to lock users into SQL Server and ACCESS (of course I know that manual imports are possible re. my .net provider for non Microsoft databases, but that's beside the point). From the feature list:</p> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p><strong>Easy Data UI Generation</strong>. Web Matrix makes it easy to create data bound pages without writing code. Drop SQL/MSDE or Access tables on your page to create data-bound grids, or start with Data Page templates for reports or Master/Detail pages. Code builders help you generate code to select, insert, update and delete SQL/MSDE or Access data. <br /><font face="Verdana" size="2"> </font>[via <a href="http://weblogs.asp.net/">WebLogs @ ASP.NET</a>]</p></blockquote> <div>It only makes it easy for two databases which are both Microsoft owned? What really baffles me is why they don't use ADO.NET, by the way this is their own data abstraction technology. The same approach has also been applied to InfoPath and this is certainly a disturbing trend for unsuspecting end-users, developers, systems architects, and decision makers. Before you know it you lose your database choices. </div> <div> </div> <div>Could this be an oversight on the part of Microsoft? I don't think so somehow, we are taking a very interesting journey here from database independence to database specificity ( ODBC->OLEDB-ADO.NET-[SQL Server|Acces] ), all in a quest to covertly reduce choices (I think I've seen this movie before! And I might have to rewrite the script).</div> <div> </div>
What's new in Web Matrix ?
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1311
<p>If your Data Space was a Solar System, your personal Identity would be the Sun. I say this because your Identity is the conduit (access mechanism) to your data graph; the data you generate from various application interaction activities such as: Blogging, Bookmarking, Photo Sharing, Feed Aggregation etc.</p> <p> <a href="http://vanirsystems.com" id="link-id1082e330">Daniel Lewis</a> has just published a nice blog post titled: <a href="http://vanirsystems.com/danielsblog/2008/02/04/the-data-space-philosophy/" id="link-id102c7ff0">The Data Space Philosophy</a>, that puts the underlying Data Space concept in perspective.</p> <p>The <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id103021f0">Linked Data</a> Web is a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Global_Graph" id="link-id130e28e8">Giant Global Graph</a> of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenLink_Data_Spaces" id="link-id16cec640">Data Spaces</a> (meshes of data and identity exposed by graphs connecting data and identity)</p> <p> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_portability" id="link-id10a41148">Data Portability</a> ultimately depends on platforms that provide unobtrusive generation of Linked Data (for data referencing) alongside support for a plethora of industry standard data formats -- which is what <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenLink_Data_Spaces" id="link-iddf76678">OpenLink Data Spaces</a> has been about for a very long time :-)</p> <h2>Related</h2> <ul>- <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_%28philosophy%29" id="link-id13fdf718">Identity - Philosophy</a> </ul> <ul>- <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_%28mathematics%29" id="link-id103d9368">Identity - Mathematics</a> </ul> <ul>- <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_%28object-oriented_programming%29" id="link-id102d4300">Identity - Object Oriented Programming</a> </ul>
Data Spaces, User Identity, and Data Portability
2008-02-04T15:06:43Z
2008-02-04T10:06:43-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1033
<p> In the last week I've dispatch some thoughts about a number of issues (<a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/%7Ekidehen/index.vspx?page=&id=1030">Data Spaces</a> and <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/%7Ekidehen/index.vspx?page=&id=1032">Web 2.0's Open Data Access Paradox</a>) that basically equate to the identification of the Web 2.0 to Semantic Web (Data Web, Web of Databases, Web.next etc..) inflection. </p> <p> One of the great things about the moderate “open data access” that we have today (courtesy of the blogosphere) is the fact that you can observe the crystallization of new thinking, and/or new appreciation of emerging ideas, in near real-time. Of course, when we really hit the tracks with the Semantic Web this will be in “conditional real-time” (i.e. you choose and control your scope and sensitivity to data changes etc..). </p> <p> For instance, by way of feed subscriptions, I stumbled upon a series of posts by <a href="http://www.jasonkolb.com/weblog/">Jason Kolb</a> that basically articulate what I (and others who believe in the Semantic Web vision) have been attempting to convey in a myriad of ways via posts and commentary etc.. </p> <p> Here are the links to the 4 part series by Jason: </p> <ol> <li> <a href="http://www.jasonkolb.com/weblog/2006/08/reinventing_the.html">Reinventing the Internet part 1</a> (appreciating “Presence” over traditional “Web Sites”)</li> <li> <a href="http://www.jasonkolb.com/weblog/2006/08/reinventing_the_1.html">Reinventing the Internet part 2</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.jasonkolb.com/weblog/2006/08/reinventing_the_2.html">Reinventing the Internet part 3</a> (appreciating and comprehending URIs)</li> <li> <a href="http://www.jasonkolb.com/weblog/2006/08/reinventing_the_3.html">Reinventing the Internet part 4</a> (nice visualization of what “<a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/%7Ekidehen/index.vspx?page=&id=1030">Data Spaces</a>”)</li> <li> <a href="http://www.jasonkolb.com/weblog/2006/09/reinventing_the.html">Reinventing the Internet part 5</a> (everyone will have a Data Space in due course becuase the Internet is really a Federation of Data Spaces)<br /> </li> </ol>
Data Spaces, Internet Reinvention, and Semantic Web
2007-01-25T21:50:40Z
2007-01-25T16:50:40.000001-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/982
AJAX Database Connectivity is the Data Access Component of OAT (<a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/oat/">OpenLink AJAX Toolkit</a>). It's basically an <a href="http://www.xmla.org/">XML for Analysis</a> (XMLA) client that enables the development and deployment of database independent Rich Internet Applications (RIAs). Thus, you can now develop database centric AJAX applications without lock-in at the Operating System, Database Connectivity mechanism (ODBC, JDBC, OLEDB, ADO.NET), or back-end Database levels. <br /> <br />XMLA has been around for a long time. Its fundamental goal was to provide Web Applications with Tabular and Multi-dimensional data access before it fell off the radar (a story too long to tell in this post).<br /> <br />AJAX Database connectivity only requires your target DBMS to be XMLA (direct), ODBC, JDBC, OLEDB, or ADO.NET accessible. <br /> <br />I have attached a Query By Example (QBE) screencast movie enclosure to this post (should you be reading this post Web 1.0 style). The demo shows how Paradox-, Quattro Pro-, Access-, and MS Query-like user friendly querying is achieved using AJAX Database Connect Connectivity<br /> <br />
Screencast: Ajax Database Connectivity and SQL Query By Example
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/588
<blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p><a href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/2004/07/07.html#a7953">Channel 9 stuff</a> </p> <p>Speaking of Channel 9, today we put up a video of Robert Green, of the Visual Basic team. <a href="http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=12676">He demos the new data features in the next version</a>. Cool stuff. I've been noticing a trend that our viewers seem to like demos and tours. So, I'll try to get more of those up.</p> <p>That reminds me, would it be interesting for the five guys on the Channel 9 team to give you a walking tour of Microsoft's main campus?</p></blockquote> <div align="right">[via <a href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/">Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger</a>]</div> <div align="left"></div>
Channel 9 stuff - VB 2005 catches up with ACCESS 2000
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/445
<p>A revamped <a href="http://www.iodbc.org/">iodbc.org</a> site is now live. A cross platform ODBC SDK (for writing Drivers, or making applications database independent) remains an important part of the tecnology spectrum for the information age. The further we go into the information age, the more obvious the value of data access, and a standards base API will become.</p>
New Open Source ODBC SDK Site
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1645
<p> <b> <i><a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id0x1e81beb0">Linked Data</a> </i> </b> is simply <i><a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Hypermedia" id="link-id0x1d9d5e30">hypermedia</a>-based structured <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">data</a>.</i> </p> <p>Linked Data offers everyone a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a>-scale, Enterprise-grade mechanism for platform-independent creation, curation, access, and integration of data.</p> <p>The fundamental steps to creating Linked Data are as follows:</p> <ol> <li> <p>Choose a <i>Name Reference Mechanism</i> — i.e., URIs.</p> </li> <li> <p>Choose a <i>Data Model</i> with which to Structure your Data — minimally, you need a model which clearly distinguishes</p> <ol type="a"> <li> <i>Subjects</i> (also known as <i>Entities</i>)</li> <li> <i>Subject Attributes</i> (also known as <i><a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id0x171a1808">Entity</a> Attributes</i>), and</li> <li> <i>Attribute Values</i> (also known as <i>Subject Attribute Values</i> or <i>Entity Attribute Values</i>).</li> </ol> </li> <li> <p>Choose one or more <i>Data Representation Syntaxes</i> (also called <i>Markup Languages</i> or <i>Data Formats</i>) to use when creating <i>Resources</i> with <i>Content</i> based on your chosen <i>Data Model.</i> Some Syntaxes in common use today are HTML+<a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/RDFa" id="link-id0x1a95cc58">RDFa</a>, <a href="http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/Notation3" id="link-id0x1f596330">N3</a>, <a href="http://www.w3.org/TeamSubmission/turtle/" id="link-id0x16fdca68">Turtle</a>, <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-rdf-syntax/" id="link-id0x1d7cf0c0">RDF/XML</a>, <a href="http://sw.nokia.com/trix/TriX.html" id="link-id0x19690b60">TriX</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Extensible_Resource_Descriptor" id="link-id0x1bb46968">XRDS</a>, <a href="http://code.google.com/apis/gdata/index.html" id="link-id0x18f63f20">GData</a>, <a href="http://odata.org" id="link-id0x19aee1e0">OData</a>, <a href="http://opengraphprotocol.org/" id="link-id0x1a43eb78">OpenGraph</a>, and many others.</p> </li> <li> <p>Choose a <i><a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-id0x19aa3900">URI</a> Scheme</i> that facilitates binding <i>Referenced Names</i> to the <i>Resources</i> which will carry your <i>Content</i> -- your <i>Structured Data.</i> </p> </li> <li> <p>Create <i>Structured Data</i> by using your chosen <i>Name Reference Mechanism,</i> your chosen <i>Data Model,</i> and your chosen <i>Data Representation Syntax,</i> as follows:</p> <ol type="a"> <li>Identify <i>Subject(s)</i> using <i>Resolvable URI(s).</i> </li> <li>Identify <i>Subject Attribute(s)</i> using <i>Resolvable URI(s).</i> </li> <li>Assign <i>Attribute Values</i> to <i>Subject Attributes.</i> These <i>Values</i> may be either <i>Literals</i> (e.g., STRINGs, BLOBs) or <i>Resolvable URIs.</i> </li> </ol> </li> </ol> <p>You can create Linked Data (hypermedia-based data representations) Resources from or for many things. Examples include: personal profiles, calendars, address books, blogs, photo albums; there are many, many more.</p> <h3>Related</h3> <ol> <li> <a href="http://socialmedia.net/linked-data-introduction" id="link-id0x1bb13d50">Linked Data an Introduction</a> -- simple introduction to Linked Data and its virtues</li> <li> <a href="http://gigaom.com/2010/10/11/jeff-jonas-big-data/" id="link-id0xa00d7e8">How Data Makes Corporations Dumb</a> -- Jeff Jonas (IBM) interview</li> <li> <a href="http://www.amundsen.com/hypermedia/" id="link-id0x18f64958">Hypermedia Types</a> -- evolving <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information" id="link-id0x1903b880">information</a> portal covering different aspects of Hypermedia resource types</li> <li> <a href="http://linkeddata.uriburner.com" id="link-id0x18af0cf8">URIBurner </a>-- service that generates Linked Data from a plethora of heterogeneous data sources</li> <li> <a href="http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html" id="link-id0x1929eea0">Linked Data Meme</a> -- <a class="auto-href" href="http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/card#i" id="link-id0x1e8127c8">TimbL</a> design issues note about Linked Data</li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1624" id="link-id0x18a5b768">Data 3.0 Manifesto</a> -- note about format agnostic Linked Data</li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/About" id="link-id0x19ae9338">DBpedia</a> -- large Linked Data Hub</li> <li> <a href="http://richard.cyganiak.de/2007/10/lod/" id="link-id0x14d677f8">Linked Open Data Cloud</a> -- collection of Linked Data Spaces</li> <li> <a href="http://linkedopencommerce.com" id="link-id0x17c6dbf8">Linked Open Commerce Cloud </a>-- commerce (clicks & mortar and/or clicks & clicks) oriented <a class="auto-href" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Spaces" id="link-id0x13959308">Linked Data Space</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://lod.openlinksw.com" id="link-id0x18ccb9e8">LOD Cloud Cache </a>-- massive Linked Data Space hosting most of the LOD Cloud Datasets</li> <li> <a href="http://lod2.eu" id="link-id0x1a472c20">LOD2 Initiative</a> -- EU Co-Funded Project to develop global <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Knowledge" id="link-id0x1c0ae7d0">knowledge</a> space from LOD</li>. </ol>
What is Linked Data, really?
2010-11-09T18:53:01Z
2010-11-09T13:53:01-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1639
<p> <b> <i><a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id0x1e81beb0">Linked Data</a> </i> </b> is simply <i><a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Hypermedia" id="link-id0x1d9d5e30">hypermedia</a>-based structured <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">data</a>.</i> </p> <p>Linked Data offers everyone a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a>-scale, Enterprise-grade mechanism for platform-independent creation, curation, access, and integration of data.</p> <p>The fundamental steps to creating Linked Data are as follows:</p> <ol> <li> <p>Choose a <i>Name Reference Mechanism</i> — i.e., URIs.</p> </li> <li> <p>Choose a <i>Data Model</i> with which to Structure your Data — minimally, you need a model which clearly distinguishes</p> <ol type="a"> <li> <i>Subjects</i> (also known as <i>Entities</i>)</li> <li> <i>Subject Attributes</i> (also known as <i><a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id0x171a1808">Entity</a> Attributes</i>), and</li> <li> <i>Attribute Values</i> (also known as <i>Subject Attribute Values</i> or <i>Entity Attribute Values</i>).</li> </ol> </li> <li> <p>Choose one or more <i>Data Representation Syntaxes</i> (also called <i>Markup Languages</i> or <i>Data Formats</i>) to use when creating <i>Resources</i> with <i>Content</i> based on your chosen <i>Data Model.</i> Some Syntaxes in common use today are HTML+<a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/RDFa" id="link-id0x1a95cc58">RDFa</a>, <a href="http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/Notation3" id="link-id0x1f596330">N3</a>, <a href="http://www.w3.org/TeamSubmission/turtle/" id="link-id0x16fdca68">Turtle</a>, <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-rdf-syntax/" id="link-id0x1d7cf0c0">RDF/XML</a>, <a href="http://sw.nokia.com/trix/TriX.html" id="link-id0x19690b60">TriX</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Extensible_Resource_Descriptor" id="link-id0x1bb46968">XRDS</a>, <a href="http://code.google.com/apis/gdata/index.html" id="link-id0x18f63f20">GData</a>, and <a href="http://odata.org" id="link-id0x19aee1e0">OData</a>; there are many others.</p> </li> <li> <p>Choose a <i><a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-id0x19aa3900">URI</a> Scheme</i> that facilitates binding <i>Referenced Names</i> to the <i>Resources</i> which will carry your <i>Content</i> -- your <i>Structured Data.</i> </p> </li> <li> <p>Create <i>Structured Data</i> by using your chosen <i>Name Reference Mechanism,</i> your chosen <i>Data Model,</i> and your chosen <i>Data Representation Syntax,</i> as follows:</p> <ol type="a"> <li>Identify <i>Subject(s)</i> using <i>Resolvable URI(s).</i> </li> <li>Identify <i>Subject Attribute(s)</i> using <i>Resolvable URI(s).</i> </li> <li>Assign <i>Attribute Values</i> to <i>Subject Attributes.</i> These <i>Values</i> may be either <i>Literals</i> (e.g., STRINGs, BLOBs) or <i>Resolvable URIs.</i> </li> </ol> </li> </ol> <p>You can create Linked Data (hypermedia-based data representations) Resources from or for many things. Examples include: personal profiles, calendars, address books, blogs, photo albums; there are many, many more.</p> <h3>Related</h3> <ol> <li> <a href="http://www.amundsen.com/hypermedia/" id="link-id0x18f64958">Hypermedia Types</a> -- evolving <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information" id="link-id0x1903b880">information</a> portal covering different aspects of Hypermedia resource types</li> <li> <a href="http://linkeddata.uriburner.com" id="link-id0x18af0cf8">URIBurner </a>-- service that generates Linked Data from a plethora of heterogeneous data sources</li> <li> <a href="http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html" id="link-id0x1929eea0">Linked Data Meme</a> -- <a class="auto-href" href="http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/card#i" id="link-id0x1e8127c8">TimbL</a> design issues note about Linked Data</li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1624" id="link-id0x18a5b768">Data 3.0 Manifesto</a> -- note about format agnostic Linked Data</li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/About" id="link-id0x19ae9338">DBpedia</a> -- large Linked Data Hub</li> <li> <a href="http://richard.cyganiak.de/2007/10/lod/" id="link-id0x14d677f8">Linked Open Data Cloud</a> -- collection of Linked Data Spaces</li> <li> <a href="http://linkedopencommerce.com" id="link-id0x17c6dbf8">Linked Open Commerce Cloud </a>-- commerce (clicks & mortar and/or clicks & clicks) oriented <a class="auto-href" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Spaces" id="link-id0x13959308">Linked Data Space</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://lod.openlinksw.com" id="link-id0x18ccb9e8">LOD Cloud Cache </a>-- massive Linked Data Space hosting most of the LOD Cloud Datasets</li> <li> <a href="http://lod2.eu" id="link-id0x1a472c20">LOD2 Initiative</a> -- EU Co-Funded Project to develop global <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Knowledge" id="link-id0x1c0ae7d0">knowledge</a> space from LOD</li>. </ol>
What is Linked Data, really?
2011-02-15T22:28:06Z
2011-02-15T17:28:06.000002-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1482
<p>It is getting clearer by the second that <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Master_Data_Management" id="link-id167265a8">Master Data Management</a> and RDF based <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id17940750">Linked data</a> are two realms separated by a common desire to provide "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id1be08e68">Entity</a> Oriented Data Access" to heterogeneous data sources (within the enterprise and/or across the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web" id="link-id19b8bdd8">World Wide Web</a>).</p> <p>Here is how I see Linked Data providing tangible value to MDM tools vendors and users:</p> <ol> <li> Open access to Entities across MDM instances served up by different MDM solutions acting as Linked Data publishers (i.e., expose MDM Entities as RDF resources endowed with de-referencable URIs thereby enabling <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id11137b48">Hyperdata</a>-style linking) </li> <li> Use of RDF-ization middleware to hook disparate data sources (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SQL" id="link-id13154ae0">SQL</a>, XML, and other data sources) into existing MDM packages (i.e., the MDM solutions become consumers of RDF Linked Data).</li> </ol> <p> Of course <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com" id="link-id13b70e20">Virtuoso</a> was designed and developed to deliver the above from day one (circa. 1998 re. the core and 2005 re. the use of RDF for the final mile) as depicted below: </p> <div> <img src="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/images/vconc650.jpg" /> </div> <h3>Related</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=mdm&type=text&output=html" id="link-id15f8abd8">Other MDM related posts</a> </li> </ul>
Master Data Management (MDM) & RDF based Linked Data
2008-11-05T23:19:02Z
2008-11-05T18:19:02-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1406
As they say, a picture speaks a thousand words, so I am exposing two views of <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com" id="link-id13fe7df8">Virtuoso</a> that have been on the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a> for while. <br /> <br />Remember, <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com" id="link-id13f53ed0">Virtuoso</a> offers <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">data</a> management, data access, web <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Application_server" id="link-id109f04b0">application server</a>, enterprise service bus, and virtualization of disparate and heterogeneous data sources, as part of a single, multi threaded, cross-platform server solution; hence it's description as a "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Virtuoso_Universal_Server" id="link-id104d2e48">Universal Server</a>".<br /> <br />Conceptual View:<br /> <br /> <img style="max-width: 800px;" src="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/images/vconc650.jpg" /> <br /> <br />Technical View (kinda missing <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/PHP" id="link-id10660110">PHP</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Perl" id="link-id1053d9b8">Perl</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Python_programming_language" id="link-id107bc9c0">Python</a> runtime hosting in the Virtual Application Sever realm):<br /> <br /> <img style="max-width: 800px;" src="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/images/virtuoso3arch.gif" /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com" id="link-id0x13cf3798">Virtuoso</a>'s architecture is not a reaction to current trends. The diagrams above are pretty old (with minor touch ups in recent times). At <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/organization/openlink#this" id="link-id13e194c0">OpenLink Software</a>, we've have a consistent world-view re. standards and the vital role they play when it comes to developing software that enables the construction and exploitation of "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Context_%28language_use%29" id="link-id133c84a8">Context</a> Lenses" that tap into a substrate of Virtualized Logical Data Sources (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SQL" id="link-id104d1c30">SQL</a>, XML, RDF, Web Services, Full Text etc.).<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
Virtuoso's Universal Server Architecture (Conceptual & Technical)
2008-08-05T22:07:45Z
2008-08-05T18:07:45-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1324
<p>These days I increasingly qualify myself and my Semantic Web advocacy as falling under the realm Linked Data. Thus, I tend to use the following introduction: I am <a href="http://kidehen.idehen.net/dataspace/person/kidehen%23this" id="link-idfd257f0">Kingsley Idehen</a>, of the Tribe <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-idfec62f8">Linked Data</a>.</p> <p>The aforementioned qualification is increasingly necessary for the following reasons:</p> <ol> <li>The Semantic Web vision is broad and comprised of many layers</li> <li>A new era of confusion is taking shape just as we thought we had quelled the prior AI dominated realm of confusion</li> <li>None of the Semantic Web vision layers are comprehensible in practical ways without a basic foundation</li> <li>Open Data Access is the foundation of the Semantic Web (in prior post I used the term: <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1037" id="link-idfe71640">Semantic Web Layer 1</a>)</li> <li>URIs units of Open Data Access in Semantic Web parlance i.e.. each datum on the Web must have an ID (minted by the host Data Space).</li> </ol> <p>The terms <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Giant_Global_Graph" id="link-id1224e020">GGG</a>, Linked Data, Data Web, Web of Data, and Web 3.0 (when I use this term) all imply URI driven Open Data Access for the Web Database (maybe call this <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Open_Database_Connectivity" id="link-idfeb86e8">ODBC</a> for the Web) -- ability to point to records across data spaces without any adverse effect to the remote data spaces. It's really important to note that none of the aforementioned terms have nothing to do with the "Linguistic Meaning of blurb". Building a smarter document exposed via a URL without exposing descriptive data links doesn't provide open access to information data sources. </p> <p>As human beings we are all endowed with reasoning capability. But we can't reason without access to data. Dearth of openly accessible structured data is the source of many ills in cyberspace and across society in general. Today we still have Subjectivity reigning over Objectivity due to the prohibitive costs of open data access.</p> <p>We can't cost-effectively pursue objectivity without cost-effective infrastructure for creating alternative views of the data behind information sources (e.g. Web Pages). More Objectivity and less Subjectivity is what the next Web Frontier is about. At OpenLink we simply use the moniker: Analysis for All! Everyone becomes a data analyst in some form, and even better, the analysis are easily accessible to anyone connected to the Web. Of course, you will be able to share special analysis with your private network of friends and family, or if you so choose, not at all :-)</p> <p>Recap, it's important to note that Linked Data is the foundation layer of the Semantic Web vision. It's not only facilitates open data access, it also enables data integration (Meshing as opposed to Mashing) across disparate data schemas</p> <p>As demonstrated by <a href="http://dbpedia.org/about" id="link-idfe37fd8">DBpedia</a> and the <a href="http://richard.cyganiak.de/2007/10/lod/" id="link-idfeeef40">Linked Data Solar system</a> emerging around it, if you <a href="http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI" id="link-idee98310">URI everything, then everything is Cool</a>.</p> <p>Linked Data and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information_silo" id="link-idfcae4a0">Information Silos</a> are mutually exclusive concepts. Thus, you cannot produce a web accessible Information Silo and then refer to it as "Semantic Web" technology. Of course, it might be very Semantic, but it's fundamentally devoid of critical "Semantic Web" essence (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/DNA" id="link-id10dddd08">DNA</a>).</p> <p>My acid test for any Semantic Web solution is simply this (using a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/User_agent" id="link-idff7b4e8">Web User Agent or Client</a>):</p> <ol> <li>go to the profile page of the service</li> <li>ask for an RDF representation of my profile (by this I mean "get me the raw data in structured form")</li> <li>attempt to traverse the structured data graph (RDF) that the service provides via live de-referncable URIs.</li> </ol> <p>Here is the Acid test against my Data Space:</p> <ol> <li> <a href="http://kidehen.idehen.net/dataspace/person/kidehen" id="link-idfd2e5c8">My Profile Page</a> (HTML representation dispatched via an instance of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenLink_Data_Spaces" id="link-id10d3d0f8">OpenLink Data Spaces</a>)</li> <li>Click on the "Linked Data Tab" (HTML representation endowed with Data Links the link to information resources containing other structured descriptions of things).</li> </ol>
Semantic Web Advocate of Tribe Linked Data! (Updated)
2008-03-20T20:29:47Z
2008-03-20T16:29:47-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1227
Meeting <a href="http://wwmm.ch.cam.ac.uk/blogs/murrayrust">Prof. Peter Murray-Rust</a>, in person, was one of my personal highlights at <a href="http://www2007.org/">WWW2007</a>; especially as we are both unashamedly passionate about "Open Data Access" :-) Peter is an avid blogger, and his most recent post is an <a href="http://wwmm.ch.cam.ac.uk/blogs/murrayrust/?p=409">Open Data callout to all U.S. citizens</a>.
Open Data Heads-Up to all U.S. Citizens!
2007-07-13T19:31:52Z
2007-07-13T15:31:52.000002-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1175
<p> <a href="http://www.25hoursaday.com/weblog/PermaLink.aspx?guid=69141977-7514-443d-800b-1f95c1ff8dbe">Dare Obasanjo's post about the issue of Open Data</a> (or Open Data Access), indicates that the "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Data">Open Data</a>" issue is gradually beginning to resonate across a broader audience.</p> <p>From my perspective on things I prefer to align my articulation of the changes that are occurring across our industry (courtesy of the Internet Inflection) to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model-view-controller">MVC pattern</a>.</p> <p>Re. the Web Versions (or Dimensions of Interaction):</p> <ul> Web 1.0 - (V)iewer (Interactive Web experienced via Browser) </ul> <ul> Web 2.0 - (C)ontroller Web (via Web Services API) </ul> <ul> Web 3.0 - (M)odel (via the RDF Data Model as the basis for an Open and Standards based Concrete Conceptual Data Model)</ul> <p>The same applies to evolution of Openness:</p> <ul> Early work by Sun and other early UNIX Vendors - (V)iewer (Interaction with the same OS across different hardware platforms)</ul> <ul>Open Source Movement - (C)ontroller (Open Access to Application Source Code )</ul> <ul>Open Data - (M)odel (*where we are now* Freeing the Date from the Applications and Services while moving the application development focus to a Concrete Conceptual Data Model focus. The Data Web is a classic example.)</ul> <p>In the (C)ontroller realm where the focal point is Application Logic, data access issues aren't obvious (*I recall <a href="http://207.22.26.166/bytecols/1999-11-03.html">my battles with Richard Stallman re. the appropriate Open Source License variant for iODBC</a> during the embryonic years of database and data access technology on Linux*). Data is an enigma in this realm, unfortunately. This implies that "Data Lock-in" occurs deliberately, but in most cases, inadvertently when we make Application Logic the focal point of everything. Another example is Web 2.0 in which the norm (unfortunately) is to suck in your data, and then refuse to give you complete ownership over how it is used (including the fact that you may want to share it elsewhere).</p> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Data">Open Data</a> is a really big deal which is why the <a href="http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/sweo/">SWEO</a> supported <a href="http://esw.w3.org/topic/SweoIG/TaskForces/CommunityProjects/LinkingOpenData">Linking Open Data Project</a> is a very big deal. The good news is that this movement is gathering moment at an exponential rate :-)
Open Source and Open Data Movements
2007-04-01T21:55:55Z
2007-04-01T17:55:55.000001-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1137
<p>While I continue to wrestle with screencast production etc.. Here is are some screenshots that guide you through the process of providing Data Web URIs to the SPARQL Query Builder (first cut of an MS Query or MS ACCESS type tool for the Data Web).</p> <ol> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen/briefcase/Public/Screenshots/sparql_qbe1.png">Step 1 - Enter a Data Source URI</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen/briefcase/Public/Screenshots/sparql_qbe2.png">Step 2 - Click on the Run Control (">" video control icon)</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen/briefcase/Public/Screenshots/sparql_qbe3.png">Step 3 - Interact with Custom Grid hosted results (comprised of Resource Identifiers (S), Properties (P), and Property Values (O).</a> </li> </ol> <p>Once you grasp the concept of entering values into the "Default Data Source URI field", take a look at: http://programmableweb.com and other URIs (hint: scroll through the results grid to the QEDWiki demo item)</p>
Hello Data Web (Take 2 - with Screenshots)
2007-02-18T15:23:42Z
2007-02-18T10:23:42-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1034
<p> Open Data Access and Web 2.0 have a very strange relationship that continues to blur the lines of demarcation between where Web 2.0 ends and where Web.Next (i.e Web 3.0, Semantic/Data Web, Web of Databases etc.) starts. But before I proceed, let me attempt to define Web 2.0 one more time: </p> <p style="text-align: center;"> <em>A phase in the evolution web usage patterns that emphasizes Web Services based interaction between “Web Users” and “Points of Web Presence” over traditional “Web Users” and “Web Sites” based interaction. Basically, a transition from visual site interaction to presence based interaction.</em> </p> <p> BTW - Dare Obasanjo also commented about Web usage patterns in his post titled: <a href="http://www.25hoursaday.com/weblog/PermaLink.aspx?guid=929a7fd6-1dfc-43f4-a549-d2c9fa873655">The Two Webs</a>. Where he concluded that we had a dichotomy along the lines of: HTTP-for-APIs (2.0) and HTTP-for-Browsers (1.0). Which <a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell">Jon Udell</a> evolved into: HTTP-Services-Web and HTTP-Intereactive-Web during our recent <a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/gems/ju_idehen.mp3">podcast conversation</a>. </p> <p> With definitions in place, I will resume my quest to unveil the aforementioned Web 2.0 Data Access Conundrum: </p> <ul> <li>Emphasis on XML's prowess in the realms of Data and Protocol Modeling alongside Data Representation. Especially as SOAP or REST styles of Web Services and various XML formats (RSS 0.92/1.0/1.1/2.0, Atom, OPML, OCS etc.) collectively define the Web 2.0 infrastructure landscape</li> <li>Where a modicum of Data Access appreciation and comprehension does exist it is inherently compromised by business models that mandate some form of “Walled Gardens” and “Data Silos”</li> <li>Mash-ups are a response to said “Walled Gardens” and “Data Silos” . Mash-ups by definition imply combining things that were not built for recombination.</li> </ul> <p> As you can see from the above, Open Data access isn't genuinely compatible with Web 2.0. </p> <p> We can also look at the same issue by way of the popular M-V-C (Model View Controller) pattern. Web 2.0 is all about the “V” and “C” with a modicum of “M” at best (data access, open data access, and flexible open data access are completely separate things). The “C” items represent application logic exposed by SOAP or REST style web services etc. I'll return to this later in this post. </p> <p> What about Social Networking you must be thinking? Isn't this a Web 2.0 manifestation? Not at all (IMHO). The Web was developed / invented by Tim Berners-Lee to leverage the “Network Effects” potential of the Internet for connecting <a href="http://www.w3.org/History/1989/Image1.gif">People and Data</a>. Social Networking on the other hand, is simply one of several ways by which construct network connections. I am sure we all accept the fact that connections are built for many other reasons beyond social interaction. That said, we also know that through social interactions we actually develop some of our most valuable relationships (we are social creatures after-all). </p> <p> The Web 2.0 Open Data Access impedance reality is ultimately going to be the greatest piece of tutorial and usecase material for the Semantic Web. I take this position because it is human nature to seek Freedom (in unadulterated form) which implies the following: </p> <ul> <li>Access Data from a myriad of data sources (irrespective of structural differences at the database level)</li> <li>Mesh (not Mash) data in new and interesting ways</li> <li>Share the meshed data with as many relevant people as possible for social, professional, political, religious, and other reasons</li> <li>Construct valuable networks based on data oriented connections</li> </ul> <p> Web 2.0 by definition and use case scenarios is inherently incompatible with the above due to the lack of Flexible and Open Data Access. </p> <p> If we take the definition of Web 2.0 (above) and rework it with an appreciation Flexible and Open Data Access you would arrive at something like this: </p> <p style="text-align: center;"> <em>A phase in the evolution of the web that emphasizes interaction between “Web Users” and “Web Data” facilitated by Web Services based APIs and an Open & Flexible Data Access Model “. </em> </p> <p> <em> <br /> </em>In more succinct form: </p> <p style="text-align: center;"> <em>A pervasive network of people connected by data or data connected by people.</em> </p> <p> <em> <br /> </em>Returning to M-V-C and looking at the definition above, you now have a complete of ”M“ which is enigmatic in Web 2.0 and the essence of the Semantic Web (Data and Context). </p> <p> To make all of this possible a palatable Data Model is required. The model of choice is the Graph based RDF Data Model - not to be mistaken for the RDF/XML serialization which is just that, a data serialization that conforms to the aforementioned RDF data model. </p> <p> <strong>The Enterprise Challenge</strong> </p> <p> Web 2.0 cannot and will not make valuable inroads into the the enterprise because enterprises live and die by their ability to exploit data. Weblogs, Wikis, Shared Bookmarking Systems, and other Web 2.0 distributed collaborative applications profiles are only valuable if the data is available to the enterprise for meshing (not mashing). </p> <p> A good example of how enterprises will exploit data by leveraging networks of people and data (social networks in this case) is shown in this nice presentation by Accenture's Institute for High Performance Business titled: <a href="http://www.accenture.com/xdoc/en/AccentureSNA.swf">Visualizing Organizational Change</a>. </p> <p> Web 2.0 commentators (for the most part) continue to ponder the use of Web 2.0 within the enterprise while forgetting the congruency between enterprise agility and exploitation of people & data networks (The very issue emphasized in this original <a href="http://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html">Web vision document by Tim Berners-Lee</a>). Even worse, they remain challenged or spooked by the Semantic Web vision because they do not understand that Web 2.0 is fundamentally a Semantic Web precursor due to Open Data Access challenges. Web 2.0 is one of the greatest demonstrations of why we need the Semantic Web at the current time. </p> <p> Finally, juxtapose the items below and you may even get a clearer view of what I am an attempting to convey about the virtues of Open Data Access and the inflective role it plays as we move beyond Web 2.0: </p> <p> <a href="http://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html">Information Management Proposal </a>- <a href="http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/">Tim Berners-Lee</a> <br /> <a href="http://www.accenture.com/xdoc/en/AccentureSNA.swf">Visualizing Organizational Change</a> - <a href="http://www.accenture.com/Global/High_Performance_Business/default.htm">Accenture Institute of High Performance Business</a> </p>
Web 2.0's Open Data Access Conundrum (Update)
2006-11-16T21:11:45Z
2006-11-16T16:11:45-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1032
<p> Open Data Access and Web 2.0 have a very strange relationship that continues to blur the lines of demarcation between where Web 2.0 ends and where Web.Next (i.e Web 3.0, Semantic/Data Web, Web of Databases etc.) starts. But before I proceed, let me attempt to define Web 2.0 one more time: </p> <p style="text-align: center;"> <em>A phase in the evolution web usage patterns that emphasizes Web Services based interaction between “Web Users” and “Points of Web Presence” over traditional “Web Users” and “Web Sites” based interaction. Basically, a transition from visual site interaction to presence based interaction.</em> </p> <p> BTW - Dare Obasanjo also commented about Web usage patterns in his post titled: <a href="http://www.25hoursaday.com/weblog/PermaLink.aspx?guid=929a7fd6-1dfc-43f4-a549-d2c9fa873655">The Two Webs</a>. Where he concluded that we had a dichotomy along the lines of: HTTP-for-APIs (2.0) and HTTP-for-Browsers (1.0). Which <a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell">Jon Udell</a> evolved into: HTTP-Services-Web and HTTP-Intereactive-Web during our recent <a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/gems/ju_idehen.mp3">podcast conversation</a>. </p> <p> With definitions in place, I will resume my quest to unveil the aforementioned Web 2.0 Data Access Conundrum: </p> <ul> <li>Emphasis on XML's prowess in the realms of Data and Protocol Modeling alongside Data Representation. Especially as SOAP or REST styles of Web Services and various XML formats (RSS 0.92/1.0/1.1/2.0, Atom, OPML, OCS etc.) collectively define the Web 2.0 infrastructure landscape</li> <li>Where a modicum of Data Access appreciation and comprehension does exist it is inherently compromised by business models that mandate some form of “Walled Gardens” and “Data Silos”</li> <li>Mash-ups are a response to said “Walled Gardens” and “Data Silos” . Mash-ups by definition imply combining things that were not built for recombination.</li> </ul> <p> As you can see from the above, Open Data access isn't genuinely compatible with Web 2.0. </p> <p> We can also look at the same issue by way of the popular M-V-C (Model View Controller) pattern. Web 2.0 is all about the “V” and “C” with a modicum of “M” at best (data access, open data access, and flexible open data access are completely separate things). The “C” items represent application logic exposed by SOAP or REST style web services etc. I'll return to this later in this post. </p> <p> What about Social Networking you must be thinking? Isn't this a Web 2.0 manifestation? Not at all (IMHO). The Web was developed / invented by Tim Berners-Lee to leverage the “Network Effects” potential of the Internet for connecting <a href="http://www.w3.org/History/1989/Image1.gif">People and Data</a>. Social Networking on the other hand, is simply one of several ways by which construct network connections. I am sure we all accept the fact that connections are built for many other reasons beyond social interaction. That said, we also know that through social interactions we actually develop some of our most valuable relationships (we are social creatures after-all). </p> <p> The Web 2.0 Open Data Access impedance reality is ultimately going to be the greatest piece of tutorial and usecase material for the Semantic Web. I take this position because it is human nature to seek Freedom (in unadulterated form) which implies the following: </p> <ul> <li>Access Data from a myriad of data sources (irrespective of structural differences at the database level)</li> <li>Mesh (not Mash) data in new and interesting ways</li> <li>Share the meshed data with as many relevant people as possible for social, professional, political, religious, and other reasons</li> <li>Construct valuable networks based on data oriented connections</li> </ul> <p> Web 2.0 by definition and use case scenarios is inherently incompatible with the above due to the lack of Flexible and Open Data Access. </p> <p> If we take the definition of Web 2.0 (above) and rework it with an appreciation Flexible and Open Data Access you would arrive at something like this: </p> <p style="text-align: center;"> <em>A phase in the evolution of the web that emphasizes interaction between “Web Users” and “Web Data” facilitated by Web Services based APIs and an Open & Flexible Data Access Model “. </em> </p> <p> <em> <br /> </em>In more succinct form: </p> <p style="text-align: center;"> <em>A pervasive network of people connected by data or data connected by people.</em> </p> <p> <em> <br /> </em>Returning to M-V-C and looking at the definition above, you now have a complete of ”M“ which is enigmatic in Web 2.0 and the essence of the Semantic Web (Data and Context). </p> <p> To make all of this possible a palatable Data Model is required. The model of choice is the Graph based RDF Data Model - not to be mistaken for the RDF/XML serialization which is just that, a data serialization that conforms to the aforementioned RDF data model. </p> <p> <strong>The Enterprise Challenge</strong> </p> <p> Web 2.0 cannot and will not make valuable inroads into the the enterprise because enterprises live and die by their ability to exploit data. Weblogs, Wikis, Shared Bookmarking Systems, and other Web 2.0 distributed collaborative applications profiles are only valuable if the data is available to the enterprise for meshing (not mashing). </p> <p> A good example of how enterprises will exploit data by leveraging networks of people and data (social networks in this case) is shown in this nice presentation by Accenture's Institute for High Performance Business titled: <a href="http://www.accenture.com/xdoc/en/AccentureSNA.swf">Visualizing Organizational Change</a>. </p> <p> Web 2.0 commentators (for the most part) continue to ponder the use of Web 2.0 within the enterprise while forgetting the congruency between enterprise agility and exploitation of people & data networks (The very issue emphasized in this original <a href="http://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html">Web vision document by Tim Berners-Lee</a>). Even worse, they remain challenged or spooked by the Semantic Web vision because they do not understand that Web 2.0 is fundamentally a Semantic Web precursor due to Open Data Access challenges. Web 2.0 is one of the greatest demonstrations of why we need the Semantic Web at the current time. </p> <p> Finally, juxtapose the items below and you may even get a clearer view of what I am an attempting to convey about the virtues of Open Data Access and the inflective role it plays as we move beyond Web 2.0: </p> <p> <a href="http://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html">Information Management Proposal </a>- <a href="http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/">Tim Berners-Lee</a> <br /> <a href="http://www.accenture.com/xdoc/en/AccentureSNA.swf">Visualizing Organizational Change</a> - <a href="http://www.accenture.com/Global/High_Performance_Business/default.htm">Accenture Institute of High Performance Business</a> </p>
Web 2.0's Open Data Access Conundrum
2006-11-16T20:51:43Z
2006-11-16T15:51:43-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/991
There is an interesting article at regdeveloper.com titled: <a href="http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2006/06/23/unstructured_data/">Structured data is boring and useless</a>.. This article provides insight into a serious point of confusion about what exactly is structured vs. unstructured data. Here is a key excerpt: <blockquote> <cite>"We all know that structured data is boring and useless; while unstructured data is sexy and chock full of value. Well, only up to a point, Lord Copper. Genuinely unstructured data can be a real nuisance - imagine extracting the return address from an unstructured letter, without letterhead and any of the formatting usually applied to letters. A letter may be thought of as unstructured data, but most business letters are, in fact, highly-structured." .... </cite> </blockquote> Duncan Pauly, founder and chief technology officer of Coppereye add's eloquent insight to the conversation: <blockquote> <cite>"The labels "structured data" and "unstructured data" are often used ambiguously by different interest groups; and often used lazily to cover multiple distinct aspects of the issue. In reality, there are at least three orthogonal aspects to structure: <il></il></cite> <ol> * The structure of the data itself.</ol> <ol>* The structure of the container that hosts the data.</ol> <ol>* The structure of the access method used to access the data.</ol> These three dimensions are largely independent and one does not need to imply another. For example, it is absolutely feasible and reasonable to store unstructured data in a structured database container and access it by unstructured search mechanisms." </blockquote> <p> Data understanding and appreciation is dwindling at a time when the reverse should be happening. We are supposed to be in the throws of the "Information Age", but for some reason this appears to have no correlation with data and "data access" in the minds of many -- as reflected in the broad contradictory positions taken re. unstructured data vs structured data, structured is boring and useless while unstructured is useful and sexy....</p> <p> The difference between "Structured Containers" and "Structured Data" are clearly misunderstood by most (an unfortunate fact).</p> <p> For instance all DBMS products are "Structured Containers" aligned to one or more data models (typically one). These products have been limited by proprietary data access APIs and underlying data model specificity when used in the "Open-world" model that is at the core of the World Wide Web. This confusion also carries over to the misconception that Web 2.0 and the Semantic/Data Web are mutually exclusive. </p> <p> But things are changing fast, and the concept of multi-model DBMS products is beginning to crystalize. On our part, we have finally released the long promised "OpenLink Data Spaces" application layer that has been developed using our <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/">Virtuoso Universal Server</a>. We have structured unified storage containment exposed to the data web cloud via endpoints for querying or accessing data using a variety of mechanisms that include; GData, OpenSearch, SPARQL, XQuery/XPath, SQL etc.. </p> <p> To be continued.... </p>
Structured Data vs. Unstructured Data
2006-06-27T05:39:09Z
2006-06-27T01:39:09-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/889
I suspect the subject of this post triggers the following questions: <ul>1. Don't you mean the fall/death of Relational Databases?</ul><ul>2. Does anyone use these anymore?</ul><ul>3. What are these?</ul> Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMS) are alive and kicking as expressed eloquently in this excerpt from a book titled "Funding A Revolution": <blockquote><cite></cite><p> Large-scale computer applications require rapid access to large amounts of data. A computerized checkout system in a supermarket must track the entire product line of the market. Airline reservation systems are used at many locations simultaneously to place passengers on numerous flights on different dates. Library computers store millions of entries and access citations from hundreds of publications. Transaction processing systems in banks and brokerage houses keep the accounts that generate international flows of capital. World Wide Web search engines scan thousands of Web pages to produce quantitative responses to queries almost instantly. Thousands of small businesses and organizations use databases to track everything from inventory and personnel to DNA sequences and pottery shards from archaeological digs.</p><p>Thus, databases not only represent significant infrastructure for computer applications, but they also process the transactions and exchanges that drive the U.S. economy. </p></blockquote><p>My only addition to the excerpt above is that the impact of databases extends beyond the U.S. economy. We are talking about the global economy. And this will be so for all of time!</p><p>I came across this page while enriching the links in one of my earlier "<a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=history&type=text&output=html">history</a>" related posts about <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/127/index.vspx?page=&id=266">Relational Database Technology pioneers</a>. During this effort I also stumbled across another historic document titled: "<a href="http://www.mcjones.org/System_R/SQL_Reunion_95/sqlr95.html">1995 SQL Reunion</a>".</p>
Rise of Relational Databases
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/557
<p>The W3C RDF Data Access Working Group recently released an initial public Working Draft specification for "<a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/WD-rdf-dawg-uc-20040602/"><font color="#000000">RDF Data Access Use Cases and Requirements</font></a>". Naturally, this triggered discussion on the RDF mailing list along the following lines:</p> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p>In section, 4.1 Human-friendly Syntax, you say<font size="4"><b> </b></font>"There must be a text-based form of the query language which can be read and written by users of the language", and you list the status as "pending".</p> <p>As background for section 4.1, you may be interested in <a href="http://www.aifb.uni-karlsruhe.de/WBS/pha/rdf-query/">RDFQueryLangComparison1</a> (original text replaced with live link).<br /><br />It shows how to write queries in a form that includes English meanings.<br /><br />The example queries can be run by pointing a browser to <a eudora="autourl" href="http://www.reengineeringllc.com/" title="http://www.reengineeringllc.com/">www.reengineeringllc.com</a> .<br /><br />Perhaps importantly, given the intricacy of RDF for nonprogrammers, one can get an English explanation of the result of each query.<br /><br />-- Dr. Adrian Walker of <a href="https://www.reengineeringllc.com/ibl_login.html#about">Internet Business Logic </a></p></blockquote> <p dir="ltr">The Semantic Web continues to take shape, and Infonauts (information centric agents) are already taking <a href="http://www.reengineeringllc.com/IBL_tutorial_part1.html">shape</a>.</p> <p dir="ltr">A great this about the net is the "back to the future" nature of most Web and Internet technology. For instance we are now frenzied about Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), Event Drivent Architecture (EDA), Loose Coupling of Composite Services etc. Basically rehashing the CORBA vision.</p> <p dir="ltr">I see the Semantic Web playing a similar role in relation to artificial intelligence. </p> <p dir="ltr">BTW - It still always comes down to data, and as you can imagine <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/virtuoso">Virtuoso</a> will be playing its usual role of alleviating the practical implementation and ulization challenges of all of the above :-)</p> <p dir="ltr"> </p>
Comparison of RDF Query Languages
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/546
<p>Here are some excerpts (inlined) with my comments (outlined) from an <a href="http://www.db2mag.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=18901175">interesting article</a> on SQL DBMS exploits and vulnerabilities by <a href="http://www.appsecinc.com/">Aaron C. Newman</a>, for <a href="http://www.db2mag.com/show">DB2 Magazine</a> titled "6 Security Secrets Attackers don't want You To Know".</p> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p>How secure is your data? Looking at your information management resources through a would-be intruder's eyes can help you find (and fix) vulnerabilities.</p></blockquote> <p dir="ltr">Naturally :-)</p> <p></p> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p>When E. F. Codd developed his relational data model in 1970, the business world was a different place. Almost 35 years after his seminal work appeared, RDBMSs that sprung from Codd's ideas are the standard for storing corporate information. And, with government and industry regulations dictating what kinds of information companies have to store, manage, and audit (and for how long), protecting this information is more important than ever. Unfortunately, it's also more challenging</p> <p>Even in 1985, when <a href="http://www.databaseanswers.com/codds_rules.htm">Dr. Codd published 12 guidelines for RDBMSs</a>, there was little concern for data security. In those days, gaining access to a database was so difficult that advanced security features on the database were irrelevant. </p> <p>Today, RDBMSs carry the lifeblood of every organization. Note the use of the plural: Organizations now have many databases that are decentralized in terms of use and security controls. E-business demands that data access be extended to customers, partners, suppliers, and other parties who were rarely considered in the early data management days. With all this availability ? not to mention pressure from an array of government and industry regulations (see the sidebar, <a href="http://www.db2mag.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=18901175#sidebar">"Security and Compliance"</a>) ? the need to control exactly who can access or modify data is becoming paramount. </p></blockquote> <p dir="ltr">Absolute facts, that are still partially understood at best. For instance we are still in a so called "Information Age" in which standards based data access remains an issue of contempt instead of absolute necessity. </p> <p dir="ltr">There are a number of prevailing myths about standards based data access that continue to cloak reality:</p> <ol dir="ltr"> <li> <div>ODBC, JDBC, ADO.NET, OLEDB all deliver poor performance (compared to their native, proprietary, and database specific counterparts; native interfaces)<br /></div></li> <li> <div>You can't really right generic database applications with these standards due to inconsistencies in the DBMS implementations of SQL (not true! there are many aspects of the specs that address these concerns if only a majority of driver vendors would implement these features, and the application developers actually used them by seeking drivers with full implementations).</div></li></ol> <p>Even if the above were true (which I refute strongly), how about the general security vulnerabilities that affect both Native, and Standards compliant, data access interfaces?</p> <p>Aaron's article does a good job of highlighting 6 areas of vulnerability:</p> <ol> <li> <div>DBMS Defaults (usernames and passwords)</div></li> <li> <div>Authentication (at connect time)</div></li> <li> <div>Database Privileges</div></li> <li> <div>Fixpaks </div></li> <li> <div>Buffer Overflows</div></li> <li> <div>SQL Injection</div></li></ol> <p>What I have been able to do very quickly (thanks to blogging, and the power of a blog engine that supports <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen/index.vspx?id=543">WebDAV</a>), is write a <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen/articles/uda_rule_book_sql_attacks.htm">tabulated response to each of the items </a>(bar Fixpaks) indicating how the <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/info/mtproduct.htm">OpenLink Multi-Tier Data Access Drivers </a>(for ODBC, JDBC, ADO.NET, and OLEDB) protect corporate databases from each of these vulnerabilities.</p> <p>To cut a long story short, we are increasingly living a contradiction where the terms "simple" and "free" are supposed to lead us to products that can adequately handle the challenges of an increasingly sophisticated grid of inter-connecting point. </p> <p>I have been asked on numerous occassions, "How can you build a company and business based on data access technology?". My reply is the same as usual, "because everything comes down to data". If the data is compromised in anyway, then kiss Information, Knowledge, and everything else goodbye!</p> <table align="right" border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" width="336"> <tbody> <tr> <td></td></tr></tbody></table> <p> </p>
Preventable SQL DBMS Vulnerabilities
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/482
<p>This piece links to a great <a href="http://www.frenchguys.com/temp/Mono.ppt">Mono presentation</a> (bar the reference placement of MySQL/PostgreSQL in a box somewhat adjacent to ADO.NET (see slide 7). When ADO.NET should have be associated with Data Providers for ODBC, MySQL, PostgresSQL, and others for clarity (the natural goal of the presentation).</p> <p>We have got to take time to understand the Data Access Layer, if we don't we will utlimately <a href="http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/358200">pay a hefty price </a>(IMHO).</p> <p>This blog post is also hillarious, especially if you have encountered the mercurial "Murphy" during live product demos.</p> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p>So, today I went to hell. And then I came back. It was a short trip.</p> <p>This year, I am giving a presentation on Mono at Brainshare in Salt Lake City, an intro to Mono for developers. I got a pretty good turnout with a few ximian people in the back (including Joe whom I saw for the first time without a hat).</p></blockquote> <p dir="ltr"> </p> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p>So I plug in my PowerBook 12" as I always do but for some reason I have a hard time getting the projector to display its output. After struggling a little I resort to using the desktop provided by Novell, running Ximian Desktop 2 (and some version Suse Linux).</p> <p>So I upload my <a href="http://www.frenchguys.com/temp/Mono.ppt" target="_blank">presentation</a> to <a href="http://www.frenchguys.com/" target="blank">www.frenchguys.com</a> from my mac and then download it back to the desktop. Now I can make my presentation, which goes well. Then I get to a slide that just says : <b>DEMO</b>. Hmmm. Demo. I don't have Mono installed on that generic machine I was just given. I am going to need magic. So to magic I resort.</p></blockquote> <p align="right">[via <a href="http://go-mono.com/monologue">Monologue</a>]</p>
Demo Hell and back
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/399
<div class="Section1"> <p><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><font size="2">There is a new </font><a href="http://www.iodbc.org/iodbc-phposxHOWTO.html"><font size="2">HOWTO document</font></a><font size="2"> that addresses an area of frequent confusion on Mac OS X, which is how do you build PHP with an ODBC data access layer binding (</font><a href="http://www.iodbc.org/"><font size="2">iODBC</font></a><font size="2"> variant) using Mac OS X Frameworks as opposed to Darwin Shared Libraries. </font></span></font></p> <p><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"></span></font><font face="Times New Roman" size="2"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><font size="2">This document basically brings clarity to both the Frameworks and Darwin Shared library approaches</font>.</span></font></p></div>
HOWTO: Apache-PHP-ODBC on Mac OS X
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/195
<blockquote dir="ltr" style="margin-right: 0px;"> <div class="Section1"> <p> <font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Attribute based programming is a model by which you add metadata to a class, which allows it to change its behavior based on the metadata. One way I use it is to extend enumerations, so that they can contain more info than just a name and a value. A great example is how we create stored procedure parameters in our data access layer. We created a standard list of parameters that can be passed into and out of stored procs, using standard names, and data types. This way when you see a parameter name Foo, you can guarantee that it is exactly the same as someone else�s definition of Foo. The old school approach to this is to create a utility class with a bunch of static methods that you would call to create each stored procedure parameters. The associated article for this example can be found at http://www.donxml.com/FunwithAttributeBasedProgramming.htm<br />[<a href="http://www.gotdotnet.com/Community/UserSamples/Details.aspx?SampleGuid=892f2428-01fd-4994-9568-a3243eb03584">GotDotNet: Samples</a>]</span> </font> </p> </div> </blockquote>
Attribute based programming
2006-07-07T13:00:45Z
2006-07-07T09:00:45.000009-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/177
<p><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><a href="http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2003/06/20/odbc.html">Open Database Connectivity for Mac OS X</a></span></p> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"></span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">It continues to amaze me that the fundamental implications of corporate data access remains misunderstood by all parties in the ITsphere. How can any organization afford to be ambivalent about where data is stored, and their ability to transform this data into information and knowledge (ultimate competitive advantage)? Data is the most valuable company asset (we even had data in the enterprise before computers!).</span></p> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"></span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Mac OS X is attempting to make a serious push into the enterprise, but how can this be taken seriously if solving one of the biggest problems in the enterprise today isn't a flagship item driving the enterprise marketing strategy? The excerpt below simply sums this up:</span></p> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"></span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">One of the new, albeit virtually undocumented features included in Jaguar is ODBC, or Open Database Connectivity. ODBC allows programs to connect to databases from different vendors using the same set of connectivity protocols. This allows for simplified database programming as well as database access from programs that normally would not allow such access. For instance, with ODBC you can use Excel to get data from MySQL, or you can use FileMaker to get data from Oracle. </span></p> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"></span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">From article titled <a href="http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2003/06/20/odbc.html"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'">Open Database Connectivity in Jaguar</span></a> by <a href="http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/au/1236"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'">Andrew Anderson</span></a></span></p> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"></span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Open Database Connectivity is the only mechanism today that will enable any application to connect to any database without compromising choices across the following lines: Operating System, Programming Language, Desktop Productivity Tools, and Database Engine. All alternatives fail in one of the listed areas, with the ultimate destination being the painful realization that you are down a technology cul-de-sac (and these cost money via integration and data access quagmires). <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" ?><p xmlns="o"></p></span></p></blockquote> <p> </p>
Open Database Connectivity for Mac OS X
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1646
<em>I am the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">Data</a> Container, Disseminator, and Canvas.<br /> I came to be when the cognitive skills of mankind deemed oral history inadequate.<br /> I am transcendent, I take many forms, but my core purpose is constant - Container, Disseminator, and Canvas.<br /> I am dexterous, so I can be blank, partitioned horizontally, horizontally and vertically, and if you get moi excited and I'll show you fractals.<br /> I am accessible in a number of ways, across a plethora of media.<br /> I am loose, so you can access my content too.<br /> I am loose in a cool way, so you can refer to moi independent of my content.<br /> I am cool in a loose way, so you can refer to my content independent of moi.<br /> I am even cool and loose enough to let you figure out stuff from my content including how its totally distinct from moi.<br /> <strong>But...</strong> <br /> I am possessive about my coolness, so all Containment, Dissemination, and Canvas requirements must first call upon moi, wherever I might be.<br /> <strong>So...</strong> <br /> If you postulate about my demise or irrelevance, across any medium, I will punish you with confusion!<br /> <strong>Remember...</strong> <br /> I just told you who I am. <br /> <strong>Lesson to be learned..</strong> <br /> When something tells you what it is, and it is as powerful as I, best you believe it.<br /> BTW -- I am Okay with HTTP response code 200 OK :-) </em>
Rough draft poem: Document, what art thou?
2010-11-12T23:08:25Z
2010-11-12T18:08:25-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1644
<p>There are some very powerful benefits that accrue from the use of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Hypertext_Transfer_Protocol" id="link-id0x1b498648">HTTP</a> based <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Hypermedia" id="link-id0x1be1e208">Hypermedia</a>. 7 that come to mind immediately include: </p> <ol> <li>Structured & Platform Independent Enterprise <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Federated_database_system" id="link-id0x1ab5d6c8">Data Virtualization</a> -- concrete conceptual level access and provisioning of abstract domain entities such as Customers, Orders, Employees, Products, Countries, Competitors etc.</li> <li>Distributed Application State (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Representational_State_Transfer" id="link-id0x1a8a0e38">REST</a>) -- application state transitions via links</li> <li> Structured Data Representation (<a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id0x1acf1aa0">Linked Data</a>) -- whole data data representation via links </li> <li> Structured Identity (<a href="http://esw.w3.org/WebID" id="link-id0x1a484548">WebID</a>) -- verifiable distributed identity </li> <li> Structured Profiles (<a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Friend_of_a_friend" id="link-id0xa00bca8">FOAF</a>) -- platform independent profiles for people and organizations </li> <li> Articulation of Structured Value Propositions (<a href="http://www.heppnetz.de/projects/goodrelations/" id="link-id0x1a4793d0">GoodRelations</a>) -- Product & Service Offers, Business Entities, Locations, Business Hours, etc. </li> <li> Structured Collaboration Spaces (<a href="http://rdfs.org/sioc/spec/" id="link-id0x1afb8b40">SIOC</a>) -- Blogs, Wikis, File Sharing, Discussion Forums, Aggregated Feeds, Statuses, Photo Galleries, Polls etc.</li> </ol>
7 Things Brought to You by HTTP-based Hypermedia
2010-11-08T20:29:43Z
2010-11-08T15:29:43-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1643
<p>Conflation is the tech industry's equivalent of macroeconomic inflation. Whenever it rears it head, we lose value courtesy of diminishing productivity.</p> <p>Looking retrospectively at any technology failure -- enterprises or industry at large -- you will eventually discover -- at the core -- messy conflation of at least one of the following:</p> <ol> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">Data</a> Model (Semantics) </li> <li> Data Object (<a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id0x138a4c88">Entity</a>) Names (Identifiers) </li> <li> Data Representation Syntax (Markup) </li> <li> Data Access Protocol </li> <li> Data Presentation Syntax (Markup) </li> <li> Data Presentation Media. </li> </ol> <p>The <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Internet" id="link-id0x1b4a9918">Internet</a> & <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web" id="link-id0x1a8f8700">World Wide Web</a> (InterWeb) are massive successes because their respective architectural cores embody the critical separation outlined above.</p> <p>The <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a> of <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id0x156246e0">Linked Data</a> is going to become a global reality, and massive success, because it leverages inherently sound architecture -- bar conflationary distractions of RDF. :-)</p>
6 Things That Must Remain Distinct re. Data
2010-11-04T15:01:39Z
2010-11-04T11:01:39.000002-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1640
<p>Via my "<a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Context_%28language_use%29" id="link-id0x1a39dd88">context</a> lenses" (i.e., my subjective view of the world) a unit of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">Data</a> (or Datum) is like a cube of sugar, each side representing a value factor along the following dimensions:</p> <ol> <li> Identity -- via Resolvable URIs based Names for everything </li> <li> Data Representation Format Dexterity -- e.g., HTTP based Content Negotiation which loosens the coupling between Data Model Semantics and actual Data Representation (Syntax/Markup) </li> <li> Platform Agnostic Data Access -- e.g. via ubiquitous HTTP </li> <li> Change Sensitivity -- data warehouses are like real-world warehouses, goods rot and perish overtime </li> <li>Provenance -- data about the data (metadata) that helps establish "Who", "What", "When", "Where", and at least approximate or guesstimate "Why" </li> <li> Data Mesh Navigability -- delivered via inference rules.</li> </ol> <p>The quality of service factors above nullify many of the typical concerns associated data driven business models, such as:</p> <ul> <li> Wholesale Imports (crawls) - where your data is crawled and/or imported wholesale into a new <a class="auto-href" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Spaces" id="link-id0x1b1aaa98">data space</a> with zero attribution to the source </li> <li> Lossy Attribution -- attribution is delivered in literal form which doesn't deliver branding fidelity across many value chain layers or entire life cycle of a given data item </li> <li> Service Provisioning -- effectively build any business model if you can align services with unambiguously identifiable consumers with actual data items or across entire data spaces. </li> </ul>
Business Of Linked Data: Data Quality Factors
2010-10-25T21:09:02Z
2010-10-25T17:09:02.000013-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1608
<p>In recent times a lot of the commentary and focus re. <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com" id="link-id16a22f48">Virtuoso</a> has centered on the RDF Quad Store and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id112d82a0">Linked Data</a>. What sometimes gets overlooked is the sophisticated <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Virtual_Database" id="link-id6493cc8">Virtual Database</a> Engine that provides the foundation for all of Virtuoso's <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">data</a> integration capabilities.</p> <p>In this post I provide a brief re-introduction to this essential aspect of Virtuoso.</p> <h3>What is it?</h3> <p>This component of Virtuoso is known as the Virtual Database Engine (VDBMS). It provides transparent high-performance and secure access to disparate data sources that are external to Virtuoso. It enables federated access and integration of data hosted by any <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Open_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id13c26008">ODBC</a>- or <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Java_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id166604c0">JDBC</a>-accessible <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Relational_database_management_system" id="link-id139dfdb8">RDBMS</a>, RDF Store, XML database, or Document (Free Text)-oriented Content Management System. In addition, it facilitates integration with <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a> Services (SOAP-based SOA RPCs or REST-fully accessible Web Resources). </p> <h3>Why is it important?</h3> <p>In the most basic sense, you shouldn't need to upgrade your existing database engine version simply because your current DBMS and Data Access Driver combo isn't compatible with ODBC-compliant desktop tools such as Microsoft Access, Crystal Reports, BusinessObjects, Impromptu, or other of ODBC, JDBC, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/ADO.NET" id="link-id13c7ceb8">ADO</a>.NET, or OLE DB-compliant applications. Simply place Virtuoso in front of your so-called "legacy database," and let it deliver the compliance levels sought by these tools</p> <p>In addition, it's important to note that today's enterprise, through application evolution, company mergers, or acquisitions, is often faced with disparately-structured data residing in any number of line-of-business-oriented data silos. Compounding the problem is the exponential growth of user-generated data via new social media-oriented collaboration tools and platforms. For companies to cost-effectively harness the opportunities accorded by the increasing intersection between line-of-business applications and social media, virtualization of data silos must be achieved, and this virtualization must be delivered in a manner that doesn't prohibitively compromise performance or completely undermine security at either the enterprise or personal level. Again, this is what you get by simply installing Virtuoso.</p> <h3>How do I use it?</h3> <p>The VDBMS may be used in a variety of ways, depending on the data access and integration task at hand. Examples include: </p> <h4>Relational Database Federation</h4> <p>You can make a single ODBC, JDBC, ADO.NET, OLE DB, or XMLA connection to multiple ODBC- or JDBC-accessible RDBMS data sources, concurrently, with the ability to perform intelligent distributed joins against externally-hosted database tables. For instance, you can join internal human resources data against internal sales and external stock market data, even when the HR team uses <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Oracle_Database" id="link-id16706720">Oracle</a>, the Sales team uses <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/IBM_Informix" id="link-ide5a15c8">Informix</a>, and the Stock Market figures come from <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Ingres" id="link-id13c0e138">Ingres</a>!</p> <h4>Conceptual Level Data Access using the RDF Model</h4> <p>You can construct RDF Model-based Conceptual Views atop Relational Data Sources. This is about generating HTTP-based <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity-attribute-value_model" id="link-id115150f8">Entity</a>-Attribute-Value (E-A-V) graphs using data culled "on the fly" from native or external data sources (Relational Tables/Views, XML-based Web Services, or User Defined Types).</p> <p>You can also derive RDF Model-based Conceptual Views from Web Resource transformations "on the fly" -- the Virtuoso <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/Whitepapers/html/VirtSpongerWhitePaper.html" id="link-id1675db50">Sponger</a> (RDFizing middleware component) enables you to generate RDF Model Linked Data via a RESTful Web Service or within the process pipeline of the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id166b8d90">SPARQL</a> query engine (i.e., you simply use the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Locator" id="link-id167d00c8">URL</a> of a Web Resource in the FROM clause of a SPARQL query).</p> <p>It's important to note that Views take the form of HTTP links that serve as both Data Source Names and Data Source Addresses. This enables you to query and explore relationships across entities (i.e., People, Places, and other Real World Things) via HTTP clients (e.g., Web Browsers) or directly via SPARQL Query Language constructs transmitted over HTTP.</p> <h4>Conceptual Level Data Access using ADO.NET <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id13c6bb60">Entity</a> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/ADO.NET_Entity_Framework" id="link-id16ad3f68">Frameworks</a> </h4> <p>As an alternative to RDF, Virtuoso can expose ADO.NET Entity Frameworks-based Conceptual Views over Relational Data Sources. It achieves this by generating Entity Relationship graphs via its native ADO.NET Provider, exposing all externally attached ODBC- and JDBC-accessible data sources. In addition, the ADO.NET Provider supports direct access to Virtuoso's native RDF database engine, eliminating the need for resource intensive Entity Frameworks model transformations.</p> <h3>Related</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VirtLinkRemoteTables" id="link-id1183acd8">Attaching ODBC or JDBC accessible Relational Tables to Virtuoso</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VirtRdb2RDFViewsGeneration#One-Click%20Linked%20Data%20Generation%20&%20Deployment" id="link-id113f2fd8">Using an HTML based Wizard to Generate RDF based Linked Views over Relational Tables</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj7AbJ0ZYCk&feature=channel" id="link-id16ad4480">Screencast Demonstrating Wizard based generation of RDF based Linked Data Views Part 1</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXNlcISS0aY&feature=channel" id="link-id114eb720">Screencast Demonstrating Wizard based generation of RDF based Linked Data Views Part 1</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VirtSponger" id="link-id116e5810">Generating RDF based Linked Data from non RDF based Web Resources via the Sponger</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VirtAdoNet35Provider" id="link-id16706118">Building ADO.NET based Entity Frameworks Views over Relational Data</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VirtSilverlightSPARQLExample" id="link-id139c1278">Building Silverlight Rich Internat Applicaitons using ADO.NET, Entity Frameworks, and RDF based Linked Data</a>.</li> </ul>
Re-introducing the Virtuoso Virtual Database Engine
2010-02-17T21:46:53Z
2010-02-17T16:46:53-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1590
<p> Here are 5 powerful benefits you can immediately derive from the combination of <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com" id="link-id17eb8988">Virtuoso</a> and Amazon's AWS services (specifically the EC2 and EBS components): <br /> </p> <ol> <li> Acquire your own personal or service specific <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Spaces" id="link-id1423e520">data space</a> in the Cloud. Think DBase, Paradox, FoxPRO, Access of yore, but with the power of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Oracle_Database" id="link-id136c6290">Oracle</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/IBM_Informix" id="link-id11b269b8">Informix</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Microsoft_SQL_Server" id="link-id138084b8">Microsoft SQL Server</a> etc.. using a Conceptual, as opposed to solely Logical, model based DBMS (i.e., a Hybrid DBMS Engine for: <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SQL" id="link-id132a7938">SQL</a>, RDF, XML, and Full Text) </li> <li> Ability to share and control access to your resources using innovations like <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Friend_of_a_friend" id="link-id17ee9d28">FOAF</a>+SSL, OpenID, and OAuth, all from one place </li> <li> Construction of personal or organization based FOAF profiles in a matter of minutes; by simply creating a basic DBMS (or <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/OpenLink_Data_Spaces" id="link-id14784ae0">ODS</a> application layer) account; and then using this profile to create strong links (references) to all your Data silos (esp. those from the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a> 2.0 realm) </li> <li> Load data sets from the <a href="http://community.linkeddata.org/dataspace/organization/lod#this" id="link-id17e6ac98">LOD</a> cloud or Sponge existing Web resources (i.e., on the fly data transformation to RDF model based <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id17e65d38">Linked Data</a>) and then use the combination to build powerful lookup services that enrich the value of URLs (think: Web addressable reports holding query results) that you publish </li> <li> Bind all of the above to a domain that you own (e.g. a .Name domain) so that you have an attribution-friendly "authority" component for resource URLs and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id118a08d8">Entity</a> URIs published from your Personal Linked Data Space on the Web (or private HTTP network). </li> </ol> <p> In a nutshell, the AWS Cloud infrastructure simplifies the process of generating Federated presence on the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Internet" id="link-id1380af38">Internet</a> and/or <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web" id="link-id11633b10">World Wide Web</a>. Remember, centralized networking models always end up creating data silos, in some <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Context_%28language_use%29" id="link-id142006f0">context</a>, ultimately! :-) </p>
5 Game Changing Things about the OpenLink Virtuoso + AWS Cloud Combo
2010-02-01T13:59:36Z
2010-02-01T08:59:36-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1512
<p>Happy New Year!</p> <p>In 2009 I hope the following happens re. "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id15acc7d0">Linked Data</a>":</p> <ol> <li>We realize it's a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Meme" id="link-id1101eb90">Meme</a> </li> <li>We collectively connect the Meme to the concept of granular hyperlinks between <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">data</a> entities/objects (datum to datum linkage aka. <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id113d96a0">Hyperdata</a> Linking)</li> <li>We generally connect the Meme to technology ancestry such as the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity-attribute-value_model" id="link-id1136d980">Entity-Attribute-Value with Classes & Relationships</a> (EAV/CR) data model (then broader commonality with erstwhile unrelated realms will be unveiled e.g., <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/ADO.NET_Entity_Framework" id="link-id1122ab80">Entity Frameworks from Microsoft</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Core_Data" id="link-id138b5b28">Core Data from Apple</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpledb" id="link-id118576d0">SimpleDB</a> from Amazon, and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freebase_(database)" id="link-id19107a90">Freebase Graph Model DB</a> amongst others)</li> <li>We instinctively connect the Meme to the concept of Entity Oriented Data Access and Management (RDF based Linked Data is basically EAV/CR scheme that uses HTTP based Pointers for Entity, Attribute, and Relationship Identifiers)</li> <li>We naturally connect the Meme with the notion that an identifier for a unit of data (aka. Datum) should be the conduit to a negotiable representation of said Datum's description (i.e., it's attribute and relationship properties in HTML, XHTML, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/RDFa" id="link-id151cc688">RDFa</a>, Turtle, N3, RDF/XML etc., for example)</li> <li>We ultimately connect the Meme with a conceptual-level approach to data integration across disparate data sources (also known as <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Master_Data_Management" id="link-id1596b8d8">Master Data Management</a> (MDM) ).</li> </ol> <p> 2009 is about a reboot on a monumental scale. We need new thinking, new technology, new approaches, and new solutions. No matter what route we take, we can't negate the importance of "Data". When dealing with organic or inorganic computers systems -- Data is simply everything!</p> <p> The ability of individuals and enterprises to access, mesh, and disseminate data to relevant nodes across public and private networks will ultimately determine the winners and losers in the new frontier, ushered in by 2009.</p> <p> Do not take data access and data management technology for granted. User interfaces come and ago, application logic comes and goes, but your data stays with you forever. If you are mystified by data access technology then make 2009 the year of data access technology demystification :-) </p> <h3>Related</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/oerling/?id=1510" id="link-id11246da8">Linked Data & The Year 2009</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=data%20access&type=text&output=html" id="link-id11848a20">Various posts from my blog space</a> </li> </ul>
My Hopes for Linked Data in 2009 (Update #2)
2009-01-07T02:35:19Z
2009-01-06T21:35:19.000002-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1491
<h3>What is Neurocommons?</h3> <p>Excerpted from the <a href="http://neurocommons.org/" id="link-id142131b8">project home page</a>:</p> <blockquote> <cite>The NeuroCommons project seeks to make all scientific research materials - research articles, annotations, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">data</a>, physical materials - as available and as useable as they can be. We do this by both fostering practices that render <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information" id="link-id112f8418">information</a> in a form that promotes uniform access by computational agents - sometimes called "interoperability". We want <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Knowledge" id="link-id1195f9b0">knowledge</a> sources to combine meaningfully, enabling semantically precise queries that span multiple information sources.</cite> </blockquote> <p>In a nutshell, a great project that makes practical use of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id0x1e945010">Linked Data</a> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Giant_Global_Graph" id="link-id115de818">Web</a> technology in the areas of computational biology and neuroscience.</p> <h3>What is <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com" id="link-id0xa1eda880">Virtuoso</a> and Neurocommons AMI for EC2?</h3> <p>A pre-installed and fully tuned edition of Virtuoso that includes a fully configured Neurocommons Knowledgebase (in RDF <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id114d8c88">Linked Data</a> form) on Amazon's EC2 Cloud platform.</p> <h3>Benefits?</h3> <p>Generally, it provides a no-hassles mechanism for instantiating personal-, organization-, or service-specific instances of a very powerful research knowledgebase within approximately 1.15 hours compared to a lengthy rebuild from RDF source data alternative that takes 14 hours or more, depending on machine hardware configuration and host operating system resources.</p> <h3>Features:</h3> <ol> <li> <a href="http://blogs.usnet.private:8893/sparql.neurocommons.org" id="link-id154c5710">Neurocommons public instance</a> functionality replica (re. RDF and (X)HTML resource description representations & <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id1188e5f0">SPARQL</a> endpoint)</li> <li> Local <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-id117092a8">URI</a> de-referencing (so no contention with public endpoint) as part of the RDF Linked Data Deployment</li> <li> Fully tuned Virtuoso instance for neurocommons knowledgebase. </li> </ol> <h3>Installation Guide</h3> Simply read the <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VirtEC2AMINeuroCommonsInstall" id="link-id15267570">Virtuoso+NeuroCommons EC2 AMI installation guide</a>. <h3>Related</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="http://sciencecommons.org/about/science-commons-dylan-video/" id="link-id14cb22f0">Science Commons Video</a> </li> </ul>
Virtuoso+Neurocommons EC2 AMI released! (Update - 1)
2008-12-11T03:48:49Z
2008-12-10T22:48:49-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1463
<p>Thanks to RDF and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id1cf5c700">Linked Data</a>, it's becoming a lot easier for us to explain and reveal the depth of the OpenLink technology portfolio.</p> <p>Here is a look at our offerings by product family:</p> <ul> <li> <a href="http://data.openlinksw.com/about/html/http://data.openlinksw.com/oplweb/product_family/uda" id="link-id1161c6d0">Universal Data Access Drivers</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://data.openlinksw.com/about/html/http://data.openlinksw.com/oplweb/product_family/virtuoso" id="link-id17945fc8">Virtuoso</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://data.openlinksw.com/about/html/http://data.openlinksw.com/oplweb/product_family/dca" id="link-id10f899c0">Distributed Collaborative Applications</a> (DCA)</li> <li> <a href="http://data.openlinksw.com/oplweb/product_family/development" id="link-id1c55ac70">Developer Kits & Frameworks</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://data.openlinksw.com/oplweb/product_family/utilities" id="link-id1a735e50">Benchamark & Diagnostic Utilities</a> </li> </ul> <p>As you explore the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Resource_Description_Framework" id="link-id10fc4af8">Linked Data graph</a> exposed via our product portfolio, I expect you to experience, or at least spot, the virtuous potential of high SDQ (<a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1442" id="link-id13847698">Serendipitous Discovery Quotient</a>) courtesy of Linked Data, which is <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a> 3.0's answer to <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Search_engine_optimization" id="link-id115ad4f0">SEO</a>. For instance, how <a href="http://linkeddata.uriburner.com/about/html/http://data.openlinksw.com/oplweb/dbms_family/Oracle" id="link-id1cda63c8">Database</a>, <a href="http://data.openlinksw.com/oplweb/opsys_family/Windows" id="link-id1a803f18">Operating System</a>, and <a href="http://data.openlinksw.com/oplweb/processor/universal_1" id="link-id19cbaba0">Processor</a> family paths in the product portfolio graph (data network) unveil a lot more about <a href="http://linkeddata.uriburner.com/about/html/http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/organization/openlink%23this" id="link-ide9b7070">OpenLink Software</a> than meets the proverbial "eye" :-)</p>
Dog-fooding: Linked Data and OpenLink Product Portfolio
2008-10-24T22:13:50Z
2008-10-24T18:13:50-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1437
<p>All enterprises run IS/MIS/EIS systems that are supposed to enable optimized exploitation of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">data</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information" id="link-id1408bee8">information</a>, and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Knowledge" id="link-id14c429a8">knowledge</a>. Unfortunately, applications, services (SOAP or REST), database engines, middleware, operating systems, programming languages, development frameworks, network protocols, network topologies, or some other piece of infrastructure, eventually lay claim (possessively) to the data.</p> <p>Courtesy of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id10f98db8">Linked Data</a>, we are now able to extend the "document to document" linking mechanism of the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a> (Hypertext Linking) to more granular "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id14410810">entity</a> to <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id10dbb420">entity</a>" level linking. And in doing so, we have a layer of abstraction that in one swoop alleviates all of the infrastructure oriented data access impediments of yore. I know this sounds simplistic, but be rest assured, imbibing <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id14b6af20">Linked Data</a>'s value proposition is really just that simple, once you engage solutions (e.g. <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com" id="link-id14ce6a20">Virtuoso</a>) that enable you to deploy <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id1151c718">Linked Data</a> across your enterprise.</p> <h3>Example: </h3> <p>Microsoft ACCESS, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SQL" id="link-id14ef3b08">SQL</a> Server, and <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com" id="link-id10d865b8">Virtuoso</a> all use the Northwind <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SQL" id="link-id10b04250">SQL</a> DB Schema as the basis of the demonstration database shipped with each DBMS product. This schema is comprised of common IS/MIS entities that include: Customers, Contacts, Orders, Products, Employees etc.</p> <p>What we all really want to do as data, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information" id="link-id110dd7a0">information</a>, and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Knowledge" id="link-id11484408">knowledge</a> consumers and/or dispatchers, is be no more than a single "mouse click" away from relevant data/<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information" id="link-id10c755c8">information</a>/<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Knowledge" id="link-id1464ac88">knowledge</a> data access and/or exploration. Even better (but not always so obvious), we also want anyone in our network (company, division, department, cube-cluster) to inherit these data access efficiencies.</p> <p>In this example, the <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/Northwind/Customer/ALFKI" id="link-id14ab8ed0">Web Page about the Customer "ALKI"</a> provides <a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/person/kidehen#this" id="link-id14bdb360">me</a> with a myriad of exploration and data access paths e.g., when I click on the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Friend_of_a_friend" id="link-id10c388e0">foaf</a>:primarytopic property value link.</p> <p>This simple example, via a single Web Page, should put to rest any doubts about the utility of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id0xb042fd8">Linked Data</a>. Of course this is <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=alfki&type=text&output=html" id="link-id10ccccf0">an old demo</a>, but this time around the UI is minimalist as my prior attempts skipped a few steps i.e., starting from within a <a href="http://ode.openlinksw.com" id="link-id10f8a530">Linked Data explorer/browser</a>.</p> <p>Important note: I haven't exported <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SQL" id="link-id0x16dfc2a0">SQL</a> into an RDF data warehouse, I am converting the SQL into RDF <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data">Linked Data</a> on the fly which has two fundamental benefits:</p> <ol> <li>No vulnerability to changes in the source DBMS</li> <li>Superior performance over the RDF warehouse since the source schema is SQL based and I can leverage the optimization of the underlying SQL engine when translating between <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id0xd9a4030">SPARQL</a> and SQL.</li> </ol> <p>Enjoy!</p> <h3>Related</h3> <ol> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/oerling/weblog/Orri%20Erling%27s%20Blog/1434" id="link-id11338a48">Requirements for Relational to RDF Mapping</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/oerling/weblog/Orri%20Erling%27s%20Blog/1433" id="link-id10d84278">Handling Graph Transitivity in a SQL/RDF Hybrid Engine</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/oerling/weblog/Orri%20Erling%27s%20Blog/1431" id="link-id10c762e8">How Virtuoso handles the Web Aspects of Linked Data Queries</a>.</li> </ol>
Business Value of Linked Data (Enterprise Angle)?
2008-09-11T19:52:48Z
2008-09-11T15:52:48.000050-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1420
<p>There are many challenges that have dogged attempts to mesh the DBMS & Object Technology realms for years, critical issues include:</p> <ol> <li><a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">data</a> access & manipulation impedance arising from Model mismatches between Relational Databases and Object Oriented & Object based Languages</li> <li> Record / Data Object Referencing by ID. </li> </ol> <p>The big deal about <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resourcei/Language_Integrated_Query" id="link-id101df2c0">LINQ</a> has been the singular focus on addressing point 1, in particular.</p> <p>I've already written about the Linq2Rdf effort that meshes the best of .NET with the virtues of the "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id10193ae8">Linked Data</a> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Giant_Global_Graph" id="link-id17143870">Web</a>". </p> <p>Here is an architecture diagram that seeks to illustrate the powerful data access and manipulation options that the combination of Linq2RDF and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id10595ce0">Linked Data</a> deliver:</p> <br /> <img src="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/Whitepapers/html/linqtordf/linqtordf2.png" /> <p>What may not have been obvious to most in the past, is the fact that Mapping from Object Models to Relational Models wasn't really the solution to the problem at hand. Instead, the mapping should have been the other way around i.e., Relational to Object Model mapping. The emergence of RDF and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Relational_database_management_system" id="link-id11e5a240">RDBMS</a> to RDF mapping technology is what makes this age-old headache addressable in very novel ways.</p> <h3>Related</h3> <ol> <li> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/presentations/RDF_Mapping_Presentation_W3C_workshop3/RDF_Mapping_Presentation_W3C_workshop3.html" id="link-id10a9aa08">RDBMS to RDF Mapping</a> - W3C Workshop Presentation </li> <li> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/presentations/Virtuoso_Relational_to_RDF_Mapping/Virtuoso_Relational_to_RDF_Mapping.html" id="link-id16d47330">Virtuoso RDBMS to RDF Mapping</a> - W3C Rdb2Rdf Incubator Group Presentation </li> <li> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/presentations/Virtuoso_RDF_Views/Virtuoso_RDF_Views_1.html" id="link-id1403c4c8">Creating RDF Views over SQL Data Sources</a> - Technology Tutorial</li> </ol>
Virtuoso, Linked Data, and Linq2Rdf (Update 1)
2008-08-27T11:51:23Z
2008-08-27T07:51:23.000002-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1332
<p>I just listen to, and very much enjoyed (lots of chuckling) <a href="http://www.dajobe.org/" id="link-id177310c8">Dave Beckett</a>'s podcast interview on the <a href="http://talk.talis.com/" id="link-id1056ec98">Talis podcast network</a>. Clearly Dave has a bent for funny project names etc.. He also introduced "Inter-Webs" (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">Data</a> Spaces in my parlance) towards the end of the interview.</p> <p> <a href="http://www.mediaslate.org/wp/about/" id="link-idfc558f0">Trent Adams</a>, <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/0/49b/4b5" id="link-id107137b0">Steve Greenberg</a>, and I, also had a podcast chat about <a href="http://www.mediaslate.org/wp/2008/03/29/dataportability-in-motion-podcast/" id="link-id10663ec8">Web Data Portability and Accessibility (Linked Data)</a>. I also remixed <a href="http://www.johnbreslin.com/" id="link-id104617f0">Jon Breslin</a>'s "<a href="http://www.slideshare.net/Cloud/dataportability-and-me-introducing-sioc-foaf-and-the-semantic-web/" id="link-id12ca2c70">Data Portability & Me</a>" presentation to produce: "<a href="http://www.slideshare.net/Cloud/data-accessibility-and-me-introducing-sioc-foaf-and-the-linked-data-web/" id="link-idfdf0cd8">Data Accessibility & Me</a>". </p> <p>The podcasts interviews and presentations provide contributions to the broadening discourse about Open Data Access / Connectivity on the Web.</p>
Recent Data Portability, Linked Data, and Open Data Access Podcasts
2008-04-09T17:22:23Z
2008-04-09T13:22:23.000002-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1129
<blockquote> <p> <a href="http://ajaxian.com/archives/oat-openajax-alliance-compliant-toolkit">OAT: OpenAjax Alliance Compliant Toolkit</a>: "</p> <p>Ondrej Zara and his team at Openlink Software have created a Openlink Software JS Toolkit, known as OAT. It is a full-blown JS framework, suitable for developing<br /> rich applications with special focus to data access.</p> <p>OAT works standalone, offers vast number of widgets and has some rarely seen features, such as on-demand library loading (which reduces the total amount of downloaded JS code).</p> <p>OAT is one of the first JS toolkits which show full OpenAjax Alliance conformance: see the appropriate <a href="http://www.openajax.org/member/wiki/InteropFest_2007_March)">wiki page</a> and <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/JS/openajax/HubTest-OATConformance.html">conformance test page</a>.</p> <p>There is a lot to see with this toolkit:</p> <p>You can see some of the widgets in a <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/JS/demo/index.html">Kitchen sink application</a> </p> <p>Sample data access applications:</p> <ul> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/JS/qbe/index.html">SQL Query By Example</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/JS/formdesigner/index.html">Forms designer</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/JS/designer/index.html">DB Designer</a> </li> </ul> <p>OAT is Open Source and GPL’ed over at <a href="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=168143">sourceforge</a> and the team has recently managed to incorporate our OAT data access layer as a<br /> module to <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/JS/dojo-oatstore-demo/test_OATStore_in_FilteringTable.html">dojo datastore</a>.</p> <p>(Via <a href="http://ajaxian.com">Ajaxian Blog</a>.)</p> </blockquote> <p>This is a corrected version of the initial post. Unfortunately, the initial post was inadvertently littered with invalid links :-( Also, since the original post we have released <a href="http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_id=31568932&forum_id=49207">OAT 1.2</a> that includes integration of our iSPARQL QBE into the OAT Form Designer application.</p> <p>Re. Data Access, It is important to note that OAT's Ajax Database Connectivity layers supports data binding to the following data source types:</p> <ol> <li> <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-primer/">RDF</a> - via <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/JS/demo/index.html?dav">SPARQL</a> (Query Language, Protocol, and Resultset Serialization formats: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JDBC">RDF/XML</a>, <a href="http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/Notation3">RDF/N3</a>, <a href="http://www.dajobe.org/2004/01/turtle/">RDF/Turtle</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML">XML</a>, and <a href="http://www.json.org/">JSON</a>)</li> <li> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL">SQL</a> - via <a href="http://www.xmla.org/faq.asp">XMLA</a> (somewhat forgotten <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOAP">SOAP</a> protocol for SQL Data Access that can sit atop <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Database_Connectivity">ODBC</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADO.NET">ADO.NET</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLE_DB">OLE-DB</a>, and even <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JDBC">JDBC</a>)</li> <li>XML - via SOAP or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representational_State_Transfer">REST</a> style Web Services</li> </ol> In all cases, OAT also provides Data Aware controls for the above that include: <ol> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlnksw.com/DAV/JS/demo/index.html?grid">Tabular Grids</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/JS/demo/index.html?pivot">Pivot Tables</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlnksw.com/DAV/JS/demo/index.html?timeline">TimeLines</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/JS/demo/index.html?anchor">Extended Anchor Tags</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlnksw.com/DAV/JS/demo/index.html?mashups">Map Service Controls</a> (Google, Yahoo!, OpenLayers, Microsoft Visual Earth)</li> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/JS/demo/index.html?rdf">SVG based RDF Graph Control</a> (Opera 9.x provides best viewing experience at the current time)</li> </ol> <p>OAT also includes a number of prototype applications that are completely developed using OAT Controls and Libraries:</p> <ol> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlnksw.com/isparql/">Visual SPARQL Query Builder</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/JS/qbe/index.html">Visual SQL Query Builder</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/JS/formdesigner/index.html">Web Forms Designer</a> (includes Drag-Drop usage of Data Aware Controls etc.)</li> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/JS/designer/index.html">Visual DB Designer</a> </li> </ol> <p>Note: Pick "Local DSN" from page initialization dialog's drop-down list control when prompted</p>
OAT: OpenAjax Alliance Compliant Toolkit (Live Links Version)
2007-02-02T15:29:55Z
2007-02-02T10:29:55-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1100
<p>The W3C RDF Data Access Working Group recently released an initial public Working Draft specification for "<a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/WD-rdf-dawg-uc-20040602/"><font color="#000000">RDF Data Access Use Cases and Requirements</font></a>". Naturally, this triggered discussion on the RDF mailing list along the following lines:</p> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="margin-right: 0px;"> <p>In section, 4.1 Human-friendly Syntax, you say<font size="4"><b> </b></font>"There must be a text-based form of the query language which can be read and written by users of the language", and you list the status as "pending".</p> <p>As background for section 4.1, you may be interested in <a href="http://www.aifb.uni-karlsruhe.de/WBS/pha/rdf-query/">RDFQueryLangComparison1</a> (original text replaced with live link).<br /> <br />It shows how to write queries in a form that includes English meanings.<br /> <br />The example queries can be run by pointing a browser to <a eudora="autourl" href="http://www.reengineeringllc.com/" title="http://www.reengineeringllc.com/">www.reengineeringllc.com</a> .<br /> <br />Perhaps importantly, given the intricacy of RDF for nonprogrammers, one can get an English explanation of the result of each query.<br /> <br />-- Dr. Adrian Walker of <a href="https://www.reengineeringllc.com/ibl_login.html#about">Internet Business Logic </a> </p> </blockquote> <p dir="ltr">The Semantic Web continues to take shape, and Infonauts (information centric agents) are already taking <a href="http://www.reengineeringllc.com/IBL_tutorial_part1.html">shape</a>.</p> <p dir="ltr">A great thing about the net is the "back to the future" nature of most Web and Internet technology. For instance we are now frenzied about Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), Event Drivent Architecture (EDA), Loose Coupling of Composite Services etc. Basically rehashing the CORBA vision.</p> <p dir="ltr">I see the Semantic Web playing a similar role in relation to artificial intelligence. </p> <p dir="ltr">BTW - It still always comes down to data, and as you can imagine <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/virtuoso">Virtuoso</a> will be playing its usual role of alleviating the practical implementation and ulization challenges of all of the above :-)</p> <p dir="ltr"> </p>
Comparison of RDF Query Languages
2006-12-14T20:53:29Z
2006-12-14T15:53:29-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1048
<p>I have written extensively about "<a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=presence%0D%0A&type=text&output=html">Presence</a>", "<a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=%27data%20spaces%27&type=text&output=html">Data Spaces</a>", and "<a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=open%20data%20access&type=text&output=html">Open Access to Data</a>". What I haven't emphasized is how "Identity" brings this together, primarily becuase I didn't have something to demonstrate, or point to, coherently etc..</p> <p>Anyway, we now have <a href="http://openid.net/">OpenID</a> support in OpenLink Data Spaces (ODS) which coincides nicely with the <a href="http://www.openidenabled.com/software">growing support of OpenID</a> across the web. </p> <p>The beauty of OpenID support in ODS is that I now have a URL that meshes with my identity (at least in line with what I have chosed to share with the public via the Web). For instance, http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com is my OpenID as well as my personal URI (you look closer at this link and you have a map of my Data Space).</p> <p>To really understand what I am getting at here you should open up <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinkswl.com">My OpenID URL</a> using one of the following:</p> <ol> <li> <a href="http://sioc-project.org/firefox">Semantic Radar</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://simile.mit.edu/piggy-bank/">PiggyBank</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://esw.w3.org/topic/SIOC/Implementations">SIOC Enabled Wiki</a> </li> </ol> <p> To be continued.... </p> <p> </p>
OpenID meets Data Spaces etc..
2006-09-26T05:42:04Z
2006-09-26T01:42:04.000001-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1030
<p>Note: An updated version of a previously unpublished blog post:</p> <p> Continuing from <a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2006/04/28.html">our recent Podcast conversation</a>, Jon Udell sheds further insight into the essence of our conversation via a “Strategic Developer” column article titled: <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/redirect?source=rss&url=http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/05/03/77873_19OPstrategic_1.html">Accessing the web of databases</a>. </p> <p> Below, I present an initial dump of a DataSpace FAQ below that hopefully sheds light on the DataSpace vision espoused during my podcast conversation with Jon. </p> <p> What is a DataSpace? <br /> </p> <p>A moniker for Web-accessible atomic containers that manage and expose Data, Information, Services, Processes, and Knowledge. </p> <p> What would you typically find in a Data Space? Examples include: </p> <ul> <li>Raw Data - SQL, HTML, XML (raw), XHTML, RDF etc.<br /> <br /> </li> <li>Information (Data In Context) - XHTML (various microformats), Blog Posts (in RSS, Atom, RSS-RDF formats), Subscription Lists (OPML, OCS, etc), Social Networks (FOAF, XFN etc.), and many other forms of applied XML.</li> </ul> <ul> <li>Web Services (Application/Service Logic) - REST or SOAP based invocation of application logic for context sensitive and controlled data access and manipulation.</li> </ul> <ul> <li>Persisted Knowledge - Information in actionable context that is also available in transient or persistent forms expressed using a Graph Data Model. A modern knowledgebase would more than likely have RDF as its Data Language, RDFS as its Schema Language, and OWL as its Domain Definition (Ontology) Language. Actual Domain, Schema, and Instance Data would be serialized using formats such as RDF-XML, N3, Turtle etc).</li> </ul> <p> How do Data Spaces and Databases differ? <br />Data Spaces are fundamentally problem-domain-specific database applications. They offer functionality that you would instinctively expect of a database (e.g. AICD data management) with the additonal benefit of being data model and query language agnostic. Data Spaces are for the most part DBMS Engine and Data Access Middleware hybrids in the sense that ownership and control of data is inherently loosely-coupled. </p> <p>How do Data Spaces and Content Management Systems differ?<br />Data Spaces are inherently more flexible, they support multiple data models and data representation formats. Content management systems do not possess the same degree of data model and data representation dexterity. </p> <p>How do Data Spaces and Knowledgebases differ?<br />A Data Space cannot dictate the perception of its content. For instance, what I may consider as knowledge relative to my Data Space may not be the case to a remote client that interacts with it from a distance, Thus, defining my Data Space as Knowledgebase, purely, introduces constraints that reduce its broader effectiveness to third party clients (applications, services, users etc..). A Knowledgebase is based on a Graph Data Model resulting in significant impedance for clients that are built around alternative models. To reiterate, Data Spaces support multiple data models. </p> <p> What Architectural Components make up a Data Space? </p> <ul> <li>ORDBMS Engine - for Data Modeling agility (via complex purpose specific data types and data access methods), Data Atomicity, Data Concurrency, Transaction Isolation, and Durability (aka ACID).<br /> <br /> </li> <li>Virtual Database Engine - for creating a single view of, and access point to, heterogeneous SQL, XML, Free Text, and other data. This is all about Virtualization at the Data Access Level.</li> </ul> <ul> <li>Web Services Platform - enabling controlled access and manipulation (via application, service, or protocol logic) of Virtualized or Disparate Data. This layer handles the decoupling of functionality from monolithic wholes for function specific invocation via Web Services using either the SOAP or REST approach.</li> </ul> <br />Where do Data Spaces fit into the Web's rapid evolution?<br />They are an essential part of the burgeoning Data Web / Semantic Web. In short, they will take us from data “Mash-ups” (combining web accessible data that exists without integration and repurposing in mind) to “Mesh-ups” (combining web accessible data that exists with integration and repurposing in mind).<p> Where can I see a DataSpace along the lines described, in action? </p> <p> Just look at my blog, and take the journey as follows: </p> <ul> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/%7Ekidehen/">Front Door</a> (Web 1.0)</li> <li>Lounge (Web 2.0) via <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/GData/127">GData</a> or <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&type=text&kwds=%27semantic+web%27&OpenSearch">OpenSearch</a> </li> <li>Floor Plan via <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/about.rdf">FOAF</a> or <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/sioc.rdf">SIOC</a> RDF Data Sets (Graphs)</li> <li>Rest of the house (beyond Web 2.0) sending <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/VOSODSSparqlSamples">SPARQL Queries</a> to a <a href="http://myopenlink.net:8890/sparql/">SPARQL Endpoint</a>.<br /> </li> </ul> <p> What about other Data Spaces? </p> <p> There are several and I will attempt to categorize along the lines of query method available: <br />Type 1 (Free Text Search over HTTP): <br />Google, MSN, Yahoo!, Amazon, eBay, and most Web 2.0 plays . </p> <p> Type 2 (Free Text Search and XQuery/XPath over HTTP) <br />A few blogs and Wikis (Jon Udell's and a few others)</p>Type 3 (RDF Data Sets and SPARQL Queryable):<br /> <ul> <li> <a href="http://esw.w3.org/topic/SIOC/EnabledSites">SIOC enabled sites</a> (aka points of semantic web presence)<br /> </li> <li> <a href="http://pingthesemanticweb.com/">PingTheSemantic</a> <br /> </li> </ul>Type 4 (Generic Free Text Search, OpenSearch, GData, XQuery/XPath, and SPARQL):<br />Points of Semantic Web presence such as the Data Spaces at: <br /> <ul> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com">My Blog Data Space</a> (as stated earlier in this post)<br /> </li> <li> <a href="http://myopenlink.net:8890/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com">My General Data Space</a> - (ditto; note that this is currently experimental)<br /> </li> </ul> <p>What About Data Space aware tools?<br /> <br /> </p> <ul> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/JS/oat/index.html/">OpenLink Ajax Toolkit </a>- provides Javascript Control level binding to Query Services such as XMLA for SQL, GData for Free Text, OpenSearch for Free Text, SPARQL for RDF, in addition to service specific Web Services (Web 2.0 hosted solutions that expose service specific APIs)</li> <li> <a href="http://rdfs.org/sioc/firefox">Semantic Radar </a>- a Firefox Extension</li> <li> <a href="http://pingthesemanticweb.com/">PingTheSemantic</a> - the Semantic Webs equivalent of Web 2.0's weblogs.com</li> <li> <a href="http://simile.mit.edu/piggy-bank/">PiggyBank</a> - a Firefox Extension</li> </ul> <p> </p>
Data Spaces and Web of Databases
2006-09-04T22:58:56Z
2006-09-04T18:58:56.000001-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1009
<blockquote> <p> <a href="http://vzach.blogspot.com/2006/07/web-20-self-experiment.html">Web 2.0 Self-Experiment</a>: "</p> <blockquote>I shopped for everything except food on eBay. When working with foreign-language documents, I used translations from Babel Fish. (This worked only so well. After a Babel Fish round-trip through Italian, the preceding sentence reads, 'That one has only worked therefore well.') Why use up space storing files on my own hard drive when, thanks to certain free utilities, I can store them on Gmail's servers? I saved, sorted, and browsed photos I uploaded to Flickr. I used Skype for my phone calls, decided on books using Amazon's recommendations rather than 'expert' reviews, killed time with videos at YouTube, and listened to music through customizable sites like Pandora and Musicmatch. I kept my schedule on Google Calendar, my to-do list on Voo2do, and my outlines on iOutliner. I voyeured my neighborhood's home values via Zillow. I even used an online service for each stage of the production of this article, culminating in my typing right now in Writely rather than Word. (Being only so confident that Writely wouldn't somehow lose my work -- or as Babel Fish might put it, 'only confident therefore' -- I backed it up into Gmail files.</blockquote> <a href="http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17061&ch=infotech">Interesting article</a>, Tim O'Reilly's response is <a href="http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2006/07/levels_of_the_game.html">here</a>" <p>(Via <a href="http://vzach.blogspot.com">Valentin Zacharias (Student)</a>.)</p> </blockquote> <p>Tim O'Reilly's response provides the following hierarchy for Web 2.0 based on The what he calls: "Web 2.0-ness":</p> <blockquote> <p>level 3: The application could ONLY exist on the net, and draws its essential power from the network and the connections it makes possible between people or applications. These are applications that harness network effects to get better the more people use them. EBay, craigslist, Wikipedia, del.icio.us, Skype, (and yes, Dodgeball) meet this test. They are fundamentally driven by shared online activity. The web itself has this character, which Google and other search engines have then leveraged. (You can search on the desktop, but without link activity, many of the techniques that make web search work so well are not available to you.) Web crawling is one of the fundamental Web 2.0 activities, and search applications like Adsense for Content also clearly have Web 2.0 at their heart. I had a conversation with Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, the other day, and he summed up his philosophy and strategy as "Don't fight the internet." In the hierarchy of web 2.0 applications, the highest level is to embrace the network, to understand what creates network effects, and then to harness them in everything you do.</p> <p> Level 2: The application could exist offline, but it is uniquely advantaged by being online. Flickr is a great example. You can have a local photo management application (like iPhoto) but the application gains remarkable power by leveraging an online community. In fact, the shared photo database, the online community, and the artifacts it creates (like the tag database) is central to what distinguishes Flickr from its offline counterparts. And its fuller embrace of the internet (for example, that the default state of uploaded photos is "public") is what distinguishes it from its online predecessors.</p> <p> Level 1: The application can and does exist successfully offline, but it gains additional features by being online. Writely is a great example. If you want to do collaborative editing, its online component is terrific, but if you want to write alone, as Fallows did, it gives you little benefit (other than availability from computers other than your own.) </p> <p> Level 0: The application has primarily taken hold online, but it would work just as well offline if you had all the data in a local cache. MapQuest, Yahoo! Local, and Google Maps are all in this category (but mashups like housingmaps.com are at Level 3.) To the extent that online mapping applications harness user contributions, they jump to Level 2.</p> </blockquote> <p>So, in a sense we have near conclusive confirmation that Web 2.0 is simply about APIs (typically service specific Data Silos or Walled-gardens) with little concern, understanding, or interest in truly open data access across the burgeoning "<a href="http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/05/03/77873_19OPstrategic_1.html">Web of Databases</a>". Or the<a href="http://www.w3.org/2005/Talks/0623-sb-IEEEStorConf/"> Web of "Databases and Programs"</a> that I prefer to describe as "<a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/DataSpaceFAQ">Data Spaces</a>"</p> <p>Thus, we can truly begin to conclude that Web 3.0 (Data Web) is the addition of Flexible and Open Data Access to Web 2.0; where the Open Data Access is achieved by leveraging Semantic Web deliverables such as the RDF Data Model and the SPARQL Query Language :-)</p>
Web 2.0 Self-Experiment aids Web 3.0 comprehension
2006-07-18T05:17:43Z
2006-07-18T01:17:43-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/988
<p> Last week I put out a series of screencast style demos that sought to demonstrate the core elements of our soon to be released Javascript Toolkit called OAT (<a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/oat/">OpenLink Ajax Toolkit</a>) and its Ajax Database Connectivity layer. </p> <p> The screencasts covered the following functionality realms: </p> <ol> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/%7Ekidehen/index.vspx?page=&id=982">SQL Query By Example (basic)</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/%7Ekidehen/index.vspx?page=&id=983">SQL Query By Example (advanced - pivot table construction)</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/%7Ekidehen/index.vspx?page=&id=981">Web Form Design (basic database driven map based mashup)</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/%7Ekidehen/index.vspx?page=&id=985">Web Form Design (advanced database driven map based mashup)</a> </li> </ol> <p> To bring additional clarity to the screencasts demos and OAT in general, I have saved a number of documents that are the by products of activities in the screenvcasts: </p> <ol> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/public_demos/queries/customer_qry1.xml">Live XML Document produced using SQL Query By Example (basic)</a> (you can use drag and drop columns across the grid to reorder and sort presentation)</li> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/public_demos/reports/Pivots/employee_sales_by_ship_country_pivot.xml">Live XML Document produced using QBE and Pivot Functionality</a> (you can drag and drop the aggregate columns and rows to create your own views etc..)</li> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/public_demos/reports/MapMashups/country_flags_google_frm2.xml">Basic database driven map based mashup</a> (works with FireFox, Webkit, Camino; click on pins to see national flag)</li> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/public_demos/reports/MapMashups/employee_sales_by_ship_country_pivot_google.xml">Advanced database driven map based mashup</a> (works with FireFox, Webkit, Camino; records, 36, 87, and 257 will unveil pivots via lookup pin)</li> </ol> <p> Notes: </p> <ul> <li>“Advanced”, as used above, simply means that I am embedding images (employee photos and national flags) and a database driven pivot into the map pins that serve as details lookups in classic SQL master/details type scenarios.</li> <li>The “Ajax Call In Progress..” dialog is there to show live interaction with a remote database (in this case <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com">Virtuoso</a> but this could be any ODBC, JDBC, OLEDB, ADO.NET, or XMLA accessible data source)</li> <li>The data access magic source (if you want to call it that) is XMLA - a standard that has been in place for years but completely misunderstood and as a result under utilized</li> </ul> <p> You can see a full collection of saved documents at the following locations: </p> <ul> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/public_demos/reports/MapMashups/">My Mashups demo directory</a> (Google and Yahoo! demo variants but note these do not work with Safari or IE at the current time. IE7 issues will be resolved in the next day or so) </li> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/public_demos/reports/Pivots/">My Pivots demo directory</a> (other Pivots will be added as I build and save them) </li> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/public_demos/queries/">My Saved Queries</a> (a collection of saved QBE generated queries)</li> </ul>
Contd: Ajax Database Connectivity Demos
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/973
<h2>SPARQL with SQL (Inline) </h2> <p>Virtuoso extends its SQL3 implementation with syntax for integrating SPARQL into queries and subqueries.Thus, as part of a SQL SELECT query or subquery, one can write the SPARQL keyword and a SPARQL query as part of query text processed by Virtuoso's SQL Query Processor.</p> <h4>Example 1 (basic) : </h4> <p>Using Virtuoso's Command line or the Web Based ISQL utility type in the following (note: "SQL>" is the command line prompt for the native ISQL utility): </p> <pre>SQL> sparql select distinct ?p where { graph ?g { ?s ?p ?o } };</pre> <p>Which will return the following: </p> <blockquote> <pre> p varchar ---------- http://example.org/ns#b http://example.org/ns#d http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/name http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/mbox ... </pre> </blockquote> <h4>Example 2 (a subquery variation):</h4> <pre>SQL> select distinct subseq (p, strchr (p, '#')) as fragment from (sparql select distinct ?p where { graph ?g { ?s ?p ?o } } ) as all_predicates where p like '%#%' ;</pre> <blockquote> <pre> fragment varchar ---------- #query #data #name #comment ...</pre> </blockquote> <h3>Parameterized Queries:</h3> <p>You can pass parameters to a SPARQL query using a Virtuoso-specific syntax extension. '??' or '$?' indicates a positional parameter similar to '?' in standard SQL. '??' can be used in graph patterns or anywhere else where a SPARQL variable is accepted. The value of a parameter should be passed in SQL form, i.e. this should be a number or an untyped string. An IRI ID can not be passed, but an absolute IRI can. Using this notation, a dynamic SQL capable client (ODBC, JDBC, ADO.NET, OLEDB, XMLA, or others) can execute parametrized SPARQL queries using parameter binding concepts that are common place in dynamic SQL. Which implies that existing SQL applications and development environments (PHP, Ruby, Python, Perl, VB, C#, Java, etc.) are capable of issuing SPARQL queries via their existing SQL bound data access channels against RDF Data stored in Virtuoso. </p> <p>Note: This is the Virtuoso equivalent of a <a href="http://seaborne.blogspot.com/2006/05/parameterized-queries_07.html">recently published example using Jena </a>(a Java based RDF Triple Store).</p> <h3>Example:</h3> <p>Create a Virtuoso Function by execting the following: </p> <pre>SQL> create function param_passing_demo (); { declare stat, msg varchar; declare mdata, rset any; exec ('sparql select ?s where { graph ?g { ?s ?? ?? }}', stat, msg, vector ('http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/DataAccess/tests/data/Sorting/sort-0#int1', 4 ), -- Vector of two parameters 10, -- Max. result-set rows mdata, -- Variable for handling result-set metadata rset -- Variable for handling query result-set ); return rset[0][0]; } </pre> Test new "param_passing_demo" function by executing the following: <br /> <pre>SQL> select param_passing_demo (); </pre> <p>Which returns: </p> <blockquote> <pre> callret VARCHAR _______________________________________________________________________________</pre> <pre>http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/DataAccess/tests/data/Sorting/sort-0#four</pre> <pre>1 Rows. -- 00000 msec.</pre> </blockquote> <h3> </h3> <h3>Using SPARQL in SQL Predicates:</h3> <p>A SPARQL ASK query can be used as an argument of the SQL EXISTS predicate.</p> <pre>create function sparql_ask_demo () returns varchar { if (exists (sparql ask where { graph ?g { ?s ?p 4}})) return 'YES'; else return 'NO'; }; </pre> <p> <br /> Test by executing: </p> <pre>SQL> select sparql_ask_demo (); </pre> <p>Which returns:</p> <pre>_________________________ YES</pre>
SPARQL Parameterized Queries (Virtuoso using SPARQL in SQL)
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/968
<p>Very detailed and insightful peek into the state of affairs re. database engines (Open & Closed Source).</p> <p>I added the missing piece regarding the "Virtuoso Conductor" (the Web based Admin UI for Virtuoso) to the original post below. I also added a link to our live SPARQL Demo so that anyone interested can start playing around with SPARQL and SPARQL integrated into SQL right away.</p> <p>Another good thing about this post is the vast amount of valuable links that it contains. To really appreciate this point simply visit my Linkblog (excuse the current layout :-) - a Tab if you come in via the front door of this <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/opinions/index.html">Data Space</a> (what I used to call <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/%7Ekidehen/">My Weblog Home Page</a>).</p> <blockquote> <p> <a href="http://oakleafblog.blogspot.com/2006/05/free-databases-express-vs-open-source.html">"Free" Databases: Express vs. Open-Source RDBMSs</a>: "<span style="font-family: verdana;">Open-source relational database management systems (RDBMSs) are gaining IT mindshare at a rapid pace. As an example, <em>BusinessWeek</em>'s February 6, 2006 '</span> <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2006/tc20060206_918648.htm"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Taking On the Database Giants</span> </a><span style="font-family: verdana;">' article asks 'Can open-source upstarts compete with Oracle, IBM, and Microsoft?' and then provides the answer: 'It's an uphill battle, but customers are starting to look at the alternatives.'</span> <br /> <span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span> <br /> <span style="font-family: Verdana;">There's no shortage of open-source alternatives to look at. The <em>BusinessWeek</em> article concentrates on <a href="http://www.mysql.com/">MySQL</a>, which <em>BW</em> says 'is trying to be the Ikea of the database world: cheap, needs some assembly, but has a sleek, modern design and does the job.' The article also discusses <a href="http://www.postgresql.org/">Postgre[SQL]</a> and <a href="http://www.ingres.com/products/Prod_Ingres_2006.html">Ingres</a>, as well as <a href="http://www.enterprisedb.com/">EnterpriseDB</a>, an Oracle clone created from PostgreSQL code*. Sun includes <a href="http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/postgres.jsp">PostgreSQL with Solaris 10</a> and, as of April 6, 2006, with <a href="http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/819-2183/6n4g726uc?a=view">Solaris Express</a>.**</span> <br /> <span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span> <br /> <span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="font-size: 85%;">*Frank Batten, Jr., the investor who originally funded Red Hat, invested a reported </span> <a href="http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=28201"><span style="font-size: 85%;">$16 million into Great Bridge</span> </a><span style="font-size: 85%;"> with the hope of making a business out of providing paid support to PostgreSQL users. </span> <a href="http://news.com.com/2100-1001-272715.html"><span style="font-size: 85%;">Great Bridge stayed in business only 18 months</span> </a><span style="font-size: 85%;">, having </span> <a href="http://news.com.com/2100-1001-268915.html"><span style="font-size: 85%;">missed an opportunity to sell the business to Red Hat</span> </a><span style="font-size: 85%;"> and finding that selling </span> <a href="http://news.com.com/2100-1001-269729.html"><span style="font-size: 85%;">$50,000-per-year support packages</span> </a><span style="font-size: 85%;"> for an open-source database wasn't easy. As Batten concluded, 'We could not get customers to pay us big dollars for support contracts.' Perhaps EnterpriseDB will be more successful with a choice of </span> <a href="http://www.enterprisedb.com/shop.do?cID=10000&pID=10001"><span style="font-size: 85%;">$5,000, $3,000, or $1,000 annual support subscriptions</span> </a><span style="font-size: 85%;">.</span> </span> <br /> <span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span> <br /> <span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 85%;">**Interestingly, <a href="http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/2005-11/sunflash.20051115.4.xml">Oracle announced in November 2005</a> that Solaris 10 is 'its preferred development and deployment platform for most x64 architectures, including x64 (x86, 64-bit) AMD Opteron and Intel Xeon processor-based systems and Sun's UltraSPARC(R)-based systems.'</span> <br /> <br /> <span style="font-family: Verdana;">There is a surfeit of reviews of current MySQL, PostgreSQL and—to a lesser extent—Ingres implementations. These three open-source RDBMSs come with their own or third-party management tools. These systems compete against free versions of commercial (proprietary) databases: <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/sql/">SQL Server 2005 Express Edition</a> (and its MSDE 2000 and 1.0 predecessors), <a href="http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/database/xe/index.html" target="_blank">Oracle Database 10g Express Edition</a>, <a href="http://www-306.ibm.com/software/data/db2/udb/db2express/download.html" target="_blank">IBM DB2 Express-C</a>, and <a href="http://www.sybase.com/linux_promo" target="_blank">Sybase ASE Express Edition for Linux</a> where database size and processor count limitations aren't important. Click <a href="http://www.ftponline.com/special/sqlserver/rjennings-overview/table4.aspx">here</a> for a summary of recent <em>InfoWorld</em> reviews of the full versions of these four databases plus MySQL, which should be valid for Express editions also. The <a href="http://www.ftponline.com/special/sqlserver/">FTPOnline Special Report</a> article, 'Microsoft SQL Server Turns 17,' that contains the preceding table is <a href="http://www.ftponline.com/special/sqlserver/rjennings-overview/">here</a> (requires registration.)</span> <br /> <br /> </p> <p> <strong><span style="font-family: verdana;">SQL Server 2005 Express Edition SP-1 Advanced Features</span> </strong> </p> <p> <span style="font-family: Verdana;"><a href="http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=4C6BA9FD-319A-4887-BC75-3B02B5E48A40&displaylang=en">SQL Server 2005 Express Edition with Advanced Features</a> enhances SQL Server 2005 Express Edition (SQL Express or SSX) dramatically, so it deserves special treatment here. SQL Express gains full text indexing and now supports SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) on the local SSX instance. The SP-1 with Advanced Features setup package, which Microsoft released on April 18, 2006, installs the release version of SQL Server Management Studio Express (SSMSE) and the full version of Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS) for designing and editing SSRS reports. My '<a href="http://www.ftponline.com/special/sqlserver/rjennings-sp1/">Install SP-1 for SQL Server 2005 and Express</a>' article for FTPOnline's <a href="http://www.ftponline.com/special/sqlserver/">SQL Server Special Report</a> provides detailed, illustrated installation instructions for and related information about the release version of SP-1. SP-1 makes SSX the most capable of all currently available Express editions of commercial RDBMSs for Windows.</span> </p> <p> <strong><span style="font-family: verdana;">OpenLink Software's Virtuoso Open-Source Edition</span> </strong> <br /> <span style="font-family: verdana;"></span> <br /> <span style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="http://openlinksw.com/">OpenLink Software</a> announced an <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/">open-source version</a> of it's <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/">Virtuoso Universal Server</a> commercial DBMS on April 11, 2006. On the initial date of this post, May 2, 2006, Virtuoso Open-Source Edition (VOS) was virtually under the radar as an open-source product. According to <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/press/VOSPressRelease.htm">this press release</a>, the new edition includes:</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span> </p> <blockquote> <span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span> </blockquote> <blockquote></blockquote> <blockquote></blockquote> <ul> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/sparql_demo/">SPARQL compliant RDF Triple Store</a> </li> <li>SQL-200n Object-Relational Database Engine (SQL, XML, and Free Text) </li> <li>Integrated BPEL Server and Enterprise Service Bus</li> <li>WebDAV and Native File Server </li> <li>Web Application Server that supports PHP, Perl, Python, ASP.NET, JSP, etc. </li> <li>Runtime Hosting for Microsoft .NET, Mono, and Java </li> </ul>VOS only lacks the virtual server and replication features that are offered by the commercial edition. VOS includes a Web-based administration tool called the "Virtuoso Conductor" According to <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/%7Ekidehen/index.vspx?page=&id=951&sid=&realm=">Kingsley Idehen's Weblog</a>, 'The Virtuoso build scripts have been successfully tested on Mac OS X (Universal Binary Target), Linux, FreeBSD, and Solaris (AIX, HP-UX, and True64 UNIX will follow soon). A Windows Visual Studio project file is also in the works (ETA some time this week).'<br /> <br /> <em>InfoWorld</em>'s Jon Udell has tracked Virtuoso's progress since <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/article/02/04/12/020415plvirtuoso_1.html">2002</a>, with an <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/03/21/12virtuoso_1.html">additional article in 2003</a> and a <a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2006/04/28.html#a1437">one-hour podcast with Kingsley Idehen</a> on April 26, 2006. A major talking point for Virtuoso is its support for Atom 0.3 syndication and publication, Atom 1.0 syndication and (forthcoming) publication, and future support for Google's <a href="http://code.google.com/apis/gdata/overview.html">GData protocol</a>, as mentioned in <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/%7Ekidehen/index.vspx?page=&id=965">this Idehen post</a>. Yahoo!'s <a href="http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/006687.html">Jeremy Zawodny</a> points out that the 'fingerprints' of <a href="http://oakleafblog.blogspot.com/2005/11/adam-bosworth-learning-from-web-and.html">Adam Bosworth</a>, Google's VP of Engineering and the primary force behind the development of Microsoft Access, 'are all over GData.' Click <a href="http://search.blogger.com/?as_q=bosworth&ie=UTF-8&ui=blg&bl_url=oakleafblog.blogspot.com&x=50&y=10">here</a> to display a list of all OakLeaf posts that mention Adam Bosworth.<br /> <br />One application for the GData protocol is querying and updating the Google Base database independently of the Google Web client, as mentioned by Jeremy: 'It's not about building an easier onramp to Google Base. ... Well, it is. But, again, that's the small stuff.' Click <a href="http://search.blogger.com/?as_q=%22google+base%22&ie=UTF-8&x=50&y=9&q=%22google+base%22+blogurl:oakleafblog.blogspot.com&filter=0&ui=blg&sa=N&start=0">here</a> for a list of posts about my experiences with Google Base. Watch for a future OakLeaf post on the subject as the GData APIs gain ground.<br /> <span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span> <br /> <span style="font-family: Verdana;"><strong>Open-Source and Free Embedded Database Contenders</strong> </span> <br /> <span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span> <br /> <span style="font-family: Verdana;">Open-source and free embedded SQL databases are gaining importance as the number and types of mobile devices and OSs proliferate. Embedded databases usually consist of Java classes or Windows DLLs that are designed to minimize file size and memory consumption. Embedded databases avoid the installation hassles, heavy resource usage and maintenance cost associated with client/server RDBMSs that run as an operating system service.</span> <br /> <br /> <span style="font-family: Verdana;">Andrew Hudson's December 2005 '<a href="http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=28201">Open Source databases rounded up and rodeoed</a>' review for The Enquirer provides brief descriptions of one commercial and eight open source database purveyors/products: Sleepycat, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Ingres, InnoBase, Firebird, IBM Cloudscape (a.k.a, Derby), Genezzo, and Oracle. Oracle <a href="http://www.sleepycat.com/">Sleepycat</a>* isn't an SQL Database, Oracle <a href="http://www.innodb.com/index.php">InnoDB</a>* is an OEM database engine that's used by MySQL, and <a href="http://www.genezzo.com/">Genezzo</a> is a multi-user, multi-server distributed database engine written in Perl. These special-purpose databases are beyond the scope of this post.</span> <br /> <br /> <span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="font-size: 85%;">* Oracle <a href="http://www.oracle.com/sleepycat/index.html">purchased Sleepycat Software, Inc. in February 2006</a> and </span> <a href="http://www.oracle.com/innodb/index.html"><span style="font-size: 85%;">purchased Innobase OY in October 2005</span> </a><span style="font-size: 85%;">. The press release states: 'Oracle intends to continue developing the InnoDB technology and expand our commitment to open source software.' </span> </span> <br /> <span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 85%;"></span> <br /> <span style="font-family: Verdana;"> <a href="http://db.apache.org/derby/"><strong>Derby</strong> </a> is an open-source release by the <a href="http://www.apache.org/">Apache Software Foundation</a> of the <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/08/03/HNcloudscape_1.html">Cloudscape Java-based database that IBM acquired</a> when it bought Informix in 2001. IBM offers a commercial release of Derby as <a href="http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/db2/library/techarticle/dm-0408cline/">IBM Cloudscape 10.1</a>. Derby is a Java class library that has a relatively light footprint (2 MB), which make it suitable for <a href="http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/db2/library/techarticle/dm-0503stumpf/">client/server synchronization</a> with the IBM DB2 Everyplace Sync Server in <a href="http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/wi-cloud/">mobile applications</a>. The IBM DB2 Everyplace Express Edition isn't open source or free*, so it doesn't qualify for this post. The same is true for the corresponding Sybase SQL Anywhere components.**</span> <br /> <br /> <br /> <p> <span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;">* IBM DB2 Everyplace Express Edition with synchronization costs $379 per server (up to two processors) and $79 per user. DB2 Everyplace Database Edition (without DB2 synchronization) is $49 per user. (Prices are based on those when </span> <a href="http://news.earthweb.com/wireless/article.php/3107101"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;">IBM announced version 8</span> </a><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;"> in November 2003.)</span> </p> <p> <span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: 85%;">** Sybase's iAnywhere subsidiary calls SQL Anywhere 'the industry's leading mobile database.' A Sybase SQL Anywhere Personal DB seat license with synchronization to SQL Anywhere Server is $119; the cost without synchronization wasn't available from the Sybase Web site. Sybase SQL Anywhere and IBM DB2 Everyplace perform similar replication functions.</span> </p> <p> <span style="font-family: Verdana;">Sun's <a href="http://developers.sun.com/prodtech/javadb/"><strong>Java DB</strong></a>, another commercial version of Derby, comes with the <a href="http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/">Solaris Enterprise Edition</a>, which bundles Solaris 10, the Java Enterprise System, developer tools, desktop infrastructure and N1 management software. A recent Between the Lines blog entry by ZDNet's David Berlind waxes enthusiastic over the use of <a href="http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=2298">Java DB embedded in a browser</a> to provide offline persistence. RedMonk analyst <a href="http://www.redmonk.com/jgovernor/archives/001151.html">James Governor</a> and <em>eWeek</em>'s <a href="http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1902407,00.asp">Lisa Vaas</a> wrote about the use of Java DB as a local data store when <a href="http://www.sauria.com/blog/2005/12/13#1440">Tim Bray announced Sun's Derby derivative</a> and <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/FrancoisOrsini?entry=derby_apachecon_demo">Francois Orsini</a> demonstrated Java DB embedded in the Firefox browser at the ApacheCon 2005 conference.</span> <br /> <span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span> <br /> <span style="font-family: Verdana;"> <a href="http://www.firebirdsql.org/"><strong>Firebird</strong> </a> is derived from Borland's InterBase 6.0 code, the first commercial relational database management system (RDBMS) to be released as open source. Firebird has excellent support for SQL-92 and comes in three versions: Classic, SuperServer and Embedded for Windows, Linux, Solaris, HP-UX, FreeBSD and MacOS X. The embedded version has a 1.4-MB footprint. Release Candidate 1 for Firebird 2.0 became available on March 30, 2006 and is a major improvement over earlier versions. <a href="http://www.borland.com/us/products/interbase/index.html">Borland continues to promote InterBase</a>, now at version 7.5, as a small-footprint, embedded database with commercial Server and Client licenses.</span> <br /> <span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span> <br /> <span style="font-family: Verdana;"> <a href="http://www.sqlite.org/index.html"><strong>SQLite</strong> </a> is a featherweight C library for an embedded database that implements most SQL-92 entry- and transitional-level requirements (some through the JDBC driver) and supports transactions within a tiny 250-KB code footprint. <a href="http://www.sqlite.org/cvstrac/wiki?p=SqliteWrappers">Wrappers</a> support a multitude of languages and operating systems, including Windows CE, SmartPhone, Windows Mobile, and Win32. SQLite's primary <a href="http://www.sqlite.org/omitted.html">SQL-92 limitations</a> are lack of nested transactions, inability to alter a table design once committed (other than with RENAME TABLE and ADD COLUMN operations), and foreign-key constraints. SQLite provides read-only views, triggers, and 256-bit encryption of database files. A downside is the the entire database file is <a href="http://weblogs.asp.net/jgalloway/archive/2006/04/12/442615.aspx">locked when while a transaction is in progress</a>. SQLite uses file access permissions in lieu of GRANT and REVOKE commands. Using SQLite involves no license; its code is entirely in the public domain.</span> </p> <p> <span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 85%;">The Mozilla Foundation's <a href="http://wiki.mozilla.org/Mozilla2:Unified_Storage">Unified Storage wiki</a> says this about SQLite: 'SQLite will be the back end for the unified store [for Firefox]. Because it implements a SQL engine, we get querying 'for free', without having to invent our own query language or query execution system. Its code-size footprint is moderate (250k), but it will hopefully simplify much existing code so that the net code-size change should be smaller. It has exceptional performance, and supports concurrent access to the database. Finally, it is released into the public domain, meaning that we will have no licensing issues.'</span> </p> <p> <span style="font-family: verdana;">Vieka Technology, Inc.'s <a href="http://vieka.com/esql.htm"><strong>eSQL 2.11</strong></a> is a port of SQLite to Windows Mobile (Pocket PC and Smartphone) and Win32, and includes development tools for Windows devices and PCs, as well as a .NET native data provider. A conventional ODBC driver also is available. eSQL for Windows (Win32) is free for personal and commercial use; eSQL for Windows Mobile requires a license for commercial (for-profit or business) use.</span> </p> <p> <span style="font-family: verdana;"> <a href="http://hsqldb.org/"><strong>HSQLDB</strong> </a> isn't on most reviewers' radar, which is surprising because it's the default database for <a href="http://www.openoffice.org/">OpenOffice.org</a> (OOo) 2.0's <a href="http://www.openoffice.org/product/base.html">Base</a> suite member. HSQLDB 1.8.0.1 is an open-source (BSD license) Java dembedded database engine based on Thomas Mueller's original Hypersonic SQL Project. Using OOo's Base feature requires installing the Java 2.0 Runtime Engine (which is not open-source) or the presence of an alternative open-source engine, such as Kaffe. My prior posts about OOo Base and HSQLDB are <a href="http://oakleafblog.blogspot.com/2005/10/openoffice-base-20-vs-microsoft-access.html">here</a>, <a href="http://oakleafblog.blogspot.com/2005/10/openoffice-base-20-vs-microsoft-access_22.html">here</a> and <a href="http://oakleafblog.blogspot.com/2005/10/openoffice-20-base-matches-microsoft.html">here</a>.</span> </p> <p> <span style="font-family: verdana;">The <a href="http://hsqldb.sourceforge.net/web/hsqlDocsFrame.html">HSQLDB 1.8.0 documentation</a> on SourceForge states the following regarding SQL-92 and later conformance:</span> </p> <span style="font-family: verdana;"> <blockquote> <p> <span style="font-family: verdana;">HSQLDB 1.8.0 supports the dialect of SQL defined by SQL standards 92, 99 and 2003. This means where a feature of the standard is supported, e.g. left outer join, the syntax is that specified by the standard text. Many features of SQL92 and 99 up to Advanced Level are supported and here is support for most of SQL 2003 Foundation and several optional features of this standard. However, certain features of the Standards are not supported so no claim is made for full support of any level of the standards. </span> </p> </blockquote> <span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: 85%;">Other less well-known embedded databases designed for or suited to mobile deployment are </span> <a href="http://www.mimer.com/leftright.asp?secId=172"><span style="font-size: 85%;">Mimer SQL Mobile</span> </a><span style="font-size: 85%;"> and </span> <a href="http://www.vistadb.net/"><span style="font-size: 85%;">VistaDB 2.1</span> </a><span style="font-size: 85%;">. Neither product is open-source and require paid licensing; VistaDB requires a small up-front payment by developers but offers royalty-free distribution.</span> </span> <br /> <br /> <span style="font-family: Verdana;">Java DB, Firebird embedded, SQLite and eSQL 2.11 are contenders for lightweight PC and mobile device database projects that aren't Windows-only.</span> <br /> <br /> <strong> <span style="font-family: verdana;">SQL Server 2005 Everywhere<br /> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span> </strong> <br /> <span style="font-family: verdana;">If you're a Windows developer, SQL Server Mobile is the logical embedded database choice for mobile applications for Pocket PCs and Smartphones. Microsoft's April 19, 2006 press release delivered the news that SQL Server 2005 Mobile Editon (SQL Mobile or SSM) would gain a big brother—SQL Server 2005 Everywhere Edition. </span> <br /> <span style="font-family: verdana;"></span> <br /> <span style="font-family: verdana;">Currently, the SSM client is licensed (at no charge) to run in production on devices with Windows CE 5.0, Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC or Windows Mobile 5.0, or on PCs with Windows XP Tablet Edition only. SSM also is licensed for development purposes on PCs running Visual Studio 2005.</span> <span style="font-family: verdana;"> Smart Device replication with SQL Server 2000 SP3 and later databases has been the most common application so far for SSM.<br /> <br /> </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">By the end of 2006, Microsoft will license SSE for use on <em>all</em> PCs running any Win32 version or the preceding device OSs. A version of SQL Server Management Studio Express (SSMSE)—updated to support SSE—is expected to release by the end of the year. These features will qualify SSE as <em>the universal embedded database</em> for Windows client and smart-device applications. </span> <br /> <br /> <span style="font-family: verdana;">For more details on SSE, read <a href="http://weblogs.asp.net/jgalloway/archive/2006/04/11/442451.aspx">John Galloway's April 11, 2006 blog post</a> and my '<a href="http://www.ftponline.com/special/sqlserver/rjennings-mobile/">SQL Server 2005 Mobile Goes Everywhere</a>' article for the <a href="http://www.ftponline.com/special/sqlserver/">FTPOnline Special Report on SQL Server</a>.</span><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span>" <p>(Via <a href="http://oakleafblog.blogspot.com">OakLeaf Systems</a>.)</p> </span> </blockquote>
"Free" Databases: Express vs. Open-Source RDBMSs
2006-07-21T11:21:57Z
2006-07-21T07:21:57.000006-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/947
<p> <a href="http://ebiquity.umbc.edu/blogger/2006/04/04/swoogle-knows-how-semantic-web-ontologies-are-used/">Swoogle knows how Semantic Web ontologies are used</a>: "</p> <xhtml:div xmlns:xhtml="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <xhtml:div> <xhtml:p> <xhtml:img src="http://swoogle.umbc.edu/images/logo_mini.png" align="right" alt="" /> </xhtml:p> <xhtml:p>The <xhtml:a href="http://dublincore.org/">Dublin Core Metadata Initiative</xhtml:a> is updating the RDF expression of DC and might add range restrictions to some properties. Mikael Nilsson wondered if we would use the <xhtml:a href="http://swoogle.umbc.edu/">Swoogle Semantic Web search engine</xhtml:a> to see what types of values are being used with DC properties.</xhtml:p> <xhtml:p>This kind of query is just the ticket for Swoogle. Well, almost. The current web-based interface supports a limited number of query types. Many more can be asked if you use SQL directly to query Swoogle’s underlying databases. We don’t want to provide a direct SQL query service over the main Swoogle database because it’s easy to ask a query that will take a looooooong time to answer and some could even crash the database server. We are planning to put up a second server with a copy of the database and we give <xhtml:em>Swoogle Power Users</xhtml:em> (SPUs) access to it.</xhtml:p> <xhtml:p>We ran a simple SQL query to generate some initial data for Mikael showing fall of the DC properties. For each one, we list all of the ranges that values were drawn from and the number of separate documents and triples for each combination. For example</xhtml:p> <xhtml:table border="1" align="center" cellpadding="6" bgcolor="#E9E9E9"> <xhtml:tr bgcolor="#333300"> <xhtml:td> <xhtml:div align="center"> <xhtml:font color="#FFFFFF"><xhtml:strong>Property</xhtml:strong> </xhtml:font> </xhtml:div> </xhtml:td> <xhtml:td> <xhtml:div align="center"> <xhtml:font color="#FFFFFF"><xhtml:strong>Range</xhtml:strong> </xhtml:font> </xhtml:div> </xhtml:td> <xhtml:td> <xhtml:div align="center"> <xhtml:font color="#FFFFFF"><xhtml:strong>Documents</xhtml:strong> </xhtml:font> </xhtml:div> </xhtml:td> <xhtml:td> <xhtml:div align="center"> <xhtml:font color="#FFFFFF"><xhtml:strong>Triples</xhtml:strong> </xhtml:font> </xhtml:div> </xhtml:td> </xhtml:tr> <xhtml:tr> <xhtml:td>dc:creater</xhtml:td> <xhtml:td>rdfs:Literal</xhtml:td> <xhtml:td> <xhtml:div align="right">32</xhtml:div> </xhtml:td> <xhtml:td> <xhtml:div align="right">648</xhtml:div> </xhtml:td> </xhtml:tr> <xhtml:tr> <xhtml:td>dc:creator</xhtml:td> <xhtml:td>rdfs:Literal</xhtml:td> <xhtml:td> <xhtml:div align="right">234655</xhtml:div> </xhtml:td> <xhtml:td> <xhtml:div align="right">2477665</xhtml:div> </xhtml:td> </xhtml:tr> <xhtml:tr> <xhtml:td>dc:creator</xhtml:td> <xhtml:td>wn:Person</xhtml:td> <xhtml:td> <xhtml:div align="right">2714</xhtml:div> </xhtml:td> <xhtml:td> <xhtml:div align="right">1138250</xhtml:div> </xhtml:td> </xhtml:tr> <xhtml:tr> <xhtml:td>dc:creator</xhtml:td> <xhtml:td>cc:Agent</xhtml:td> <xhtml:td> <xhtml:div align="right">4090</xhtml:div> </xhtml:td> <xhtml:td> <xhtml:div align="right">6359</xhtml:div> </xhtml:td> </xhtml:tr> <xhtml:tr> <xhtml:td>dc:creator</xhtml:td> <xhtml:td>foaf:Person</xhtml:td> <xhtml:td> <xhtml:div align="right">2281</xhtml:div> </xhtml:td> <xhtml:td> <xhtml:div align="right">5969</xhtml:div> </xhtml:td> </xhtml:tr> <xhtml:tr> <xhtml:td>dc:creator</xhtml:td> <xhtml:td>foaf:Agent</xhtml:td> <xhtml:td> <xhtml:div align="right">1723</xhtml:div> </xhtml:td> <xhtml:td> <xhtml:div align="right">3234</xhtml:div> </xhtml:td> </xhtml:tr> </xhtml:table> <xhtml:p>Notice that the first property in this partial table is an obvious typo. You can see the complete table as <xhtml:a href="http://www.csee.umbc.edu/~finin/noindex/dc/dcPropertiesRanges.pdf"> pdf</xhtml:a> file or as an excel <xhtml:a href="http://www.csee.umbc.edu/~finin/noindex/dc/dcPropertiesRanges.xls"> spreadsheet</xhtml:a>.</xhtml:p> <xhtml:p>[Tim Finin, UMBC ebiquity lab]</xhtml:p> </xhtml:div> </xhtml:div>" <p>(Via <a href="http://planetrdf.com/">Planet RDF</a>.)</p>
Swoogle knows how Semantic Web ontologies are used
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/888
<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">I am a Nigerian reminiscing as my country that turns 43 today (as a post-colonial independent nation). </span></span></p><p xmlns="o"></p><p xmlns="o"></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">October the 1st is an emotional day for many Nigerians, especially those of us in the Diaspora. Our country remains a paradox as the excerpts below attest:</span></p><p xmlns="o"></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">The more popular view of Nigerians as a result of the proliferation of 419 scams (the mangled by-product of misdirected intellectual prowess and the boundless depths of greed -- which applies to perpetrators and victims alike).</span></p><p xmlns="o"></p> <p style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.beblogging.com/blog/20031001-214515"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><font face="Arial" size="2">The Nigerian SCO Connection</font></span></a> "I AM MR. DARL MCBRIDE CURRENTLY SERVING AS THE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER OF THE SCO GROUP ..." [via <a href="http://www.beblogging.com/blog/"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><font face="Arial" size="2">Be Blogging</font></span></a>]</span></p><p xmlns="o"></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">Funny! But many a truth is told in jest (I think that's how the quote goes); this one is pretty damned poignant. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">Unbeknownst to many, there are other views of Nigeria (unfortunately these aren't the norm).</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">The call for optimism by our president (he doesn't support or condone the 419 nonsense):</span></p><p xmlns="o"></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"></span></p><p xmlns="o"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">President Olusegun Obasanjo urged Nigerians <a href="http://odili.net/news/source/2003/oct/1/40.html">to change their ways and be optimistic about the future</a> as <country-region xmlns="st1" xmlns:n0="w" n0:st="on">Nigeria</country-region> marks its 43rd <place xmlns="st1" xmlns:n0="w" n0:st="on"><city n0:st="on">Independence</city></place> anniversary. Read on </span></p><p xmlns="o"></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">[via <a href="http://nigeriaworld.com/"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><font face="Arial" size="2">Odili.net </font></span></a>� this site desperately needs RSS!]</span></p><p xmlns="o"></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"></span></p><p xmlns="o"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">There is an increasing pool of key high-tech players of Nigerian decent (and nationality) making constructive impact on the high-tech industry (making it <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><font face="Arial" size="2"><a href="http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/05/23/21FEinnovidehen_1.html">less lonely for myself</a> </font></span>and other Nigerians in the high-tech arena):</span></p><p xmlns="o"></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"></span></p><p xmlns="o"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.kuro5hin.org/user/Carnage4Life/diary"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><font face="Arial" size="2">Dare Obasanjo</font></span></a> is a member of Microsoft's WebData team, which among other things develops the components within the System.Xml and System.Data namespace of the .NET Framework, Microsoft XML Core Services (MSXML), and Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC). More of Dare's writings on XML can be found on his <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/voices/xml.asp"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><font face="Arial" size="2">Extreme XML column</font></span></a> on MSDN. </span></p><p xmlns="o"></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p><p xmlns="o"></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://uche.ogbuji.net/uche.ogbuji.net/caramusis/"><!--StartFragment --><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><font face="Arial" size="2">Uche Ogbuji</font></span></a> is a consultant and co-founder of Fourthought Inc., a consulting firm specializing in XML solutions for enterprise knowledge management applications. Fourthought develops 4Suite, the open source platform for XML middleware. Mr. Ogbuji is a Computer Engineer and writer born in <country-region xmlns="st1" xmlns:n0="w" n0:st="on">Nigeria</country-region>, living and working in <place xmlns="st1" xmlns:n0="w" n0:st="on"><city n0:st="on">Boulder</city>, <state n0:st="on">Colorado</state>, <country-region n0:st="on">USA</country-region></place>. <br /><b>Website</b>: <a href="http://www.fourthought.com/"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><font face="Arial" size="2">http://www.fourthought.com/</font></span></a> </span></p><p xmlns="o"></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p><p xmlns="o"></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.emeagwali.com/index.shtml"><!--StartFragment --><!--StartFragment --><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><font face="Arial" size="2">Philip Emeagwali</font></span></a>, a computer scientist, is one of the <a href="http://emeagwali.com/history/internet/index.html" _base_href="http://radioafrica.biz"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><font face="Arial" size="2">fathers of the Internet</font></span></a> and a <a href="http://www.emeagwali.com/printed-articles/upstream/natures-own-numbers-man_upstream_january-27-1997.html" target="new" _base_href="http://radioafrica.biz"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><font face="Arial" size="2">trailblazer in petroleum extraction</font></span></a>," as quoted by <a href="http://fyi.cnn.com/fyi/interactive/specials/bhm/story/black.innovators.html" target="new" _base_href="http://radioafrica.biz"><i><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><font face="Arial" size="2">CNN</font></span></i></a>. </span></p><p xmlns="o"></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"></span></p><p xmlns="o"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">Philip leaves all Nigerians with this <a href="http://emeagwali.com/speeches/nigeria/43rd-independence-anniversary-message/index.html">important message</a> on this special day (key excerpt below):</span></p><p xmlns="o"></p> <p style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">"Our investments in education and technology will be our legacy to our children. They are investments that will bring the best out of the next generation of Nigerians and enable us to reach our potential as individuals, as communities, as a nation." </span></p><p xmlns="o"></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">Happy Birthday dear motherland!</span></p> <a href="index.vspx?tag=Africa" rel="tag" style="display:none;">Africa</a><a href="index.vspx?tag=Nigeria" rel="tag" style="display:none;">Nigeria</a><a href="index.vspx?tag=xml" rel="tag" style="display:none;">xml</a>
The Nigerian SCO Connection
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/882
<p><a href="http://marc.blogs.it/">Marc Canter</a>'s <a href="http://marc.blogs.it/archives/2005/10/breaking_the_we.html">Breaking the Web Wide Open! </a> article is something I found pretty late (by my normal discovery standards). This was partly due to the pre- and post- Web 2.0 event noise levels that have dumped the description of an important industry inflection into the "Bozo Bin" of many. Personally, I think we shouldn't confuse the Web 2.0 traditional-pitch-fest conference with an attempt to identify an important industry inflection).</p><p> Anyway, Marc's article is a very refreshing read because it provides a really good insight into the general landscape of a rapidly evolving Web alongside genuine appreciation of our broader timeless pursuit of "Openness". </p><p>To really help this document provide additional value have scrapped the content of the original post and dumped it below so that we can appreciate the value of the links embedded within the article (note: thanks to Virtuoso I only had to paste the content into my blog, the extraction to my <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen/index.vspx?page=linkblog">Linkblog</a> and <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen/index.vspx?page=summary">Blog Summary</a> Pages are simply features of my <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/virtuos">Virtuoso </a>based Blog Engine):</p><blockquote><h3 class="hed2" style="padding-bottom: 10px">Breaking the Web Wide Open! (complete story)</h3><p>Even the web giants like AOL, Google, MSN, and Yahoo need to observe these open standards, or they'll risk becoming the "walled gardens" of the new web and be coolio no more.</p><p class="byline"><b><a href="http://community.alwayson-network.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/AlwaysOn.woa/wa/display?id=9254:Person">Marc Canter</a></b> [<a href="http://community.alwayson-network.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/AlwaysOn.woa/wa/display?id=9254:Person"><b>Broadband Mechanics, Inc.</b></a>] | POSTED: 09.26.05 @12:00</p><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr><td valign="TOP" class="copy1"><img src="http://community.alwayson-network.com/ao/images/thumb/19433429363e7cd6b1ecfb7.jpg" align="LEFT" border="0" width="80" style="margin: 0px 10px 5px 0px" alt="" /><i><b>Editorial Note:</b> Several months ago, AlwaysOn got a personal invitation from Yahoo founder Jerry Yang "to see and give us feedback on our new social media product, y!360." We were happy to oblige and dutifully showed up, joining a conference room full of hard-core bloggers and new, new media types. The geeks gave Yahoo 360 an overwhelming thumbs down, with comments like, "So the only services I can use within this new network are Yahoo services? What if I don't use Yahoo IM?" In essence, the Yahoo team was booed for being "closed web," and we heartily agreed. With Yahoo 360, Yahoo continues building its own "walled garden" to control its 135 million customersan accusation also hurled at AOL in the early 1990s, before AOL migrated its private network service onto the web. As the</i> <a href="http://bernardmoon.blogspot.com/2005/08/yahoos-personality-crisis.html" target="_blank">Economist<i> recently noted</i></a>, "Yahoo, in short, has old media plans for the new-media era."<br /><br />The irony to our view here is, of course, that today's AO Network is also a "closed web." In the end, Mr. Yang's thoughtful invitation and our ensuing disappointment in his new service led to the assignment of this article. It also confirmed our existing plan to completely revamp the AO Network around open standards. To tie it all together, we recruited the chief architect of our new site, <a href="http://www.corante.com/amateur/articles/20030211-3564.html" target="_blank">the notorious Marc Canter</a>, to pen this piece. We look forward to our reader feedback.<br /><br /><b>Breaking the Web Wide Open!</b><br />By Marc Canter<br /><br />For decades, "walled gardens" of proprietary standards and content have been the strategy of dominant players in mainframe computer software, wireless telecommunications services, and the World Wide Webit was their successful lock-in strategy of keeping their customers theirs. But like it or not, those walls are tumbling down. Open web standards are being adopted so widely, with such value and impact, that the web giantsAmazon, AOL, eBay, Google, Microsoft, and Yahooare facing the difficult decision of opening up to what they don't control.<br /><br />The online world is evolving into a new open web (sometimes called the Web 2.0), which is all about being personalized and customized for each user. Not only open source software, but <i>open standards</i> are becoming an essential component. <br /><br />Many of the web giants have been using open source software for years. Most of them use at least parts of the <a href="http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2001/01/25/lamp.html" target="_blank">LAMP</a> (Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl/Python/PHP) stack, even if they aren't well-known for giving back to the open source community. For these incumbents that grew big on proprietary web services, the methods, practices, and applications of open source software development are difficult to fully adopt. And the next open source movementswhich will be as much about open standards as about codewill be a lot harder for the incumbents to exploit.<br /><br />While the incumbents use cheap open source software to run their back-ends systems, their business models largely depend on proprietary software and algorithms. But our view a new slew of open software, open protocols, and open standards will confront the incumbents with the classic <i><a href="http://www.businessweek.com/chapter/christensen.htm" target="_blank">Innovator's Dilemma</a></i>. Should they adopt these tools and standards, painfully cannibalizing their existing revenue for a new unproven concept, or should they stick with their currently lucrative model with the risk that eventually a bunch of upstarts eat their lunch? <br /><br />Credit should go to several of the web giants who have been making efforts to "open up." Google, Yahoo, eBay, and Amazon all have Open APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) built into their data and systems. Any software developer can access and use them for whatever creative purposes they wish. This means that the API provider becomes an open platform for everyone to use and build on top of. This notion has expanded like wildfire throughout the blogosphere, so nowadays, Open APIs are pretty much required.<br /><br />Other incumbents also have open strategies. AOL has got the RSS religion, <a href="http://www.siliconbeat.com/entries/2005/07/27/aol_gets_rss_religion_with_my_aoland_feedsters_help.html" target="_blank">providing a feedreader and RSS search</a> in order to escape the "walled garden of content" stigma. <a href="http://www.apple.com/podcasting/" target="_blank">Apple now incorporates podcasts</a>, the "personal radio shows" that are latest rage in audio narrowcasting, into iTunes. Even Microsoft is supporting open standards, for example <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/plan/rtcprot.mspx#EKAA" target="_blank">by endorsing SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) for internet telephony and conferencing</a> over Skype's proprietary format or one of its own devising.<br /><br />But new open standards and protocols are in use, under construction, or being proposed every day, pushing the envelope of where we are right now. Many of these standards are coming from startup companies and small groups of developers, not from the giants. Together with the Open APIs, those new standards will contribute to a new, open infrastructure. Tens of thousands of developers will use and improve this open infrastructure to create new kinds of web-based applications and services, to offer web users a highly personalized online experience.<br /><br /><b>A Brief History of Openness</b><br /><br />At this point, I have to admit that I am not just a passive observer, full-time journalist or "just some blogger"but an active evangelist and developer of these standards. It's the vision of "open infrastructure" that's driving <a href="http://www.broadbandmechanics.com/bbm2005.htm" target="_blank">my company </a> and the reason why I'm writing this article. This article will give you some of the background behind on these standards, and what the evolution of the next generation of open standards will look like.<br /><br />Starting back in the 1980s, establishing a software standard was a key strategy for any software company. My former company, MacroMind (which became Macromedia), achieved this goal early on with Director. As <a href="http://webmonkey.wired.com/webmonkey/99/27/index3a_page6.html?tw=multimedia" target="_blank">Director evolved into Flash</a>, the world saw that other companies besides Microsoft, Adobe, and Apple could establish true cross-platform, independent media standards.<br /><br />Then <a href="http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/" target="_blank">Tim Berners-Lee</a> and <a href="http://www.ibiblio.org/pioneers/andreesen.html" target="_blank">Marc Andreessen</a> came along, and changed the rules of the software business and of entrepreneurialism. No matter how entrenched and "standardized" software was, the rug could still get pulled out from under it. <a href="http://geekphilosopher.com/MainPage/WebBrowserWars.htm?q=Stocks" target="_blank">Netscape did it to Microsoft, and then Microsoft did it <i>back</i> to Netscape</a>. The web evolved, and lots of standards evolved with it. The leading open source standards (such as the LAMP stack) became widely used alternatives to proprietary closed-source offerings. <br /><br />Open standards are more than just technology. Open standards mean sharing, empowering, and community support. Someone floats a new idea (or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme" target="_blank">meme</a>) and the community runs with it – with each person making their own contributions to the standard – evolving it without a moment's hesitation about "giving away their intellectual property."<br /><br />One good example of this was <a href="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/" target="_blank">Dave Sifry</a>, who built the Technorati blog-tracking technology inspired by the <a href="http://www.myelin.co.nz/ecosystem/" target="_blank">Blogging Ecosystem</a>, a weekend project by young hacker <a href="http://marc.blogs.it/archives/2005/07/phil_pearson_jo.html" target="_blank">Phil Pearson</a>. Dave liked what he saw and he ran with itturning Technorati into what it is today.<br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Winer" target="_blank">Dave Winer</a> has contributed enormously to this area of open standards. He defined and personally created several open standards and protocolssuch as RSS, OPML, and XML-RPC. Dave has also <a href="http://newhome.weblogs.com/historyOfWeblogs" target="_blank">helped build</a> the blogosphere through his enthusiasm and passion.<br /><br />By 2003, hundreds of programmers were working on creating and establishing new standards for almost everything. The best of these new standards have evolved into compelling web services platforms – such as <a href="http://del.icio.us/" target="_blank">del.icio.us</a>, <a href="http://webjay.org/about" target="_blank">Webjay</a>, or <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/ao2005/" target="_blank">Flickr</a>. Some have even spun off formal standards – like XSPF (a standard for playlists) or instant messaging standard XMPP (also known as Jabber).<br /><br />Today's Open APIs are complemented by standardized Schemasthe structure of the data itself and its associated meta-data. Take for example a <a href="http://www.ipodder.org/whatIsPodcasting" target="_blank">podcasting feed</a>. It consists of: a) the radio show itself, b) information on who is on the show, what the show is about and how long the show is (the meta-data) and also c) API calls to retrieve a show (a single feed item) and play it from a specified server. <br /><br />The combination of Open APIs, standardized schemas for handling meta-data, and an industry which agrees on these standards are breaking the web wide open right now. So what new open standards should the web incumbentsand yoube watching? Keep an eye on the following developments:<br /><br /><b>Identity<br />Attention<br />Open Media<br />Microcontent Publishing<br />Open Social Networks<br />Tags<br />Pinging <br />Routing<br />Open Communications<br />Device Management and Control</b><br /><br /><br /><b>1. Identity</b><br /><br />Right now, you don't really control your own online identity. At the core of just about every online piece of software is a membership system. Some systems allow you to browse a site anonymouslybut unless you register with the site you can't do things like search for an article, post a comment, buy something, or review it. The problem is that each and every site has its own membership system. So you constantly have to register with new systems, which cannot share dataeven you'd want them to. By establishing a <a href="http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,68329-2,00.html?tw=wn_story_page_next1" target="_blank">"single sign-on" standard</a>, disparate sites can allow users to freely move from site to site, and let them control the movement of their personal profile data, as well as any other data they've created. <br /><br />With <a href="http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2005/01/03/stories/2005010301440200.htm" target="_blank">Passport, Microsoft unsuccessfully attempted</a> to force its proprietary standard on the industry. Instead, a world is evolving where most people assume that users want to control their own data, whether that data is their profile, their blog posts and photos, or some collection of their past interactions, purchases, and recommendations. As long as users can control their digital identity, any kind of service or interaction can be layered on top of it.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.identity20.com/media/OSCON2005/" target="_blank">Identity 2.0</a> is all about users controlling their own profile data and becoming their own agents. This way the users themselves, rather than other intermediaries, will profit from their ID info. Once developers start offering single sign-on to their users, and users have trusted places to store their datawhich respect the limits and provide access controls over that data, users will be able to access personalized services which will understand and use their personal data.<br /><br />Identity 2.0 may seem like some geeky, visionary future standard that isn't defined yet, but by putting each user's digital identity at the core of all their online experiences, Identity 2.0 is becoming the cornerstone of the new open web. <br /><br /><b>The Initiatives:</b><br />Right now, Identity 2.0 is under construction through various efforts from Microsoft (the <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/webservices/webservices/understanding/advancedwebservices/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnwebsrv/html/identitymetasystem.asp" target="_blank">"InfoCard" component built into the Vista operating system</a> and its "<a href="http://garage.docsearls.com/node/605" target="_blank">Identity Metasystem</a>"), <a href="http://sxip.com" target="_blank">Sxip Identity</a>, <a href="http://www.identtycommons.net" target="_blank">Identity Commons</a>, <a href="http://www.projectliberty.org/" target="_blank">Liberty Alliance</a>, <a href="http://lid.netmesh.org/" target="_blank">LID</a> (NetMesh's Lightweight ID), and SixApart's <a href="http://openid.net/" target="_blank">OpenID</a>.<br /><br /><b>More Movers and Shakers:</b><br />Identity Commons and <a href="http://www.identitywoman.net" target="_blank">Kaliya Hamlin</a>, Sxip Identity and <a href="http://blame.ca/dick/" target="_blank">Dick Hardt</a>, the <a href="http://www.identitygang.org/" target="_blank"> Identity Gang</a> and <a href="http://www.searls.com/dochome.html#Bio" target="_blank">Doc Searls</a>, Microsoft's <a href="http://www.identityblog.com/" target="_blank">Kim Cameron</a>, <a href="http://www.craigburton.com/" target="_blank">Craig Burton</a>, <a href="http://phil.windley.org/" target="_blank">Phil Windley</a>, and <a href="http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/05/2020221&from=rss" target="_blank">Brad Fitzpatrick</a>, to name a few.<br /><br /><br /><b>2. Attention</b><br /><br />How many readers know what their online attention is worth? If you don't, Google and Yahoo dothey make their living off our attention. They know what we're searching for, happily turn it into a keyword, and sell that keyword to advertisers. They make money off our attention. We don't. <br /><br />Technorati and friends proposed <a href="http://blogs.zdnet.com/Gillmor/index.php?p=74" target="_blank">an attention standard, Attention.xml</a>, designed to "help you keep track of what you've read, what you're spending time on, and what you should be paying attention to." <a href="http://attentiontrust.org/" target="_blank">AttentionTrust</a> is an effort by <a href="http://blogs.zdnet.com/Gillmor/?p=132" target="_blank">Steve Gillmor</a> and <a href="http://majestic.typepad.com/seth/2005/07/attentiontrusto.html" target="_blank">Seth Goldstein </a>to standardize on how captured end-user performance, browsing, and interest data are used. <br /><br />Blogger <a href="http://worcester.typepad.com/pc4media/2005/07/attentiontrusto_1.html" target="_blank">Peter Caputa gives a good summary</a> of AttentionTrust: <blockquote>"As we use the web, we reveal lots of information about ourselves by what we pay attention to. Imagine if all of that information could be stored in a nice neat little xml file. And when we travel around the web, we can optionally share it with websites or other people. We can make them pay for it, lease it ... we get to decide who has access to it, how long they have access to it, and what we want in return. And they have to tell us what they are going to do with our Attention data."</blockquote><br />So when you give your attention to sites that adhere to the AttentionTrust, your attention rights (<i>you own your attention, you can move your attention, you can pay attention and be paid for it</i>, and <i>you can see how your attention is used</i>) are guaranteed. Attention data is crucial to the future of the open web, and Steve and Seth are making sure that no one entity or oligopoly controls it. <br /><br /><b>Movers and Shakers:</b><br /><a href="http://blogs.zdnet.com/Gillmor/" target="_blank">Steve Gillmor</a>, <a href="http://majestic.typepad.com/about.html" target="_blank">Seth Goldstein</a>, <a href="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/" target="_blank">Dave Sifry</a> and the <a href="http://developers.technorati.com/wiki/attentionxml" target="_blank">other Attention.xml folks</a>. <br /><br /><br /><b>3. Open Media</b><br /><br />Proprietary media standardsFlash, Windows Media, and QuickTime, to name a few helped liven up the web. But they are proprietary standards that try to keep us locked in, and they weren't created from scratch to handle today's online content. That's why, for many of us, an Open Media standard has been a holy grail. Yahoo's new Media RSS standard brings us one step closer to achieving open media, as do <a href="http://www.vorbis.com/faq/#what" target="_blank">Ogg Vorbis</a> audio codecs, <a href="http://webjay.org/" target="_blank">XSPF playlists</a>, or <a href="http://musicbrainz.org/" target="_blank">MusicBrainz</a>. And several sites offer digital creators not only a place to store their content, but also to sell it. <br /><br /><a href="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss" target="_blank">Media RSS </a>(being developed by Yahoo with help from the community) extends RSS and combines it with "RSS enclosures" adds metadata to any media itemto create a comprehensive solution for media "narrowcasters." To gain acceptance for Media RSS, Yahoo knows it has to work with the community. As an active member of this community, I can tell you that we'll create Media RSS equivalents for <a href="http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2001/01/24/rdf.html" target="_blank">rdf</a> (an alternative subscription format) and <a href="http://www.atomenabled.org/" target="_blank">Atom</a> (yet <i>another</i> subscription format), so no one will be able to complain that Yahoo is picking sides in format wars.<br /><br />When Yahoo announced the purchase of Flickr, Yahoo founder Jerry Yang insinuated that Yahoo is acquiring "open DNA" to turn Yahoo into <a href="http://www.flickr.com/services/api/" target="_blank">an open standards player</a>. Yahoo is showing what happens when you take a multi-billion dollar company and make openness one of its core valuesso Google, beware, even if Google does have more research fellows and Ph.D.s. <br /><br />The open media landscape is far and wide, reaching from game machine hacks and mobile phone downloads to PC-driven bookmarklets, players, and editors, and it includes many other standardization efforts. <a href="http://www.xspf.org/" target="_blank">XSPF</a> is an open standard for playlists, and MusicBrainz is an alternative to the proprietary (and originally effectively stolen) database that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gracenote" target="_blank">Gracenote</a> licenses. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.ourmedia.org/" target="_blank">Ourmedia.org</a> is a community front-end to Brewster Kahle's <a href="http://www.archive.org" target="_blank">Internet Archive</a>. Brewster has promised free bandwidth and free storage forever to any content creators who choose to share their content via the Internet Archive. Ourmedia.org is providing an easy-to-use interface and community to get content in and out of the Internet Archive, giving ourmedia.org users the ability to share their media anywhere they wish, without being locked into a particular service or tool. Ourmedia plans to offer open APIs and an open media registry that interconnects other open media repositories into a DNS-like registry (just like the www domain system), so folks can browse and discover open content across many open media services. Systems like <a href="http://www.brightcove.com/" target="_blank">Brightcove</a> and <a href="http://www.evhead.com/2005/02/how-odeo-happened.asp" target="_blank">Odeo</a> support the concept of an open registry, and hope to work with digital creators to sell their work to fulfill the financial aspect of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Tail" target="_blank">the "Long Tail."</a><br /><br /><b>More Movers and Shakers:</b><br /><a href="http://creativecommons.org/about/people" target="_blank">Creative Commons</a>, the <a href="http://www.omn.org/" target="_blank">Open Media Network</a>, <a href="http://www.momentshowing.net/about.html" target="_blank">Jay Dedman</a>, <a href="http://ryanedit.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Ryanne Hodson</a>, <a href="http://michaelverdi.com/index.php" target="_blank">Michael Verdi</a>, <a href="http://www.chapmanlogic.com/blog/aboutEli.html" target="_blank">Eli Chapman</a>, <a href="http://www.unmediated.org/" target="_blank">Kenyatta Cheese</a>, <a href="http://www.itconversations.com/about.html" target="_blank">Doug Kaye</a>, <a href="http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.09/yahoo.html" target="_blank">Brad Horowitz</a>, <a href="http://webjay.org/about#colophon" target="_blank">Lucas Gonze</a>, <a href="http://musicbrainz.org/wd/MusicBrainzBio" target="_blank">Robert Kaye</a>, <a href="http://www.lifewithalacrity.com/" target="_blank">Christopher Allen</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewster_Kahle" target="_blank">Brewster Kahle</a>, <a href="http://www.newmediamusings.com/" target="_blank">JD Lasica</a>, and indeed, <a href="http://www.corante.com/amateur/articles/20030211-3564.html" target="_blank">Marc Canter</a>, among others.<br /><br /><br /><b>4. Microcontent Publishing</b><br /><br />Unstructured content is cheap to create, but hard to search through. Structured content is expensive to create, but easy to search. <a href="http://developers.technorati.com/wiki/MicroFormats" target="_blank">Microformats</a> resolve the dilemma with simple structures that are cheap to use and easy to search.<br /><br />The first kind of widely adopted microcontent is blogging. Every post is an encapsulated idea, addressable via a URL called a permalink. You can syndicate or subscribe to this microcontent using RSS or an RSS equivalent, and news or blog aggregators can then display these feeds in a convenient readable fashion. But a blog post is just a block of unstructured text—not a bad thing, but just a first step for microcontent. When it comes to<i>structured</i> data, such as personal identity profiles, product reviews, or calendar-type event data, RSS was not designed to maintain the integrity of the structures. <br /><br />Right now, blogging doesn't have the underlying structure necessary for full-fledged microcontent publishing. But that will change. Think of local information services (such as movie listings, event guides, or restaurant reviews) that any college kid can access and use in her weekend programming project to create new services and tools.<br /><br />Today's blogging tools will evolve into microcontent publishing systems, and will help spread the notion of structured data across the blogosphere. New ways to store, represent and produce microcontent will create new standards, such as <a href="http://structuredblogging.org/" target="_blank">Structured Blogging</a> and <a href="http://microformats.org/" target="_blank">Microformats</a>. Microformats differ from RSS feeds in that you can't subscribe to them. Instead, Microformats are embedded into webpages and discovered by search engines like Google or Technorati. Microformats are creating common definitions for "What is a review or event? What are the specific fields in the data structure?" They can also specify what we can do with all this information.<a href="http://www.opml.org/spec" target="_blank">OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language)</a> is a hierarchical file format for storing microcontent and structured data. It was developed by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Winer" target="_blank">Dave Winer</a> of RSS and podcast fame.<br /><br />Events are one popular type of microcontent. <a href="http://www.openevents.com" target="_blank">OpenEvents</a> is already working to create shared databases of standardized events, which would get used by a new generation of event portals—such as <a href="http://eventful.com/gotevents/" target="_blank">Eventful/EVDB</a>, <a href="http://upcoming.org/" target="_blank">Upcoming.org</a>, and <a href="http://www.whizspark.com/" target="_blank">WhizSpark</a>. The idea of OpenEvents is that event-oriented systems and services can work together to establish shared events databases (and associated APIs) that any developer could then use to create and offer their own new service or application. <a href="http://marc.blogs.it/archives/2005/04/rvw_redux_openr.html" target="_blank">OpenReviews</a> is still in the conceptual stage, but it would make it possible to provide open alternatives to closed systems like Epinions, and establish a shared database of local and global reviews. Its shared open servers would be filled with all sorts of reviews for anyone to access. <br /><br />Why is this important? Because I predict that in the future, 10 times more people will be writing reviews than maintaining their own blog. The list of possible microcontent standards goes on: OpenJobpostings, OpenRecipes, and even OpenLists. Microsoft <a href="http://www.reallysimplesyndication.com/2005/06/22" target="_blank">recently revealed</a> that it has been working on an important new kind of microcontent: Lists—so OpenLists will attempt to establish standards for the <i>kind</i> of lists we all use, such as lists of Links, lists of To Do Items, lists of People, Wish Lists, etc.<br /><br /><b>Movers and Shakers:</b><br /><a href="http://tantek.com/log/2005/09.html" target="_blank">Tantek Çelik</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Marks" target="_blank">Kevin Marks</a> of <a href="http://developers.technorati.com/wiki/MicroFormats" target="_blank">Technorati</a>, <a href="http://dannyayers.com/" target="_blank">Danny Ayers</a>, <a href="http://www.meyerweb.com/" target="_blank">Eric Meyer</a>, <a href="http://photomatt.net/" target="_blank">Matt Mullenweg</a>, <a href="http://zlab.commerce.net/" target="_blank">Rohit Khare</a>, <a href="http://ifindkarma.typepad.com/relax/" target="_blank">Adam Rifkin</a>, <a href="http://www.sivas.com/aleene/" target="_blank">Arnaud Leene</a>, <a href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0110772/" target="_blank">Seb Paquet</a>, <a href="http://hublog.hubmed.org/" target="_blank">Alf Eaton</a>, <a href="http://www.myelin.co.nz/post/" target="_blank">Phil Pearson</a>, <a href="http://www.joereger.com/" target="_blank">Joe Reger</a>, <a href="http://bobwyman.pubsub.com/" target="_blank">Bob Wyman</a> among others.<br /><br /><br /><b>5. Open Social Networks</b><br /><br />I'll never forget the first time I met <a href="http://www.jabrams.com/" target="_blank">Jonathan Abrams</a>, the founder of Friendster. He was arrogant and brash and he claimed he "<i>owned</i>" all his users, and that he was going to monetize them and make a fortune off them. This attitude robbed Friendster of its momentum, letting MySpace, Facebook, and other social networks take Friendster's place.<br /><br />Jonathan's notion of social networks as a way to control users is typical of the Web 1.0 business model and its attitude towards users in general. Social networks have become one of the battlegrounds between old and new ways of thinking. Open standards for Social Networking will define those sides very clearly. Since meeting Jonathan, I have been working towards finding and establishing open standards for social networks. Instead of closed, centralized social networks with 10 million people in them, the goal is making it possible to have 10 million social networks that each have 10 people in them.<br /><br />FOAF (which stands for Friend Of A Friend, and describes people and relationships in a way that computers can parse) is a schema to represent not only your personal profile's meta-data, but your social network as well. Thousands of researchers use the <a href="http://www.foaf-project.org/" target="_blank">FOAF schema</a> in their "Semantic Web" projects to connect people in all sorts of new ways. <a href="http://gmpg.org/xfn/" target="_blank">XFN</a> is a microformat standard for representing your social network, while <a href="http://www.imc.org/pdi/" target="_blank">vCard</a> (long familiar to users of contact manager programs like Outlook) is a microformat that contains your profile information. Microformats are baked into any xHTML webpage, which means that<i>any</i> blog, social network page, or any webpage in general can "contain" your social network in itand be used by<i>any</i> compatible tool, service or application. <br /><br />PeopleAggregator is an earlier project now being integrated into <a href="http://drupal.org/" target="_blank">open content management framework Drupal</a>. The <a href="http://www.broadbandmechanics.com/PeopleAggregator/" target="_blank">PeopleAggregator APIs</a> will make it possible to establish relationships, send messages, create or join groups, and post between different social networks. (Sneak preview: this technology will be available in the upcoming GoingOn Network.) <br /><br />All of these open social networking standards mean that inter-connected social networks will form a mesh that will parallel the blogosphere. This vibrant, distributed, decentralized world will be driven by open standards: personalized online experiences are what the new open web will be all aboutand what could be more personalized than people's networks?<br /><br /><b>Movers and Shakers:</b><br /><a href="http://esigler.2nw.net/" target="_blank">Eric Sigler</a>, <a href="http://lucifer.intercosmos.net/index.php?view=about" target="_blank">Joel De Gan</a>, <a href="http://crschmidt.net/" target="_blank">Chris Schmidt</a>, <a href="http://voidstar.com/" target="_blank">Julian Bond</a>, <a href="http://people.tribe.net/paul?_click_path=Application%5Btribe%5D.Person%5Bf2232c95-e123-43a3-b48d-24a5f11f09dc%5D&r=10535" target="_blank">Paul Martino</a>, <a href="http://napsterization.org/stories/archives/000513.html" target="_blank">Mary Hodder</a>, <a href="http://public.2idi.com/=Drummond.Reed" target="_blank">Drummond Reed</a>, <a href="http://danbri.org/" target="_blank">Dan Brickley</a>, <a href="http://360.yahoo.com/profile-9lciejI3aafX1stHPoIRNmkmv4EowQ--" target="_blank">Randy Farmer</a>, and <a href="http://www.kaliyasblogs.net/Iwoman/" target="_blank">Kaliya Hamlin</a>, to name a few.<br /><br /><br /><b>6. Tags</b><br /><br />Nowadays, no self-respecting tool or service can ship without <a href="http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2005/02/08/tagging/index_np.html" target="_blank">tags</a>. Tags are keywords or phrases attached to photos, blog posts, URLs, or even video clips. These user- and creator-generated tags are an open alternative to what used to be the domain of librarians and information scientists: categorizing information and content using taxonomies. Tags are instead creating <a href="http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.04/view.html?pg=4" target="_blank">"folksonomies."</a><br /><br />The recently proposed OpenTags concept would be an open, community-owned version of the popular <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tag/" target="_blank">Technorati Tags service</a>. It would aggregate the usage of tags across a wide range of services, sites, and content tools. In addition to Technorati's current tag features, OpenTags would let groups of people share their tags in "<a href="http://www.zeldman.com/daily/0405d.shtml/" target="_blank">TagClouds</a>." Open tagging is likely to include some of the open identity features discussed above, to create a tag system that is resilient to spam, and yet trustable across sites all over the web.<br /><br />OpenTags owes a debt to earlier versions of shared tagging systems, which include <a href="http://www.topicexchange.com/" target="_blank">Topic Exchange</a> and something called the <a href="http://www.evectors.com/itkcollector/" target="_blank">k-collector</a>a knowledge management tag aggregatorfrom Italian company eVectors. <br /><br /><b>Movers & Shakers:</b><br /><a href="http://www.myelin.co.nz/notes/" target="_blank">Phil Pearson</a>, <a href="http://matt.blogs.it/" target="_blank">Matt Mower </a>, <a href="http://paolo.evectors.it/" target="_blank">Paolo Valdemarin</a>, and <a href="http://marc.blogs.it/archives/2005/03/opentopics.html" target="_blank">Mary Hodder</a> and <a href="http://www.equalsdrummond.name/index.php?p=39" target="_blank"> Drummond Reed</a> again, among others.<br /><br /><br /><b>7. Pinging</b><br /><br />Websites used to be mostly static. Search engines that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_crawler" target="_blank">crawled</a> (or "spidered") them every so often did a good enough job to show reasonably current versions of your cousin's homepage or even <i>Time</i> magazine's weekly headlines. But when blogging took off, it became hard for search engines to keep up. (Google has only <a href="http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3548411" target="_blank">just managed</a> to offer <a href="http://www.google.com/help/about_blogsearch.html" target="_blank">blog-search functionality</a>, despite <a href="http://www.alwayson-network.com/comments.php?id=325_0_2_0_C" target="_blank">buying Blogger</a> back in early 2003.)<br /><br />To know what was new in the blogosphere, users couldn't depend on services that spidered webpages once in a while. The solution: a way for blogs themselves to automatically notify blog-tracking sites that they'd been updated. <a href="http://weblogs.com/" target="_blank">Weblogs.com</a> was the first blog "ping service": it displayed the name of a blog whenever that blog was updated. Pinging sites helped the blogosphere grow, and <a href="http://blo.gs/" target="_blank">more tools</a>, services, and portals started using pinging in new and different ways. Dozens of pinging services and sitesmost of which can't talk to each othersprang up. <br /><br />Matt Mullenweg (the creator of open source blogging software WordPress) decided that a one-stop service for pinging was needed. He created <a href="http://pingomatic.com/" target="_blank">Ping-o-Matic</a>which aggregates ping services and simplifies the pinging process for bloggers and tool developers. With Ping-o-Matic, any developer can alert all of the industry's blogging tools and tracking sites at once. This new kind of open standard, with shared infrastructure, is a critical to the scalability of Web 2.0 services.<br /><br />As <a href="http://pingomatic.com/about/" target="_blank">Matt said</a>:<br /><blockquote>There are a number of services designed specifically for tracking and connecting blogs. However it would be expensive for all the services to crawl all the blogs in the world all the time. By sending a small ping to each service you let them know you've updated so they can come check you out. They get the freshest data possible, you don't get a thousand robots spidering your site all the time. Everybody wins.</blockquote><br /><b>Movers and Shakers:</b><br /><a href="http://photomatt.net/about/" target="_blank">Matt Mullenweg</a>, <a href="http://trainedmonkey.com/entry/2251" target="_blank">Jim Winstead</a>, <a href="http://newhome.weblogs.com/faq" target="_blank">Dave Winer</a><br /><br /><br /><b>8. Routing</b><br /><br />Bloggers used to have to manually enter the links and content snippets of blog posts or news items they wanted to blog. Today, some RSS aggregators can send a specified post directly into an associated blogging tool: as bloggers browse through the feeds they subscribe to, they can easily specify and send any post they wish to "<a href="http://www.microsoftmonitor.com/archives/010209.html" target="_blank">reblog</a>" from their news aggregator or feed reader into their blogging tool. (This is usually referred to as "<a href="http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=152&topic=17" target="_blank">BlogThis</a>.") As structured blogging comes into its own (see the section on Microcontent Publishing), it will be increasingly important to maintain the structural integrity of these pieces of microcontent when reblogging them. <br /><br />Promising standard <a href="http://redirectthis.com/" target="_blank">RedirectThis</a> will combine a "BlogThis"-like capability while maintaining the integrity of the microcontent. RedirectThis will let bloggers and content developers attach a simple "PostThis" button to their posts. Clicking on that button will send that post to the reader/blogger's favorite <a href="http://ecto.kung-foo.tv/archives/000990.php" target="_blank">blogging tool</a>. This favorite tool is specified at the RedirectThis web service, where users register their blogging tool of choice. RedirectThis also helps maintain the integrity and structure of microcontentthen it's just up to the user to prefer a blogging tool that also attains that lofty goal of microcontent integrity. <br /><br />OutputThis is another nascent web services standard, to let bloggers specify what "destinations" they'd like to have as options in their blogging tool. As new destinations are added to the service, more checkboxes would get added to their blogging toolallowing them to route their published microcontent to additional destinations.<br /><br /><b>Movers and Shakers:</b><br /><a href="http://reblog.org/" target="_blank">Michael Migurski</a>, <a href="http://www.gonze.com/about" target="_blank">Lucas Gonze</a><br /><br /><br /><b>9. Open Communications</b><br /><br />Likely, you've experienced the joys of finding friends on AIM or Yahoo Messenger, or the convenience of Skyping with someone overseas. Not that you're about to throw away your mobile phone or BlackBerry, but for many, also having access to Instant Messaging (IM) and Voice over IP (VoIP) is crucial. <br /><br />IM and VoIP are mainstream technologies that already enjoy the benefits of open standards. Entire industries are bornright this secondbased around these open standards. <a href="http://www.jabber.org/" target="_blank">Jabber</a> has been an open IM technology for yearsin fact, <a href="http://www.xmpp.org/history.html" target="_blank">as XMPP</a>, it was officially dubbed a standard by <a href="http://www.ietf.org/overview.html" target="_blank">the IETF</a>. Although becoming an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IETF" target="_blank">official IETF standard</a> is usually the kiss of death, Jabber looks like it'll be around for a while, as entire generations of collaborative, work-group applications and services have been built on top of its messaging protocol. For VoIP, <a href="http://skype.com/helloagain.html" target="_blank">Skype</a> is clearly the leading standard todaythough one could <a href="http://socialsoftware.weblogsinc.com/entry/1234000923058521/" target="_blank">argue just how "open" it is</a> (and defenders of the IETF's <a href="http://www.cs.columbia.edu/sip/" target="_blank">SIP standard</a> often do). But it is free and user-friendly, so there won't be much argument from <i>users</i> about it being insufficiently open. Yet there may be a cloud on Skype's horizon: web behemoth Google recently released a beta of <a href="http://www.google.com/talk/developer.html" target="_blank">Google Talk, an IM client committed to open standards</a>. It currently <a href="http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2005/08/google_talk_rel.html" target="_blank">supports XMPP, and will support SIP</a> for VoIP calls.<br /><br /><b>Movers and Shakers:</b><br /><a href="http://www.jabber.org/people/jer.shtml" target="_blank">Jeremie Miller</a>, <a href="http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~hgs/" target="_blank">Henning Schulzrinne</a>, <a href="http://www.von.com/schedule_eos11114704148.html" target="_blank">Jon Peterson</a>, <a href="http://www.pulver.com/jeff/" target="_blank">Jeff Pulver</a><br /><br /><br /><b>10. Device Management and Control</b><br /><br />To access online content, we're using more and more devices. BlackBerrys, iPods, Treos, you name it. As the web evolves, more and more different devices will have to communicate with each other to give us the content we want when and where we want it. No-one wants to be dependent on one vendor anymorelike, <a href="http://www.alwayson-network.com/comments.php?id=P9409_0_6_0_C" target="_blank">say, Sony</a>for their laptop, phone, MP3 player, PDA, and digital camera, so that it all works together. We need fully interoperable devices, and the standards to make that work. And to fully make use of how content is moving online content and innovative web services, those standards need to be open.<br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midi" target="_blank">MIDI (musical instrument digital interface)</a>, one of the very first open standards in music, connected disparate vendors' instruments, post-production equipment, and recording devices. But MIDI is limited, and <a href="http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/8015" target="_blank">MIDI II has been very slow to arrive</a>. Now a new standard for controlling musical devices has emerged: <a href="http://www.cnmat.berkeley.edu/OpenSoundControl/" target="_blank">OSC (Open SoundControl)</a>. This protocol is optimized for modern networking technology and inter-connects music, video and controller devices with "other multimedia devices." OSC is used by a wide range of developers, and is being taken up in the mainstream MIDI marketplace.<br /><br />Another open-standards-based device management technology is <a href="http://www.zigbee.org" target="_blank">ZigBee</a>, for building wireless intelligence and network monitoring into all kinds of devices. ZigBee is supported by many networking, consumer electronics, and mobile device companies.<br /><br /><br /> · · · · · · <br /><br /><b>The Change to Openness</b><br /><br />The rise of open source software and its "<a href="http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/articles/architecture_of_participation.html" target="_blank">architecture of participation</a>" are completely shaking up the old proprietary-web-services-and-standards approach. Sun Microsystemswhose proprietary Java standard helped define the Web 1.0is opening its Solaris OS and has even announced the apparent paradox of an <a href="http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=418" target="_blank">open-source Digital Rights Management</a> system.<br /><br />Today's incumbents will have to adapt to the new openness of the Web 2.0. If they stick to their <a href="http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?doc_cd=131038" target="_blank">proprietary standards</a>, code, and content, they'll become the new walled gardensplaces users visit briefly to retrieve data and content from enclosed data silos, but not where users "live." The incumbents' revenue models will have to change. Instead of "owning" their users, users will know they own themselves, and will expect a return on their valuable identity and attention. Instead of being locked into incompatible media formats, users will expect easy access to digital content across many platforms. <br /><br />Yesterday's web giants and tomorrow's users will need to find a mutually beneficial new balancebetween open and proprietary, developer and user, hierarchical and horizontal, owned and shared, and compatible and closed. <br /><br /><br /><i>Marc Canter is an active evangelist and developer of open standards. Early in his career, Marc founded MacroMind, which became Macromedia. These days, he is CEO of Broadband Mechanics, a founding member of the Identity Gang and of ourmedia.org. Broadband Mechanics is currently developing the <a href="http://www.alwayson-network.com/comments.php?id=11262_0_1_0_C" target="_blank">GoingOn Network</a> (with the AlwaysOn Network), as well as an open platform for social networking called the PeopleAggregator.</i><br /><br />A version of the above post appears in the Fall 2005 issue of AlwaysOn's quarterly print blogozine, and ran as <a href="http://www.alwayson-network.com/comments.php?id=12063_0_1_0_C" target="_blank">a four-part series</a> on the AlwaysOn Network website.</td></tr></table><br /><p>(Via <a href="http://marc.blogs.it/">Marc's Voice</a>.)</p></blockquote>
Breaking the Web Wide Open!
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/825
<p>By <a href="http://internet-apps.blogspot.com/">Mark Bierbeck</a>:</p> <p><a href="http://internet-apps.blogspot.com/2005/04/ajax-hard-facts-brass-tacks-and-bad.html">Ajax, Hard Facts, Brass Tacks ... and Bad Slacks</a> </p> <xhtml:div xmlns:xhtml="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">A number of people have contacted me recently about Ajax [<xhtml:a href="about:blank#20050426-1">1</xhtml:a>] -- a catchy name -- coined to provide an umbrella term for a particular group of technologies used to build web applications. The use of the word comes from Jesse James Garrett in a recent blog [<xhtml:a href="about:blank#20050426-2">2</xhtml:a>], and describes a class of internet applications written using JavaScript in a browser. By using JavaScript these apps have full access to the DOM, and as a consequence are able to make all sorts of changes to the page that the user is interacting with, without having to go back to the server.<xhtml:br /><xhtml:br />When the application <xhtml:em>does</xhtml:em> need to go back to the server -- to deliver some data and get a response -- the idea is to keep the DOM intact so that the user has a smooth experience. This means that all communication with the server needs to take place outside of the normal HTML form mechanism, since this would obviously replace the current page.<xhtml:br /><xhtml:br />Ajax addressed this, with what it calls 'asynchronous-JavaScript' -- retrieve only the data you need, and then directly manipulate the DOM to get the effect you want. 'Asynchronous-JavaScript' accounts for the first few letters of the name, with the remainder being the obligatory 'X' for XML (although XML is not really key to this technology, and many of the applications that are often cited as Ajax-apps don't use XML as the data medium).<xhtml:br /><xhtml:br /> <xhtml:h2>Buzzing</xhtml:h2>The response to Ajax has been pretty positive. In fact the only negatives have been either to suggest a change of name or to moan a little that "I've been doing this for years, why hasn't anyone noticed me?" (I won't put any links to those sort of articles, since they are a little embarassing -- after all, <xhtml:em>everyone</xhtml:em> has been doing this for years!)<xhtml:br /><xhtml:br />Anyway, despite a couple of sour-pusses, the software community is almost universally excited, and the blog wires have glowed over the last few months with descriptions of Google Maps, GMail, and so on.<xhtml:br /><xhtml:br />Just about everyone who has asked me about Ajax has expected me to be disappointed. Surely, they say, this makes the case for XForms weaker? But my answer is the exact opposite -- XForms and standards-based web applications are in every way superior to the techniques described as Ajax, since the whole <xhtml:em>raison d'être</xhtml:em> of XForms and XHTML 2 is to address the very problems that Ajax-like techniques suffer from.<xhtml:br /><xhtml:br />That may come across as a little bold...so perhaps I should explain.<xhtml:br /><xhtml:br /> <xhtml:h2>From Workaround to Feature</xhtml:h2>We've all been using HTML mark-up for years now, and the language hasn't changed much in that time. As a consequence, the increasing demand for more complex web-pages has meant that the balance in our documents has shifted increasingly from vanilla mark-up to 'the workaround'. <xhtml:br /><xhtml:br />Whether it's providing tooltips, dynamic/repeating data sections, or small portions of our page that change without having to request a new document, we've generally had to dive into script. But the shift from mark-up to script has meant that the mark-up language itself has been relegated to a mere carrier for programs.<xhtml:br /><xhtml:br />Unfortunately this means that no-one gains -- it's annoying for the programmer to have to produce ever more convoluted spaghetti JavaScript to meet the demands of their audience, but it's also annoying for the non-programmer, who probably only wants a tooltip. And its particularly annoying for those who want to use documents on the web for more ambitious applications to find that most of the important stuff in a document is hidden away in script.<xhtml:br /><xhtml:br />All is not lost, however, since this collection of 'workarounds' provides a rich source of real-life patterns that appear for authors and programmers, time and again. They may be workarounds, but they are much-needed ones.<xhtml:br /><xhtml:br />The aim of the new generation of languages like XForms and XHTML 2 is to take these 'common patterns' and turn them into mark-up. Just like the HTML elements <xhtml:code><a></xhtml:code> and <xhtml:code><form></xhtml:code> pack an enormous amount of functionality into deceptively simple tags, so too can new declarative mark-up capture patterns that have emerged 'in the wild'.<xhtml:br /><xhtml:br />(Note that this is the opposite of so-called folksonomies, where popular practice that occurs in the wild is left it the wild, and codification is regarded as a dirty word.)<xhtml:br /><xhtml:br /> <xhtml:h2>The XML HTTP Request Object</xhtml:h2>Let's take the much talked about XML HTTP Request Object (XMLHttpRequest). If you are not familiar with it, it was originally part of Microsoft's XML parser, and allows you to send and receive data outside of the normal HTML form processing. Since it's a handy feature to have in a client, other browsers have followed suit and it's now becoming the 'standard' way to communicate with servers without messing up your page. It's a corner-stone of Ajax. (A good summary with examples is on Jim Ley's jibbering.com site [<xhtml:a href="about:blank#20050426-3">3</xhtml:a>].)<xhtml:br /><xhtml:br />But...we need to be clear that we're using XMLHttpRequest to get round a weakness in HTML forms. The problem we have is that even if you know that a server is about to give you some data, and the <xhtml:em>server</xhtml:em> knows it's about to give you some data, there's no way to tell your <xhtml:em>form</xhtml:em> that -- instead your page will be wiped out and replaced with whatever the server sends back.<xhtml:br /><xhtml:br />Of course, constant round-tripping doesn't make it completely impossible to produce applications, and a lot of books and airline tickets are bought every day without the facility to get 'just the data'. But we all know it would reduce network traffic and create a smoother user experience if we could just send a list of books or seats, rather than a whole new page.<xhtml:br /><xhtml:br />Over the years applications such as Microsoft's <xhtml:em>Outlook Web Access</xhtml:em> (OWA), have had to step around the HTML form to get just the data they need. But, whilst OWA considerably predates GMail, until the advent of XMLHttpRequest, the techniques used were quite difficult to manage. (Google Suggest is often cited as a good example of an Ajax-app, but interestingly merges old and new techniques; XMLHttpRequest is used to obtain a piece of JavaScript from a server, and this script contains a call to a client-side function, but using server-provided parameters. It's one of the techniques you might have used in the past with a hidden frame.)<xhtml:br /><xhtml:br />So as many have said on their blogs, XMLHttpRequest is not a newly devised technique, but rather a generally accepted replacement for a very old technique. But ultimately that technique is a workaround since the <xhtml:em>real</xhtml:em> problem is that HTML forms will always replace the current page.<xhtml:br /><xhtml:br /><xhtml:br /> <xhtml:h2>Beyond HTML Forms</xhtml:h2>Whilst XMLHttpRequest gives us a way to get data to and from the server without losing our document, we've unfortunately thrown the baby out with the bath-water; whatever the weaknesses of HTML forms, you have to acknowledge that they are pretty simple to use. Here's an abbreviated version of Google's search form (note that the mark-up is HTML, not XML):<xhtml:br /><xhtml:code><xhtml:pre><xhtml:br /><form action=/search name=f><xhtml:br /> <input type=hidden name=hl value=en><xhtml:br /> <input maxLength=256 size=55 name=q value=""><xhtml:br /> <input type=submit value="Google Search" name=btnG><xhtml:br /></form><xhtml:br /> </xhtml:pre></xhtml:code><xhtml:br />As you can see, the simple problem with HTML forms is that we don't say anything about where the data should go when we've received it from the server. The assumption in HTML of old is that we are just doing a kind of 'super-navigation', and no matter what we send to the server, it will only ever give us back a new web-page. (To put it a different way, you could say that <xhtml:code><a></xhtml:code> and <xhtml:code><form></xhtml:code> are pretty much the same thing.)<xhtml:br /><xhtml:br />To see how this problem is resolved, let's code the same Google search in XForms:<xhtml:br /><xhtml:code><xhtml:pre><xhtml:br /><xf:submission id="sub-search"<xhtml:br /> action="http://www.google.com/complete/search?hl=en"<xhtml:br /> method="get" separator="&"<xhtml:br /> replace="all"<xhtml:br />/><xhtml:br /> <xhtml:br /><xf:input ref="q"><xhtml:br /> <xf:label>Query:</xf:label><xhtml:br /></xf:input><xhtml:br /> <xhtml:br /><xf:submit submission="sub-search"><xhtml:br /> <xf:label>Google Search</xf:label><xhtml:br /></xf:submit><xhtml:br /> </xhtml:pre></xhtml:code><xhtml:br />Although it will do exactly the same -- right down to replacing the current page -- it's a little different to the HTML mark-up. But the changes in structure have given us some major benefits, from accessible labels on our form controls, to the possibility of many different submissions for the same data.<xhtml:br /><xhtml:br />But what it has also given us is the possibility of solving our data update problem. The <xhtml:code>replace</xhtml:code> attribute is actually optional in XForms, but I showed it in the previous mark-up so that you can compare it to this:<xhtml:br /><xhtml:code><xhtml:pre><xhtml:br /><xf:submission id="sub-search"<xhtml:br /> action="http://www.google.com/complete/search?hl=en"<xhtml:br /> method="get" separator="&"<xhtml:br /> replace="<xhtml:span style="COLOR: red">instance</xhtml:span>"<xhtml:br />/><xhtml:br /> </xhtml:pre></xhtml:code><xhtml:br />In this example the data returned from the server will just replace the instance that was sent, and our page will remain completely intact. (The <xhtml:code>replace</xhtml:code> attribute can take the values <xhtml:code>all</xhtml:code>, <xhtml:code>instance</xhtml:code>, or <xhtml:code>none</xhtml:code>.)<xhtml:br /><xhtml:br />I won't show the full equivalent using XMLHttpRequest since it's pretty large, but I'll give a flavour of it. (Jim Ley's page -- referenced earlier -- shows how to search Google with XMLHttpRequest.)<xhtml:br /><xhtml:br /> <xhtml:h3>The Script Version</xhtml:h3>First we need to create an XMLHttpRequest object, but we need to do it in such a way that it will work on both Mozilla and IE:<xhtml:br /><xhtml:code><xhtml:pre><xhtml:br />var req;<xhtml:br /> <xhtml:br />function loadXMLDoc(url) {<xhtml:br /> // native XMLHttpRequest object<xhtml:br /> if (window.XMLHttpRequest) {<xhtml:br /> req = new XMLHttpRequest();<xhtml:br /> req.onreadystatechange = readyStateChange;<xhtml:br /> req.open("GET", url, true);<xhtml:br /> req.send(null);<xhtml:br /> // IE/Windows ActiveX version<xhtml:br /> } else if (window.ActiveXObject) {<xhtml:br /> req = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");<xhtml:br /> if (req) {<xhtml:br /> req.onreadystatechange = readyStateChange;<xhtml:br /> req.open("GET", url, true);<xhtml:br /> req.send();<xhtml:br /> }<xhtml:br /> }<xhtml:br />}<xhtml:br /> </xhtml:pre></xhtml:code><xhtml:br />When a document is loaded via this function, the <xhtml:code>readyStateChange()</xhtml:code> method is invoked:<xhtml:br /><xhtml:code><xhtml:pre><xhtml:br />function readyStateChange() {<xhtml:br /> // '4' means document "loaded"<xhtml:br /> if (req.readyState == 4) {<xhtml:br /> // 200 means "OK"<xhtml:br /> if (req.status == 200) {<xhtml:br /> // do something here<xhtml:br /> } else {<xhtml:br /> // error processing here<xhtml:br /> }<xhtml:br /> }<xhtml:br />}<xhtml:br /> </xhtml:pre></xhtml:code><xhtml:br />From a <xhtml:em>programming</xhtml:em> point of view, I guess you could say that there isn't a lot wrong with this, but then from a programming point of view there wasn't a lot wrong with Z80 or 6502 assembly languages -- I just wouldn't want to go back to them!<xhtml:br /><xhtml:br />But the most important issue is that we have lost the very thing that was responsible for HTML's success -- the use of simple, clear, declarative mark-up, in which we simply state our intent, without having to write a program to do it for us. After all, the web took off because authors only had to master <xhtml:code><a></xhtml:code> in order to enter the exciting new world of 'hypertext' -- but XMLHttpRequest raises the bar again, and takes us right back into the heart of geek-world.<xhtml:br /><xhtml:br /> <xhtml:h2>Beyond XMLHttpRequest</xhtml:h2>But in keeping with the principle that I outlined above -- that XForms and XHTML 2 try to provide mark-up for commonly existing design patterns -- let's see if there are any other patterns that XMLHttpRequest has thrown up.<xhtml:br /><xhtml:br />You will have noticed in the earlier script that we had tests for success and failure:<xhtml:br /><xhtml:code><xhtml:pre><xhtml:br />if (req.status == 200) {<xhtml:br /> // do something here<xhtml:br />} else {<xhtml:br /> // error processing here<xhtml:br />}<xhtml:br /> </xhtml:pre></xhtml:code><xhtml:br />XForms provides the same functionality through the use of events -- on success do this, on failure do that. This is far more powerful, since it hides the protocol-specific aspects of this code ("200" may be 'success' for HTTP, but it isn't 'success' when saving data to the hard-drive or sending an email).<xhtml:br /><xhtml:br />XForms uses declarative mark-up to express those events, which again dramatically reduces coding:<xhtml:br /><xhtml:code><xhtml:pre><xhtml:br /><xf:action ev:observer="sub-search" ev:event="xforms-submit-error"><xhtml:br /> <xf:message level="modal"><xhtml:br /> Submission failed<xhtml:br /> </xf:message><xhtml:br /></xf:action><xhtml:br /> </xhtml:pre></xhtml:code><xhtml:br />But there's lots, lots more in the <xhtml:code>submission</xhtml:code> part of XForms:<xhtml:br /> <xhtml:ul><xhtml:br /> <xhtml:li>it can provide full XML Schema validation before submitting the data;</xhtml:li><xhtml:br /> <xhtml:li>there is built in support for numerous types of serialisation, such as <xhtml:code>multipart/related</xhtml:code>;</xhtml:li><xhtml:br /> <xhtml:li>abstract methods are used so the code is independent of protocol. For example, since <xhtml:code>put</xhtml:code> means the same thing whether the target URL begins <xhtml:code>http:</xhtml:code> or <xhtml:code>file:</xhtml:code>, a form with relative paths will run unchanged on a local machine or a web server;</xhtml:li><xhtml:br /> <xhtml:li>it's extensible -- in formsPlayer 2.0 we have used the <xhtml:code>submission</xhtml:code> element to read and write from an ADO database, allowing programmers to convert forms from using the web to using a local database by doing nothing more than changing a single target URL. (Try doing that with XMLHttpRequest!)</xhtml:li><xhtml:br /></xhtml:ul><xhtml:br /><xhtml:br />The <xhtml:code>submission</xhtml:code> part of XForms is in fact so powerful that it will eventually form a separate specification, for use in other languages.<xhtml:br /><xhtml:br /> <xhtml:h2>From Patterns to Mark-up</xhtml:h2>And there are plenty more patterns out there that were crying out to be turned into mark-up, and which are now incorporated into XForms and XHTML 2. Do you remember the days when if we wanted a tooltip that contained mark-up -- perhaps an image, or bold text -- we had to use a carefully placed <xhtml:code><div></xhtml:code>, a CSS <xhtml:code>display: none;</xhtml:code>, a <xhtml:code>mouseover</xhtml:code> event handler and a timer? Nowadays the programmer with better things to do than work with spaghetti-JavaScript just uses the XForms <xhtml:code><hint></xhtml:code> element, and for free they get platform independence (and therefore accessibility), as well as the ability to insert any mark-up.<xhtml:br /><xhtml:br />And what about the days when we had to write code to open up a text-to-speech engine, and then invoke the various methods on the object to get it to speak its mind? Nowadays who wouldn't just use a CSS property on their XForms' <xhtml:code>message</xhtml:code>s?<xhtml:br /><xhtml:br /> <xhtml:h3>Bad Slacks</xhtml:h3>And do you remember...I'm sorry, this one always makes me laugh...do you remember how we used to write lots of JavaScript to recalculate the shopping-cart when a new item was added? I know it's hard to believe -- it's like looking at old photos of us all wearing flares. Anyway, thank God for straight trousers and the XForms dependency-engine.<xhtml:br /><xhtml:br /><xhtml:img border="1" src="http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2004/sep/fashion_week/satfever_nano140.jpg" /> <xhtml:br />But enough of the good old days, the days of assembly language, C and JavaScript...let's stick with the new.<xhtml:br /><xhtml:br /> <xhtml:h2>Do Try This at Home</xhtml:h2><xhtml:br />To round all of this off, we'll take a look at Google Suggest, and we'll use XForms to implement it. I'll walk through the demo in a separate blog [<xhtml:a href="about:blank#20050426-4">4</xhtml:a>] so that this one doesn't get too cluttered -- and hopefully by disecting this simple but useful application, we can show how declarative mark-up scores over scripting.<xhtml:br /><xhtml:br /><xhtml:br /><xhtml:a name="20050426-1">[1] Will AJAX help Google clean up?, c|net, <xhtml:a href="http://news.com.com/Will+AJAX+help+Google+clean+up/2100-1032_3-5621010.html">http://news.com.com/Will+AJAX+help+Google+clean+up/2100-1032_3-5621010.html</xhtml:a> <xhtml:br /><xhtml:br /><xhtml:a name="20050426-2">[2] Ajax: A New Approach to Web Applications, Jesse James Garrett, Adaptive Path blog, <xhtml:a href="http://www.adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/archives/000385.php">http://www.adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/archives/000385.php</xhtml:a> <xhtml:br /><xhtml:br /><xhtml:a name="20050426-3">[3] Using the XML HTTP Request object, <xhtml:a href="http://jibbering.com/2002/4/httprequest.html">http://jibbering.com/2002/4/httprequest.html</xhtml:a> <xhtml:br /><xhtml:br /><xhtml:a name="20050426-4">[4] "Google Suggest" Using XForms, <xhtml:a href="http://internet-apps.blogspot.com/2005/04/google-suggest-using-xforms.html">http://internet-apps.blogspot.com/2005/04/google-suggest-using-xforms.html</xhtml:a> <xhtml:br /><xhtml:br />Tags: <xhtml:a href="http://technorati.com/tag/xforms" rel="tag">xforms</xhtml:a> | <xhtml:a href="http://technorati.com/tag/xbl" rel="tag">xbl</xhtml:a> | <xhtml:a href="http://technorati.com/tag/webapps" rel="tag">webapps</xhtml:a> | <xhtml:a href="http://technorati.com/tag/ajax" rel="tag">ajax</xhtml:a> | <xhtml:a href="http://technorati.com/tag/javascript" rel="tag">javascript</xhtml:a> </xhtml:a></xhtml:a></xhtml:a></xhtml:a></xhtml:div> <div align="right">[via <a href="http://internet-apps.blogspot.com/">Internet Applications</a>]</div>
Ajax, Hard Facts, Brass Tacks ... and Bad Slacks
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/819
<font size="2"> <p><a href="http://ct.enews.eweek.com/rd/cts?d=186-1965-11-96-81585-221904-0-0-0-1">CNET reports</a>:</p> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p>There are a whopping <u>44,000 SAP customers</u> running on Oracle databases, and IBM wants them. To get them, for the first time ever, it's optimized its enterprise database for a specific vendor's applications. The new version of DB, 8.2.2, will include a slew of SAP-optimized features, including self-tuning, self-configuration, silent install, dynamic storage allocation and more. </p></blockquote> <p dir="ltr">Wouldn't SAP be better served by simply making their application database independent via <a href="http://uda.openlinksw.com/odbc/">ODBC</a>? This process really could have commenced years ago and prevented today's dilema: Your Partner has become Your most aggressive Competitor! </p> <p dir="ltr">SAP tuned for specifically for DB2 or SAP tuned likewise for Microsoft SQL simply reeks of: "Same Sh*t different Pile". Microsoft and IBM will emulate Oracle in due course regarding their assault on SAP's market if DBMS specificity remains the SAP data access API strategy (this is a simple fact).</p> <p dir="ltr">SAP should be using its quest for DBMS independence to stimulate or contribute ODBC enhancements (should ODBC be lacking in areas critical to its application needs; it is available in <a href="http://www.iodbc.org">Open Source form</a> and across all major platforms). Should the ODBC API not be the problem, then it can push ODBC Driver vendors (DBMS vendors such as IBM included) to get their Drivers in shape (should they be lacking, I know <a href="http://uda.openlinksw.com/odbc ">our ODBC Drivers</a> are absolutely fine for this kind of task).</p> <p dir="ltr">Database specificity gets application vendors nowhere. You can only control your business development destiny by being database independent. When applications are database independent the intellectual capital that drives your applications is preserved. This is akin to building physical and logical firewalls around the ecosystem created by your products. This is much better that being a pseudo DBMS engine reseller for a future competitor.</p> <p dir="ltr"> </p> <p dir="ltr"> </p> <p dir="ltr"> </p></font>
SAP, IBM Make Play for Oracle Database Customers With New DB2 Version
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/792
<blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p><a href="http://techdirt.com/articles/20050419/0917204_F.shtml">Why Is Every Information Leak Worse Than Originally Thought?</a> While there have been an incredible number of stories about data leaks over the past couple of months, one interesting thing is that in so many cases, the companies involved later come out and admit that the problem was much worse than they first admitted. That happened with <a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20050218/1534206_F.shtml">ChoicePoint</a> and <a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20050412/0318251_F.shtml">LexisNexis</a>, who both had to come out a second time and admit that the original data breach they discussed wasn't as limited as they had believed. The latest is that the DSW Shoe Warehouse database that was stolen included <a href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/D/DSW_CREDIT_CARDS?SITE=APWEB&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT">information (including credit cards) on many, many more people than originally stated</a>. So rather than 100,000 credit cards out there, we're talking 1.4 million. What's unclear, however, is why this is happening. Is it that these companies are so clueless and unable to manage their own data that they don't realize how badly they've leaked data until they do further investigations? Or is that the companies are still trying to hide the nature of the losses until later (maybe spreading them out a bit)? Either way, you'll notice that no one ever seems to correct the damages in the other direction... </p></blockquote> <div align="right">[via <a href="http://www.techdirt.com/">Techdirt</a>]</div> <div align="left"> </div> <div align="left">It would be interesting to see the make up of the IS infrastructure behind these companies. If such information was possible I would have much better context for a broader understanding of my suspicions (outlined in <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=security&type=text&output=html">previous comments</a>).</div> <div align="left"> </div> <div align="left">Data is everything! I just wish there was a better appreciation and comprehension of the subject of <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=data+access&type=text&output=html">Data Access</a> .</div>
Why Is Every Information Leak Worse Than Originally Thought?
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/718
<font size="2"> <p dir="ltr">Today is one of those days where one topic appears to be on the mind of many across cyberspace. You guessed right! Its that Web 2.0 thing again. </p> <p dir="ltr"><a href="http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/1200">Paul Bausch</a> brings Yahoo!'s most recent Web 2.0 contribution to our broader attention in this excerpt from his <font size="2"><a href="http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/network/2005/02/28/yahoo.html">O'Reilly Network article</a></font>:</p> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p>I browse news, check stock prices, and get movie times with Yahoo! Even though I interact with Yahoo! technology on a regular basis, I've never thought of Yahoo! as a technology company. Now that Yahoo! has released a <a href="http://developer.yahoo.net/faq/">Web Services interface</a>, my perception of them is changing. Suddenly having programmatic access to a good portion of their data has me seeing Yahoo! through the eyes of a developer rather than a user.</p></blockquote> <p dir="ltr">The great thing about this move by Yahoo! is two fold (<a href="http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?s=imho&method=2&gwp=13">IMHO</a>):</p> <ol dir="ltr"> <li> <div>It certainly makes Yahoo! a little more interesting of late. And it will certainly helps to distinguish Yahoo! from Google. Of course these companies overlap somewhat, but they are also pretty different in focus. I see Yahoo! increasingly as a portal platform play providing content access via syndication, publishing, and web services.<br /><br /></div></li> <li> <div>It will impact their bottom line pretty rapidly, and I hope they realize the impact of Web 2.0 when trying to explain the growth increments whenever they next report to their investors :-) In a <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/index.vspx?id=637">previous post</a> I expressed my sense of some confusion on the part of Jeff Bezos regarding the total contribution of AWS to Amazon's growth (<a href="http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?s=btw&method=2&gwp=13">BTW</a> - my articles to date re. Amazon and Web 2.0 are available from <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=amazon+web+2.0&type=text&output=html">here</a> in a variety of XML syndication formats: <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=amazon+web+2.0&type=text&output=atom">Atom</a>, <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=amazon+web+2.0&type=text&output=atom">RSS 2.0</a>, <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=amazon+web+2.0&type=text&output=rdf">RDF</a>).<br /></div></li></ol> <p>The great thing about the Platform oriented Web 2.0 is the ability to syndicate your value proposition (aka products and services) instead of pursuing fallable email campaigns. It enables the auto-discovery of products and services by user agents (the content aspect). Web 2.0 also provides an infrastructure for user agents to enter into a consumptive interactions with discrete or composite Web Services via published endpoints exposed by a platform (the execution aspect). </p> <p>A scenario example: </p> <p>You can obtain RSS feeds (electronic product catalogs) from Amazon today, although you have to explicitly locate these catalog-feeds since Amazon doesn't exploit <a href="http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/000967.html">feed auto-discovery</a> within their domain. </p> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p><em>If you use Firefox or another auto-discovery supporting RSS/Atom/RDF user agent; visit </em><a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/"><em>this URL</em></a><em>; Firefox users should simply click on the little orange icon bottom right of the browser's window to its RSS feed auto-discovery in action. </em></p> <p><em>Anyway, once you have the feeds the next step is execution endpoints discovery within the Amazon domain (the conduits to Amazon's order processing system in this example). At the current time there isn't broad standardization of Web Services auto-discovery but it's certainly coming; </em><a href="http://xml.coverpages.org/wsil.html"><em>WSIL</em></a><em> is a potential front runner for small scale discovery while UDDI provides a heavier duty equivalent for larger scale tasks that includes discovery and other related functionality realms.</em> </p></blockquote> <p>Back to the example trail, by having the RSS/Atom/RDF feed data within the confines of a user agent (an <a href="http://internet-apps.blogspot.com/2004/08/internet-application-manifesto.html">Internet Application</a> to be precise) nothing stops the extraction of key purchasing data from these feeds, plus your consumer data en route to assembling an execution message (as prescribed by the schema of the service in question)for Amazon's order processing/ shopping cart service. All of this happens without ever seeing/eye-balling the Amazon site (a prerequisite of Web 1.0 hence the dated term: Web Site).</p> <p>To summarize: Web 2.0 enables you to syndicate your value proposition and then have it consumed via Web Services, leveraging computer, as opposed to human interaction cycles. This is how I believe Web 2.0 will ultimately impact the growth rates (in most cases exponentially) of those companies that comprehend its potential. </p></font>
Yahoo! Web Services
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/715
<blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p><a href="http://news.com.com/Payroll+hole+exposes+dozens+of+companies/2100-1029_3-5591029.html?part=rss&tag=5587315&subj=news">Payroll hole exposes dozens of companies</a> Flaw in PayMaxx Web site exposed the financial information of customers' workers, the payroll-services firm acknowledges. </p></blockquote> <div align="right">[via <a href="http://news.com.com/">CNET News.com</a>]</div> <div align="left"> </div> <div align="left">Unfortunately we have more of this come! The combinaton of backend Database Engine and Application Layer Data Access technology choices play a major role in these kinds of security vulnerabilities . Databases used to confined to access from dumb terminals and PCs within the enterprise. Today, these same databases are exposed to the Internet in a myriad of ways, and a physical firewall and password protection alone one cut it, not in an increasingly social oriented cyberspace. Social Engineering is a major aspect of hacking!</div> <div align="left"> </div> <div align="left">Hosted applications are currently the rage; there are many benefits, but there are also some serious security vulnerabilties that will "dope slap" those organizations that carelessly head down this route. You have to take a look at the underlying architecture driving the systems in question. </div> <div align="left"> </div> <div align="left">Anyway, you can track past and future commentary relating to databases, data access, and security using <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=security&type=text&output=html">this dynamic blog query</a>. Naturally, I expect content exposed from the query URI to grow, and to ultimately integrate content from other sources around the blogosphere.</div>
Payroll hole exposes dozens of companies
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/710
<p dir="ltr">I have yanked out a key segment from the <a href="http://www.emergic.org/archives/2005/03/01/index.html#tech_talk_the_future_of_search_perspectives">TECH TALK: The Future of Search: Perspectives</a> post that I find really poignant regarding the changing shape and form of the Web:</p> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p></p> <p dir="ltr">It is clear that in comparison to the Web of the last century, the nature of data on the Web later in this decade will be very different in the following aspects:</p> <ul> <li dir="ltr">Volume of data is growing by orders of magnitudes every year<br />Multimedia and sensor data are becoming more and more common.<br /><br /></li> <li dir="ltr">Spatio-temporal attributes of data are important.<br /><br /></li> <li dir="ltr">Different data sources provide information to form the holistic picture.<br /><br /></li> <li dir="ltr">Users are not concerned with the location of data source, as long as its quality and credibility is assured. They want to know the result of the data assimilation (the big picture of the event).<br /><br /></li> <li dir="ltr">Real-time data processing is the only way to extract meaningful information<br />Exploration, not querying, is the predominant mode of interaction, which makes context and state critical.<br /><br /></li> <li dir="ltr">The user is interested in experience and information, independent of the medium and the source.<br /></li></ul> <p>Effectively, the nature of the knowledge on the Web is changing very fast. It used to be mostly static text documents; now it will be a combination of live and static multimedia, including text, data and documents with spatio-temporal attributes. Considering these changes, can the search engines developed for static text documents be able to deal with the needs of the Web? [via <a href="http://www.emergic.org/">E M E R G I C . o r g</a>]</p></blockquote> <p dir="ltr">No, but this doesn't render them useless since we wouldn't be at this point without the likes of Google, Yahoo! et al. But building upon the data substrate that web data oriented search engines provide is where the next batch of Information access and Knowledge discovery solutions will carve out their space. The symbiotic relationship between <a href="http://google.com/">Google </a>(data) and Gurunet's <a href="http://answers.com/">Answers.com</a> (Information and Knowledge) is one interesting example.</p> <p dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">The Web is a distributed collection of databases that implement variety of data storage models but are commonly accessible via protocols that rely on HTTP for transport (in-bound and out-bound messages) services. These databases increasingly using well-formed XML for query result (data contextualization) persistence and URIs for permenant reference. 'What Database?" you might ask, "What you once called your Web Site, Blog, Wiki, etc.." my time-less reply.</p> <p dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">When you have the database that I describe above, and a collection of entry points from which discrete or composite Web Services can be invoked available from one or more internet domains, you end up with what I prefer to call "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0">Web 2.0</a>" presence, or what <a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/002645.php">Richard McManus</a> describes as: "The Web as a Platform".</p> <p dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">Here is a collection of posts I have made in the past relating to Web 2.0, note that this list is dynamic since this blog is Virtuoso based (predictably):</p> <p dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">Free Text Search with XHTML results page (with Virtuoso generated URIs for RSS, Atom, and RDF): <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=web+2.0&type=text&output=html">http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=web+2.0&type=text&output=html</a> </p> <p dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">It's also no secret that I believe that <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/">Virtuoso</a> is a bleeding edge Web 2.0 technology platform (and more..). The URIs that I am exposing provide the foundation layer for other complimentary Web initiatives such as the <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=semantic+web&type=text&output=html">Semantic Web </a>(Web 2.0 provides infrastructure for the Semantic Web as time will show). They are also completely usable outside the realm of this blog.</p> <p dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">BTW - <a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/">Jon Udell</a> is writing, experimenting with, and demonstrating <a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2005/03/01.html#a1187">similar concepts</a> across feeds within his Web 2.0 domain.</p> <p dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">These are indeed fun times!</p>
The Future of Search: Perspectives
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/698
<p dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">The cost of writing database specific applications (Open or Closed Source) adversely affects application developers/vendors and end user alike. <a href="http://www.nwc.com/showitem.jhtml?docid=1603buzz3">This</a> article in <a href="http://www.nwc.com">Network Computing</a> (regarding Oracle and PeopleSoft's DB2's user base) provides great insight into the time-tested problem of writing or acquiring database driven applications that are database specific. <span class="grey12"></span></p> <p dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">DB2 users of PeopleSoft and IBM (the DB2 developer and vendor) suspect that Oracle will obviously try to use its ownership of PeopleSoft to covertly coerce DB2 users into becoming Oracle DBMS users. This strategy would take the form of new features and fixes discrimination as somewhat echoed in these excerpts:</p> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"><span class="grey12">"..In the crescendo surrounding the Oracle-PeopleSoft merger, one question has been repeatedly drowned out: What happens to users of PeopleSoft's DB2 database? Oracle chief Larry Ellison has repeatedly assured DB2 users--and IBM--that Oracle will continue to support DB2 and PeopleSoft's interfaces to IBM's WebSphere platform. But IBM isn't taking any chances, announcing an initiative to alter DB2 to work with products from Oracle rival SAP." </span></p> <p dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"><span class="grey12">"..IBM has good reason to be concerned. Oracle vies with SAP as the leading vendor for enterprise applications, but it's under pressure to show concrete benefits from the merger by combining assets and pumping up revenue. One obvious tactic will be to use the PeopleSoft applications to steer enterprise customers toward the Oracle database by optimizing performance and features toward the Oracle back end."</span></p></blockquote> <p dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">If PeopleSoft's application core was ODBC based, the vulnerability to this predictable competitive tactic would at the very least be significantly alleviated. DB2 end-users and IBM the product vendor would have a much stronger basis for countering Oracle by taking them to task about their claimed inability to implement new application functionality enhancements against DB2 etc. especially as this would have morphed into a generic database issue as opposed to a DB2 specific issue -- by virtue of the application and data access layer seperation provided by <a href="http://uda.openlinksw.com/odbc/">ODBC's architecture</a>. </p> <p dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> </p>
The Cost of Database Specificity
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/695
<p><a href="http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?s=definition+cognitive+dissonance&method=2&gwp=13">Cognitive dissonance</a> is how <a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/dareobasanjo/archive/2005/02/17/375367.aspx">Dare Obasanjo</a> aptly describes the emergence of some of the <a href="http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?s=smart+tags&method=2&gwp=13">Smart Tags </a>concepts previously introduced by Microsoft and now emulated by the new google toolbar's autolink feature (<a href="http://glinden.blogspot.com/">Greg Linden</a> explains the problem with <a href="http://glinden.blogspot.com/2005/02/autolink-in-google-toolbar.html">clarity</a>).</p> <p>Anyway, back to cognitive dissonance. Could this be the reason for the following?</p> <ol> <li>Open Source products are increasingly database specific even though they could be database independent via Open Source ODBC SDK efforts such as <a href="http://www.iodbc.org">iODBC</a> and <a href="http://www.unixodbc.org">unixODBC</a>. We increasingly narrowing our choices down to database specific "Closed Source" or database specific "Open Source" solutions and somehow deem this to be progress<br /></li> <li>The prevalent use of free standards compliant data access drivers (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ODBC">ODBC</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JDBC">JDBC</a>, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADO.NET">ADO.NET</a>) or their native counterparts that remain vulnerable to simple password hacks (there are databases behind those dynamic web sites!!) as none of these have any notion of "rules based" authentication and data access policy<br /></li> <li>The time-tested fallacy that: "select * from table" defines a viable <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RDBMS">RDBMS</a> engine since Transaction Atomicity, Concurrency, Isolation, and Durability (ACID) mean zip! Ditto scrollable cursors, stored procedures, and other presumably useless aspects of any marginably decent RDBMS engine<br /></li> <li>Failing to comprehend that a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weblog">Weblog</a> is your property (if you have a personal blog) not the property of the vendor hosting your service (that important issue of separating data ownership and data storage again). You may have heard about, or experienced, total loss of weblog and/or weblog archives arising from weblog engine or blog service provider changeovers<br /></li> <li>Failing to see the synergy between personal/group/corporate information stores (aka <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=infoBase&type=text&output=html">infobase</a>) such as Wikis, Weblogs, and the burgeoning semantic web. <a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2005/02/22.html#a1183">Jon Udell</a> for instance, is trying to get the point across via his tireless collection of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML_query_language">XQuery</a>/<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XPath">XPath</a> based queries aimed at the blogosphere section of the burgeoning semantic web. Here are some of mine (scoped to this weblog):<br /></li> <ul> <li>Security related posts to date (<a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=//p[contains%28.%2C%27security%27%29]&type=xpath&output=html">XPath</a> query)<br /></li> <li>Infobase related posts to date (<a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=infoBase&type=text&output=html">Free Text</a> search)<br /></li></ul></ol> <p>And more...</p>
Cognitive Dissonance
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/680
<blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p><a href="http://techdirt.com/articles/20050209/1329235_F.shtml">Email As A Platform</a> It looks like more people are starting to realize that email is more than it seems. Especially given the drastic increase in storage size of web-based email applications, more people are realizing that <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4167633.stm">email is basically a personal database</a>. People simply store information in their email, from contact information that was emailed to them to schedule information to purchase tracking from emailed receipts. Lots of people email messages to themselves, realizing that email is basically the best "permanent" filing system they have. That's part of the reason why good email search is so important. Of course, what the article doesn't discuss is the next stage of this evolution. If you have a database of important information, the next step is to build useful applications on top of it. In other words, people are starting to realize that email, itself, is a <i>platform</i> for personal information management. </p></blockquote> <div align="right">[via <a href="http://www.techdirt.com/">Techdirt</a>]</div> <div align="left"> </div> <div align="left">Yep! And this is where the Unified Storage vision comes into play. Many years ago the same issues emerged in the business application realm, and at the time the issue at hand was: separating the DBMS engine from the Application logic. This is what the SQL Access Group (SAG) addressed via the CLI that laid the foundation for ODBC, JDBC, and recent derivatives; OLE DB and ADO.NET. </div> <div align="left"> </div> <div align="left">Most of us live inside our email applications and the need to integrate the content of emails, address books, notes, calendars with other data sources (Web Portal, Blogs, Wikis, CRM, ERP, and more) as part of our application interaction cycles and domain specific workflow is finally becoming obvious. There is a need for separation of the application/service layer from the storage engine across each one of these functionality realms. XML, RDF, and Triple Stores (RDF / Semantic Data Stores) collectively provide a standards based framework for achieving this goal. On the other hand so does WinFS albeit total proprietary (by this I mean none standards compliant) at the current time.</div> <div align="left"> </div> <div align="left">As you can already see there are numerous applications (conventional or hosted) that address email, address books, bookmarking, notes, calendars, blogs, wikis, crm etc. specifically, but next to none that address the obvious need for transparent integration across each functionality realm - the ultimate goal.</div> <div align="left"> </div> <div align="left">Yes, you know what I am about to say! <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com">OpenLink Virtuoso</a> is the platform for developing and/or implementing these next generation solutions. We have also decided to go one step further by developing a number of applications that demonstrate the vision (and ultimate reality); and each of these applications (and the inherent integration tapestry) will be the subject of a future Virtuoso Application specific post.</div>
Email As A Platform
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/600
<a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2004/07/25.html#a1047">Bloglines</a> <p>Since last fall, I've been recommending <a href="http://www.blogines.com/">Bloglines</a> to first-timers as the fastest and easiest introduction to the subscription side of the blogosphere. Remarkably, this same application also meets the needs of some of the most <a href="http://www.intertwingly.net/blog/1716.html">advanced</a> <a href="http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/001829.html">users</a>. I've now added myself to that list. Hats off to <a href="http://www.wingedpig.com/">Mark Fletcher</a> for putting all the pieces together in such a masterful way. </p> <p>What goes around comes around. Five years ago, centralized feed aggregators -- my.netscape.com and my.userland.com -- were the only game in town. Fat-client feedreaders only arrived on the scene later. Because of the well-known rich-versus-reach tradeoffs, I never really settled in with one of those. Most of the time I've used the Radio UserLand reader. It is browser-based, and it normally points to localhost, but I've been parking Radio UserLand on a secure server so that I can read the feeds it aggregates for me from anywhere. </p> <p>Bloglines takes that idea and runs with it. Like the Radio UserLand reader, it supports the all-important (to me) consolidated view of new items. But its two-pane interface also shows me the list of feeds, highlighting those with new entries, so you can switch between a linear of scan of all new items and random access to particular feeds. Once you've read an item it vanishes, but you can recall already-read items like so: </p> <p align="center"> </p><form action="" method="get"><input name="sub" type="hidden" /> Display items within the last <select name="since"><option value="0">Session</option><option value="1">1 Hour</option><option value="2">6 Hours</option><option value="3">12 Hours</option><option value="4">24 Hours</option><option value="5">48 Hours</option><option value="6">72 Hours</option><option value="7">Week</option><option value="8">Month</option><option value="9">All Items</option></select> <input name="Display" type="submit" value="Display" /> </form> <p>If a month's worth of some blog's entries produces too much stuff to easily scan, you can switch that blog to a titles-only view. The titles expand to reveal all the content transmitted in the feed for that item. </p> <p>I haven't gotten around to organizing my feeds into folders, the way <a href="http://www.bloglines.com/public/yoz">other</a> <a href="http://www.bloglines.com/public/marccanter">users</a> of Bloglines do, but I've poked around enough to see that Bloglines, like Zope, handles foldering about as well as you can in a Web UI -- which is to say, well enough. With an intelligent local cache it could be really good; more on that later. </p> <p>Bloglines does two kinds of data mining that are especially noteworthy. First, it counts and reports the number of Bloglines users subscribed to each blog. In the case of <a href="http://www.bloglines.com/preview?siteid=297235">Jonathan Schwartz's weblog</a>, for example, there are (as of this moment) <a href="http://www.bloglines.com/userdir?siteid=297235">253 subscribers</a>. </p> <p>Second, Bloglines is currently managing references to items more effectively than the competition. I was curious, for example, to gauge the reaction to the latest salvo in Schwartz's ongoing campaign to turn up the heat on Red Hat. Bloglines reports <a href="http://www.bloglines.com/citations?siteid=297235&itemid=14" target="_blank" title="References To This Item From Other Blogs">10 References</a>. In this case, the comparable query on Feedster yields a <a href="http://feedster.net//links.php?url=http%3A//blogs.sun.com/roller/page/jonathan/20040721%23competing_against_a_social_movement">comparable result</a>, but on the whole I'm finding Bloglines' assembly of conversations to be more reliable than Feedster's (which, however, is still marked as 'beta'). Meanwhile Technorati, though it casts a much wider net than either, is <a href="http://www.technorati.com/cosmos/search.html?url=http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/jonathan/20040721#competing_against_a_social_movement">currently struggling</a> with conversation assembly. </p> <p>I love how Bloglines weaves everything together to create a dense web of information. For example, the list of <a href="http://www.bloglines.com/userdir?siteid=297235">subscribers to the Schwartz blog</a> includes: <i><a href="http://www.bloglines.com/public/judell">judell</a> - subscribed since July 23, 2004</i>. Click that link and you'll see my Bloglines subscriptions. Which you can <a href="http://www.bloglines.com/export?id=judell">export</a> and then -- if you'd like to see the world through my filter -- turn around and import. </p> <p>Moving my 265 subscriptions into Bloglines wasn't a complete no-brainer. I imported my <a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/gems/mySubscriptions.opml">Radio UserLand-generated OPML file</a> without any trouble, but catching up on unread items -- that is, marking all of each feed's sometimes lengthy history of items as having been read -- was painful. In theory you can do that by clicking once on the top-level folder containing all the feeds, which generates the consolidated view of unread items. In practice, that kept timing out. I finally had to touch a number of the larger feeds, one after another, in order to get everything caught up. A <b>Catch Up All Feeds</b> feature would solve this problem. </p> <p>Another feature I'd love to see is <b>Move To Next Unread Item</b> -- wired to a link in the HTML UI, or to a keystroke, or ideally both. </p> <p>Finally, I'd love it if Bloglines cached everything in a local database, not only for offline reading but also to make the UI more responsive and to accelerate queries that reach back into the archive. </p> <p>Like Gmail, Bloglines is the kind of Web application that surprises you with what it can do, and makes you crave more. Some argue that to satisfy that craving, you'll need to abandon the browser and switch to RIA (rich Internet application) technology -- Flash, Java, Avalon (someday), whatever. Others are concluding that perhaps the 80/20 solution that the browser is today can become a 90/10 or 95/5 solution tomorrow with some incremental changes. </p> <p>Dare Obasanjo wondered, over the weekend, "What is Google building?" He wrote: </p><blockquote class="personQuote DareObasanjo">In the past couple of months Google has hired four people who used to work on Internet Explorer in various capacities [especially its XML support] who then moved to BEA; <a href="http://davidbau.com/about/david_bau.html">David Bau</a>, <a href="http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/1303">Rod Chavez</a>, <a href="http://gary.burd.info/">Gary Burd</a> and most recently <a href="http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1627319,00.asp">Adam Bosworth</a>. A number of my coworkers used to work with these guys since our team, the Microsoft XML team, was once part of the Internet Explorer team. It's been interesting chatting in the hallways with folks contemplating what Google would want to build that requires folks with a background in building XML data access technologies both on the client side, Internet Explorer and on the server, BEA's WebLogic. [<a href="http://www.25hoursaday.com/weblog/PermaLink.aspx?guid=1524b97e-f8b1-4e42-ac07-455337f299b4">Dare Obasanjo</a>] </blockquote>It seems pretty clear to me. Web applications such as Gmail and Bloglines are already hard to beat. With a touch of <a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2004/06/15.html#a1023">alchemy</a> they just might become unstoppable. <p></p> <div align="right">[via <a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/">Jon's Radio</a>]</div>
Bloglines
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/559
<p>A Blog post for the ages, from <a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell">Jon Udell</a>. I expect to refer back to this post a number of times in the future, as I have the same concerns across related realms; for instance data access API usage and evolution.</p> <p>Enjoy!</p> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p><a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2004/06/09.html#a1019">Questions about Longhorn, part 3: Avalon's enterprise mission</a> </p> <p><a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/gems/WinformsVsAvalon.jpg"><img align="right" hspace="6" src="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/gems/WinformsVsAvalon_s.jpg" vspace="6" /></a> The slide shown at the right comes from a presentation entitled <a href="http://www.ineta.org/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabindex=2&tabid=41&FileID=125">Windows client roadmap</a>, given last month to the International .NET Association (<a href="http://www.ineta.org/DesktopDefault.aspx">INETA</a>). When I see slides like this, I always want to change the word "How" to "Why" -- so, in this case, the question would become "Why do I have to pick between Windows Forms and Avalon?" Similarly, MSDN's Channel 9 ran a video clip of Joe Beda, from the Avalon team, entitled <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/winme/0404/22606/Joe_Beda_prepare_300k.asx">How should developers prepare for Longhorn/Avalon?</a> that, at least for me, begs the question "Why should developers prepare for Longhorn/Avalon?" </p> <p>I've been looking at decision trees like the one shown in this slide for more than a decade. It's always the same yellow-on-blue PowerPoint template, and always the same message: here's how to manage your investment in current Windows technologies while preparing to assimilate the new stuff. For platform junkies, the internal logic can be compelling. The INETA presentation shows, for example, how it'll be possible to use XAML to write WinForms apps that host combinations of WinForms and Avalon components, or to write Avalon apps that host either or both style of component. Cool! But...huh? Listen to how Joe Beda frames the "rich vs. reach" debate: </p> <blockquote class="personQuote JoeBeda">Avalon will be supplanting WinForms, but WinForms is more reach than it is rich. It's the reach versus rich thing, and in some ways there's a spectrum. If you write an ASP.NET thing and deploy via the browser, that's really reach. If you write a WinForms app, you can go down to Win98, I believe. Avalon's going to be Longhorn only. </blockquote> <p>So developers are invited to classify degrees of reach -- not only with respect to the Web, but even within Windows -- and to code accordingly. What's more, they're invited to consider WinForms, the post-MFC (Microsoft Foundation Classes) GUI framework in the .NET Framework, as "reachier" than Avalon. That's true by definition since Avalon's not here yet, but bizarre given that mainstream Windows developers can't yet regard .NET as a ubiquitous foundation, even though many would like to. </p> <p>Beda recommends that developers isolate business logic and data-intensive stuff from the visual stuff -- which is always smart, of course -- and goes on to sketch an incremental plan for retrofitting Avalon goodness into existing apps. He concludes: </p><blockquote class="personQuote JoeBeda">Avalon, and Longhorn in general, is Microsoft's stake in the ground, saying that we believe power on your desktop, locally sitting there doing cool stuff, is here to stay. We're investing on the desktop, we think it's a good place to be, and we hope we're going to start a wave of excitement leveraging all these new technologies that we're building. </blockquote> <p></p> <p>It's not every decade that the Windows presentation subsystem gets a complete overhaul. As a matter of fact, it's never happened before. Avalon will retire the hodge-podge of DLLs that began with 16-bit Windows, and were carried forward (with accretion) to XP and Server 2003. It will replace this whole edifice with a new one that aims to unify three formerly distinct modes: the document, the user interface, and audio-visual media. This is a great idea, and it's a big deal. If you're a developer writing a Windows application that needs to deliver maximum consumer appeal three or four years from now, this is a wave you won't want to miss. But if you're an enterprise that will have to buy or build such applications, deploy them, and manage them, you'll want to know things like: </p><ul> <li> <p>How much fragmentation can my developers and users tolerate <i>within</i> the Windows platform, never mind across platforms?</p></li> <li> <p>Will I be able to remote the Avalon GUI using Terminal Services and Citrix?</p></li> <li> <p>Is there any way to invest in Avalon without stealing resources from the Web and mobile stuff that I still have to support?</p></li></ul> <p></p> <p>Then again, why even bother to ask these questions? It's not enough to believe that the return of rich-client technology will deliver compelling business benefits. (Which, by the way, I think it will.) You'd also have to be shown that Microsoft's brand of rich-client technology will trump all the platform-neutral variations. Perhaps such a case can be made, but the concept demos shown so far don't do so convincingly. The Amazon demo at the Longhorn PDC (Professional Developers Conference) was indeed cool, but you can see similar stuff happening in <a href="http://www.ultrasaurus.com/sarahblog/archives/000140.html">Laszlo</a>, Flex, and other RIA (rich Internet application) environments today. Not, admittedly, with the same 3D effects. But if enterprises are going to head down a path that entails more Windows lock-in, Microsoft will have to combat the perception that the 3D stuff is gratuitous eye candy, and show order-of-magnitude improvements in users' ability to absorb and interact with information-rich services. </p></blockquote> <div align="right">[via <a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/">Jon's Radio</a>]</div>
Questions about Longhorn, part 3: Avalon's enterprise mission
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/528
<p>Here are some thoughts on where I think things are going in the mobile and content space.</p> <p><em>I wrote this essay before reading <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Culture">Free Culture</a> so I'm saying a lot of stuff that <a href="http://www.lessig.org/">Larry</a> says better...</em></p> <p>Several crucial shifts in technology are emerging that will drastically affect the relationship between users and technology in the near future. Wireless Internet is becoming ubiquitous and economically viable. Internet capable devices are becoming smaller and more powerful.</p> <p>Alongside technological shifts, new social trends are emerging. Users are shifting their attention from packaged content to social information about location, presence and community. Tools for identity, trust, relationship management and navigating social networks are becoming more popular. Mobile communication tools are shifting away from a 1-1 model, allowing for increased many-to-many interactions; such a shift is even being used to permit new forms of democracy and citizen participation in global dialog.</p> <p>While new technological and social trends are occurring, it is not without resistance, often by the developers and distributors of technology and content. In order to empower the consumer as a community member and producer, communication carriers, hardware manufacturers and content providers must understand and build models that focus less on the content and more on the relationships. </p> <p><strong>Smaller faster</strong></p> <p>Computing started out as large mainframe computers, software developers and companies “time sharing” for slices of computing time on the large machines. The mini-computer was cheaper and smaller, allowing companies and labs to own their own computers. The mini computer allowed a much greater number of people to have access to computers and even use them in real time. The mini computer lead to a burst in software and networking technologies. In the early 80’s, the personal computer increased the number of computers by an order of magnitude and again, led to an explosion in new software and technology while lowering the cost even more. Console gaming companies proved once again that unit costs could be decreased significantly by dramatically increasing the number of units sold. Today, we have over a billion cell phones in the market. There are tens of millions camera phones. The incredible number of these devices has continued to lower the unit cost of computing as well as devices imbedded in these devices such as small cameras. High end phones have the computing power of the personal computers of the 80’s and the game consoles of the 90’s.</p> <p><strong>History repeats with WiFi</strong></p> <p>There are parallels in the history of communications and computing. In the 1980’s the technology of packet switched networks became widely deployed. Two standards competed. X.25 was a packet switched network technology being promoted by CCITT (a large, formal international standards body) and the telephone companies. It involved a system run by telephone companies including metered tariffs and multiple bilateral agreements between carriers to hook up.</p> <p>Concurrently, universities and research labs were promoting TCP/IP and the Internet opportunity for loosely organized standards meetings being operated with flat rate tariffs and little or no agreements between the carriers. People just connected to the closest node and everyone agreed to freely carry traffic for others.</p> <p>There were several “free Internet” services such as “The Little Garden” in San Francisco. Commercial service providers, particularly the telephone company operators such as SprintNet tried to shut down such free services by threatening not to carry this free traffic.</p> <p>Eventually, large ISPs began providing high quality Internet connectivity and finally the telephone companies realized that the Internet was the dominant standard and shutdown or acquired the ISPs.</p> <p>A similar trend is happening in wireless data services. GPRS is currently the dominant technology among mobile telephone carriers. GPRS allows users to transmit packets of data across the carrier network to the Internet. One can roam to other networks as long as the mobile operators have agreements with each other. Just like in the days of X.25, the system requires many bilateral agreements between the carriers; their goal is to track and bill for each packet of information.</p> <p>Competing with this standard is WiFi. WiFi is just a simple wireless extension to the current Internet and many hotspots provide people with free access to the Internet in cafes and other public areas. WiFi service providers have emerged, while telephone operators –such as a T-Mobile and Vodaphone- are capitalizing on paid WiFi services. Just as with the Internet, network operators are threatening to shut down free WiFi providers, citing a violation of terms of service. </p> <p>Just as with X.25, the GPRS data network and the future data networks planned by the telephone carriers (e.g. 3G) are crippled with unwieldy standards bodies, bilateral agreements, and inherently complicated and expensive plant operations.</p> <p>It is clear that the simplicity of WiFi and the Internet is more efficient than the networks planned by the telephone companies. That said, the availability of low cost phones is controlled by mobile telephone carriers, their distribution networks and their subsidies.</p> <p><strong>Content vs Context</strong></p> <p>Many of the mobile telephone carriers are hoping that users will purchase branded content manufactured in Hollywood and packaged and distributed by the telephone companies using sophisticated technology to thwart copying.</p> <p>Broadband in the home will always be cheaper than mobile broadband. Therefore it will be cheaper for people to download content at home and use storage devices to carry it with them rather than downloading or viewing content over a mobile phone network. Most entertainment content is not so time sensitive that it requires real time network access.</p> <p>The mobile carriers are making the same mistake that many of the network service providers made in the 80s. Consider Delphi, a joint venture between IBM and Sears Roebuck. Delphi assumed that branded content was going to be the main use of their system and designed the architecture of the network to provide users with such content. Conversely, the users ended up using primary email and communications and the system failed to provide such services effectively due to the mis-design.</p> <p>Similarly, it is clear that mobile computing is about communication. Not only are mobile phones being used for 1-1 communications, as expected through voice conversations; people are learning new forms of communication because of SMS, email and presence technologies. Often, the value of these communication processes is the transmission of “state” or “context” information; the content of the messages are less important.</p> <p><strong>Copyright and the Creative Commons</strong></p> <p>In addition to the constant flow of traffic keeping groups of people in touch with each other, significant changes are emerging in multimedia creation and sharing. The low cost of cameras and the nearly television studio quality capability of personal computers has caused an explosion in the number and quality of content being created by amateurs. Not only is this content easier to develop, people are using the power of weblogs and phones to distribute their creations to others. </p> <p>The network providers and many of the hardware providers are trying to build systems that make it difficult for users to share and manipulate multimedia content. Such regulation drastically stifles the users’ ability to produce, share and communicate. This is particularly surprising given that such activities are considered the primary “killer application” for networks.</p> <p>It may seem unintuitive to argue that packaged commercial content can co-exist alongside consumer content while concurrently stimulating content creation and sharing. In order to understand how this can work, it is crucial to understand how the current system of copyright is broken and can be fixed.</p> <p>First of all, copyright in the multimedia digital age is inherently broken. Historically, copyright works because it is difficult to copy or edit works and because only few people produce new works over a very long period of time. Today, technology allows us to find, sample, edit and share very quickly. The problem is that the current notion of copyright is not capable of addressing the complexity and the speed of what technology enables artists to create. Large copyright holders, notably Hollywood studios, have aggressively extended and strengthened their copyright protections to try to keep the ability to produce and distribute creative works in the realm of large corporations.</p> <p>Hollywood asserts, “all rights reserved” on works that they own. Sampling music, having a TV show running in the background in a movie scene or quoting lyrics to a song in a book about the history of music all require payment to and a negotiation with the copyright holder. Even though the Internet makes available a wide palette of wonderful works based on content from all over the world, the current copyright practices forbid most of such creation.</p> <p>However, most artists are happy to have their music sampled if they receive attribution. Most writers are happy to be quoted or have their books copied for non-commercial use. Most creators of content realize that all content builds on the past and the ability for people to build on what one has created is a natural and extremely important part of the creative process.</p> <p>Creative Commons tries to give artists that choice. By providing a more flexible copyright than the standards “all rights reserved” copyright of commercial content providers, Creative Commons allows artists to set a variety of rights to their works. This includes the ability to reuse for commercial use, copy, sample, require attribution, etc. Such an approach allows artists to decide how their work can be used, while providing people with the materials necessary for increased creation and sharing. </p> <p>Creative Commons also provides for a way to make the copyright of pieces of content machine-readable. This means that a search engine or other tool to manipulate content is able to read the copyright. As such, an artist can search for songs, images and text to use while having the information to provide the necessary attribution.</p> <p>Creative Commons can co-exist with the stringent copyright regimes of the Hollywood studios while allowing professional and amateur artists to take more control of how much they want their works to be shared and integrated into the commons. Until copyright law itself is fundamentally changed, the Creative Commons will provide an essential tool to provide an alternative to the completely inflexible copyright of commercial content. </p> <p>Content is not like some lump of gold to be horded and owned which diminishes in value each time it is shared. Content is a foundation upon which community and relationships are formed. Content is the foundation for culture. We must evolve beyond the current copyright regime that was developed in a world where the creation and transmission of content was unwieldy and expense, reserved to those privileged artists who were funded by commercial enterprises. This will provide the emerging wireless networks and mobile devices with the freedom necessary for them to become the community building tools of sharing that is their destiny.<br /></p> <div align="right">[via <a href="http://joi.ito.com/">Joi Ito's Web</a>]</div>
Essay about current and past trends -- Joi Ito
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/462
<p><a href="http://www.webdav.org">WebDAV</a> is one of those interesting standards that sometimes gets lost in the broader industry hoopla. Well I finally decided to take a look at <a href="http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/">Mozilla's Calendar project </a>as more open solution for sharing my calendar. After browsing around a little I came a across the following <a href="http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/faq.html#share">piece</a>:</p> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p><!--StartFragment --><em>To share your calendars, you need access to a </em><a href="http://www.webdav.org/"><em>webDAV server</em></a><em>. If you run your own web server, you can install </em><a href="http://www.webdav.org/mod_dav"><em>mod_dav</em></a><em>, a free Apache module that will turn your web server into a webDAV server. Instructions on how to set it up are on their website. Once you set up your webDAV server, you can publish your calendar to the site, then subscribe to it from any other Mozilla Calendar. Automatically updating the calendar will give you a poor man's calendar server.</em></p></blockquote> <p>Through WebDAV we will be able to share calendars across disparate calendaring tools (albeit with some degree of pain when Outlook is in the mix). Even better for me, I can post my shared calendar data via a <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/virtuoso">Virtuoso</a> instance (internally and externally since <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/virtuoso/whatis.htm#webdav">WebDAV is one of the many protocols that it implements</a>), in short I could even seriously consider generating this on the fly and sharing it via this blog (Wow!).</p> <p>We aren't too many miles away from open and standards compliant Unified Data Storage thanks to WebDAV.</p> <p> </p>
Remember WebDAV
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/446
<blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p><a href="http://blog.bitflux.ch/p1626.html">MySQL and the GPL</a> Interesting read and thoughts and discussion about MySQL and "their" interpretation (backed by FSF) of the GPL on <a href="http://www.edwardbear.org/serendipity/archives/1193_My_Beef_with_MySQLs_License.html">Sterling's Blog</a> </p></blockquote> <div align="right">[via <a href="http://blog.bitflux.ch/">Bitflux Blog</a>]</div> <div align="left"> </div> <div align="left">Well it looks like the guys at MySQL AB have made a very bad move re. the MySQL 4.1 client libraries. They have made these libraries GPL as opposed to LGPL (these license format of the prior library releases), which simply means that any application that uses these libraries is now a "derivative work" and basically required to unveil source.</div> <div align="left"> </div> <div align="left">I wonder how the tons of LAMP users and developers feel right now, a change of this magnitude in mid-stream! Nice way to treat a community that has built itself around MySQL's LGPL Client Libraries</div> <div align="left"> </div> <div align="left">A few years ago I had to rescue the <a href="http://www.iodbc.org">iODBC (Independent ODBC) SDK project </a>from the hands of <a href="http://www.fsf.org">FSF</a> (Free Software Foundation), and this was done solely to prevent what MySQL and FSF are attempting to pull off (FSF had a clear understanding of the inherent importance of data that is not necessarily comprehended by LAMP, or the broader industry). </div> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <div align="left"><em>Unfortunately I couldn't locate the Kingsley Idehen vs. Richard Stallman FreeODBC mailing list debate archive re. iODBC anywhere on the net, so this </em><a href="http://udell.roninhouse.com/bytecols/1999-11-03.html"><em>interview link </em></a><em>will have to suffice).</em></div></blockquote> <div align="left">Ironically MySQL as opposed to iODBC|ODBC|unixODBC has come to instinctively define data access in the LAMP world, and in doing so the very essence of the ODBC value proposition has been somewhat lost.</div> <div align="left"> </div> <div align="left">Recap:</div> <div align="left">ODBC (Open Database Connectivity) is an API (Application Programming Interface) that enables database independent application development. <a href="http://www.iodbc.org/index.php?page=docs/odbcstory#walkthrough">Its implementation architecture</a> enables Applications to bind to a Driver Manager which in turn loads ODBC Drivers. Now, initially this doesn't look like a big deal, but it is, and the situation re. MySQL 4.1 illustrates the benefit of this architecture by protecting LAMP users and developers from the GPL'd 4.1 Client Libraries since MySQL is accessible via ODBC. <br /></div> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <div align="left"><em>note: ODBC Driver developers that use the 4.1 client libraries are "derivative work" and they will have to release source code which means we won't be updating our MySQL ODBC Drivers because we won't be forced into release the source code of our ODBC Drivers.</em></div></blockquote> <div align="left"> </div> <div align="left">LAMP applications that are bound to iODBC|unixODBC|Microsoft ODBC will not be exposed to this stunt by FSF and MySQL AB. Why? Because an ODBC based LAMP solution isn't touching those MySQL 4.1 client libraries!</div> <div align="left"> </div> <div align="left">Now if you think that you are stumped simply because you went innocently down the LAMP path by buying into the "MySQL data access is good enough perception", and now find yourself over invested in MySQL specific code (that is data access code bound directly to the MySQL client libraries), please don't worry! There is an <a href="http://www.iodbc.org/index.php?page=mysql2odbc/index">Open Source solution called MySQL2ODBC</a> that is based on the pre 4.1 MySQL client libraries that enables your MySQL specific application (which is typical of LAMP solutions) to become iODBC compliant, and this is achieved without a wholesale rewrite of your application. </div> <div align="left"> </div> <div align="left">I have been an ardent ODBC supporter since its inception simply because data is timelessly important, and ODBC provides a critical solution for separating application logic from data repositories. There is a lot of SQL data driving mission critical business applications globally, and failure to comprehend ODBC's value proposition ultimately results in loss of control over Data, which is the foundation from which Information and Knowledge are derived.</div> <div align="left"> </div> <div align="left">You should never find yourself locked into any database vendor, programming language vendor, operating system vendor, or business application vendor, simply becuase you want exploit your own data. </div> <div align="left"> </div> <div align="left">Ironically the statement above is for the most part the real reason why ODBC has such a bad wrap!</div> <div align="left"> </div> <div align="left"> </div>
MySQL 4.1 Client Libraries go GPL
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/442
<blockquote style="margin-right: 0px;" dir="ltr"> <p><a class="listLinkLrg" title="http://newsletter.infoworld.com/t?ctl=4FEDB6:1F3948D" href="http://newsletter.infoworld.com/t?ctl=4FEDB6:1F3948D" target="_new"><strong><font face="Verdana">Databases get a grip on XML</font></strong></a><br /><font size="2"></font><font face="Verdana">From <a href="http://newsletter.infoworld.com/t?ctl=4FEDB6:1F3948D">Inforworld</a>.</font><br /><br /><font face="Verdana,Geneva,Arial,sans-serif" size="2">The next iteration of the SQL standard was supposed to arrive in 2003. But SQL standardization has always been a glacially slow process, so nobody should be surprised that SQL:2003 ? now known as SQL:200n ? isn?t ready yet. Even so, 2003 was a year in which XML-oriented data management, one of the areas addressed by the forthcoming standard, showed up on more and more developers? radar screens. <a title="http://newsletter.infoworld.com/t?ctl=4FEDB6:1F3948D" href="http://newsletter.infoworld.com/t?ctl=4FEDB6:1F3948D" target="_blank">>> READ MORE</a></font></p></blockquote> <p dir="ltr"><font face="Verdana" size="2">This article rounds up product for 2003 in the critical area of Enterprise Database Technology. It's certainly provides an apt reflection of how Virtuoso compares with offerings from some the larger (but certainly slower to implement) database vendors in this space. As usual Jon Udell's quote pretty much sums this up:</font></p> <blockquote style="margin-right: 0px;" dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr"><!--StartFragment --><span class="artText"><em>"While the spotlight shone on the heavyweight contenders, a couple of agile innovators made noteworthy advances in 2003. </em><a class="regularArticleU" href="http://www.infoworld.com/699"><em>OpenLink Software?s Virtuoso 3.0</em></a><em>, which we reviewed in March, stole thunder from all three major players. Like Oracle, it offers a WebDAV-accessible XML repository. Like DB2 Information Integrator, it functions as database middleware that can perform federated ?joins? across SQL and XML sources. And like the forthcoming Yukon, it embeds the .Net CLR (Common Language Runtime), or in the case of Linux, Novell/Ximian?s Mono."</em></span> </p></blockquote> <p dir="ltr"><font face="Verdana" size="2">Albeit still somewhat unknown to the broader industry we have remained true our "innovator" discipline, which still remains our chosen path to market leadership. Thus, its worth a quick Virtuoso release history, and features recap as we get set to up the ante even further in 2004:</font></p> <p dir="ltr"><font face="Verdana" size="2"><a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/press/virtuoso.htm">1998 - Virtuoso's initial public beta</a> release with functional emphasis on Virtual Database Engine for ODBC and JDBC Data Sources.</font></p> <p dir="ltr"><font face="Verdana" size="2"><a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/press/virtuoso1.htm">1999 - Virtuoso's official commercial</a> release, with emphasis still on Virtual Database functionality for ODBC, JDBC accessible SQL Databases.</font></p> <p dir="ltr"><font face="Verdana" size="2"><a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/press/v2releas.htm">2000 - Virtuoso 2.0</a> adds XML Storage, XPath, XML Schema, XQuery, XSL-T, WebDAV, SOAP, UDDI, HTTP, Replication, Free Text Indexing (*feature update*), POP3, and NNTP support.</font></p> <p dir="ltr"><font face="Verdana" size="2"><a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/press/v27releas.htm">2002 - Virtuoso 2.7</a> extends Virtualization prowess beyond data access via enhancements to its Web Services protocol stack implementation by enabling SQL Stored Procedures to be published as Web Services. It also debuts its Object-Relational engine enhancements that include the incorporation of Java and Microsoft .NET Objects into its User Defined Type, User Defined Functions, and Stored Procedure offerings.</font></p> <p dir="ltr"><font face="Verdana" size="2"><a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/press/virt3beta.htm">2003 - Virtuoso 3.0</a> extends data and application logic virtualization into the Application Server realm (basically a Virtual Application server too!), by adding support for ASP.NET, PHP, Java Server Pages runtime hosting (making applications built using any of these languages deployable using Virtuoso across all supported platforms).</font></p> <p dir="ltr"><font face="Verdana" size="2">Collectively each of these releases have contributed to a very premeditated architecture and vision that will ultimately unveil the inherent power of critical I.S infrastructure virtualization along the following lines; data storage, data access , and application logic via coherent integration of SQL, XML, Web Services, and Persistent Stored Modules (.NET, Java, and other object based component building blocks).</font></p> <p dir="ltr"><font face="Verdana"></font> </p>
Enterprise Databases get a grip on XML
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/410
<blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">Reading the Longhorn SDK docs is a disorienting experience. Everything's familiar but different. Consider these three examples: </p> <p dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">[Full story: <a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2003/10/31.html#a836">Replace and defend</a> via <a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/">Jon's Radio</a>]</p></blockquote> <p dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">"Replace & Defend" is certainly a strategy that would have awakened the entire non Microsoft Developer world during the recent PDC event. I know these events are all about preaching to the choir (Windows only developers), but as someone who has worked with Microsoft technologies as an ISV since the late 80's there is something about this events announcements that leave me concerned. </p> <p dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">Ironically these concerns aren't about the competitive aspects of their technology disruptions, but more along the lines of how Microsoft (I hope inadvertently) generates the kinds of sentiments echoed in the <a href="http://longhornblogs.com/scobleizer/posts/345.aspx#FeedBack">comments thread </a>from <a href="http://longhornblogs.com/">Scobles</a> recent <a href="http://longhornblogs.com/scobleizer/posts/345.aspx">"How to hate Microsoft"</a> post. As indicated in my response to this post, I don't believe Microsoft is as bad or evil as is instinctively assumed in many quarters, but I can certainly understand why they are hated by others which is really unfortunate, especially bearing in mind that they have done more good than harm to date (in my humble opinion) . </p> <p dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">Anyway, back to my concerns post PDC which I break down as follows:</p> <ol dir="ltr"> <li> <div style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">Disruptive assaults on existing standards with the only benefit being Microsoft platform centricity. <a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2003/10/31.html#a836">Jon Udell addressed this in his "Replace and Defend" post </a>(which kicked of this post), and I see exactly what he sees here, and I don't see any reason for this approach whatsoever. Even if one of these standards was deficient what stops the Microsoft from addressing these deficiencies, and then should the W3C's standards acceptance and ratification process bogs things down at least let the industry know you gave it openness a chance but have to move on etc.. <br /><br /></div></li> <li> <div style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">Gradual obsolescence of existing Microsoft standards which used to provide interfaces for 3rd party ISV partners, and replacing these with totally closed infrastructure implementations that bind to Microsoft products only. A good example is <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/longhorn/default.aspx?pull=/msdnmag/issues/04/01/WinFS/default.aspx">WinFS</a>, I believe in the unified data storage concept, <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen/index.vspx?id=406">it's a vision that I've believed in for many years</a>, but there is no notion from any PDC presentation or Blog that I have read so far (I aggregate a serious number of feeds) that Microsoft is committed to an architectural strategy that enables 3rd party ISVs to hook their data stores and data sources into this storage infrastructure - it's simply about <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen/index.vspx?id=407">Yukon (SQL Server)</a> and that's basically it.</div></li></ol> <p style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">WinFS needs to architecturally separate the <strong>System Provider</strong> from the <strong>Data Provider</strong> (pretty much the OLE-DB architecture) with Microsoft naturally providing reference System Provider (pretty much what was demonstrated at PDC) and Data Provider (ADO.NET, OLE DB, and ODBC) implementations. Third parties can choose to produce custom WinFS Service or Data Providers which serve their data access needs. It's impractical to want to force every non SQL Server customer over to SQL Server in order them to exploit WinFS, and I certainly hope this isn't the definitive strategy at Microsoft.</p>
Replace and defend -- Contd
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/392
<p><font size="2">I have embellished a number of weblogs that I oversee (<a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen">Personal</a>, <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblogs/virtuoso">Virtuoso</a>, and <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblogs/uda">UDA</a>) as part of an OpenLink technology "dog-fooding" effort. We now have SQL-XML based RSS 2.0 feeds that make an array of content available for RSS Aggregators as well as ad hoc <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xquery/">XQuery</a> and <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath">XPath</a> queries over <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebDAV">HTTP/WebDAV</a>.</font></p><br /> <table id="table1" width="74%" border="1"> <tbody> <tr> <td width="236"><font size="2"><strong>Feed</strong></font></td> <td width="336"><font size="2"><strong>Description</strong></font></td></tr> <tr> <td width="236"><a href="http://docs.openlinksw.com/virtuoso/"><font size="2">Virtuoso Documentation</font></a></td> <td width="336"><font size="2">Product documentation available as a collection RSS feeds per chapter with a feed catalog in an <a href="http://docs.openlinksw.com/virtuoso/virtdocs.opml">OPML file</a>.</font></td></tr> <tr> <td width="236"><font size="2">Data Access Driver Suite Documentation</font></td></tr></tbody></table>
Using SQL-XML Based RSS Feeds to Syndicate Documentation, Tutorials, and Demos
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/279
<p><a href="http://www.it-director.com/article.php?articleid=10951">Ingres - A Forgottent Database The Untold Story</a></p> <p><em>Ingres (technically, Advantage Ingres Enterprise) is, arguably, the forgotten database. There used to be five major databases: Oracle, DB2, Sybase, Informix and Ingres. Then along came Microsoft and, if you listened to most press comment (or the lack of it), you would think that there were only two of these left, plus SQL Server</em>. [From <a href="http://www.it-director.com/article.php?articleid=10951">IT-Director</a>]</p> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Oracle, Microsoft, and IBM would certainly like the illusion of a 3 horse race, as this is the only way they can induce Ingres, Informix, and Sybase users to jump ship, and this, even though database migrations are by far the most risk prone and problematic aspects of any IT infrastructure. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" ?><p xmlns="o"></p></span></p> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Here is the interesting logic from the self-made big three, if you want to take advanatage of new paradigms and technologies such as XML, Web Services, and anything else in the pipeline you have to move all your data out of these databases, and then get all the mission critical applications re-associated with one of these databases, and by the way when you do so it is advisable that you use native interfaces (so that sometime in the future you have no chance whatsoever of repeating this folly at their expense).<p xmlns="o"></p></span></p> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">The simple fact of the matter (which the self-made big three do not want you to know) is that you can put ODBC, JDBC, even platform specific data access APIs such as OLE DB and ADO.NET atop any of these databases, and then explore and exploit the benefits of new technologies and paradigms as long as the tool pool supports one of more of these standards.<p xmlns="o"></p></span></p> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Unfortunately the no-brainer above appears to be the more difficult of the choices before decision makers. In other words, many would rather dig themselves into a deeper hole (unknowingly i can only presume) that ultimately leads to technology lock-in.<p xmlns="o"></p></span></p> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">The biggest challenge before any RDBMS based infrastructure today isn't which of the self-made big three to migrate to wholesale, rather, how to make progressive use of the pool of disparate applications, and application databases that proliferate the enterprise. <p xmlns="o"></p></span></p> <p><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">This is another way of understanding the burgeoning market for Virtual Databases, which in my opiion present the new frontier in database technology.<p xmlns="o"></p></span></p> <p> </p></blockquote>
Ingres - A Forgotten Database, the untold story
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/276
<p>An interesting <a href="http://www.sys-con.com/xml/article2a.cfm?id=652&count=18437&tot=14&page=12">piece</a> by Michael Carey architect for Liquid Data at BEA re. Enterprise Information Integration from <a href="http://www.sys-con.com/xml">XML Journal</a>.</p> <p>Key quote.</p> <p><em>Since the dawn of the database era more than three decades ago, enterprises have been amassing an ever-increasing volume of information - both current and historical - about their operations. For the past two of those three decades, the database world has struggled with the problem of somehow integrating information that natively resides in multiple database systems or other information sources (Landers and Rosenberg).</em> </p> <p>This is the root cause of many of the systems integration challenges facing may IT decsion makers. They want to exploit the new and emerging technologies, but the internal disparity of data and application logic presents many obstacles.</p> <p>Michael had this to say in his introduction.</p> <p><em>The IT world knows this problem today as the enterprise information integration (EII) problem: enterprise applications need to be able to easily access and combine information about a given business entity from a distributed and highly varied collection of information sources. Relevant sources include various relational database systems (RDBMSs); packaged applications from vendors such as Siebel, PeopleSoft, SAP, and others; "homegrown" proprietary systems; and an increasing number of data sources that are starting to speak XML, such as XML files and Web services</em>.<br /></p> <p>Virtuoso (which coincedentally has been used to build and host this blog) has been developed to address the challenges presented above; by providing a Virtual Database Engine for disparate data and application logic (all the GEMs on this page have been generated on the fly using it's SQL-XML functionality).</p> <p>Additional article excerpts:<br /><em>With XQuery, the solution sketched above can be implemented by viewing the enterprise's different data sources all as virtual XML documents and functions. XQuery can stitch the distributed customer information together into a comprehensive, reusable base view.</em> </p> <p>A critical issue at this point is how sensistive the XML VIEW is to underlying data source changes. Enterprises are dynamic, so static XML VIEWs are going to be suboptimal in many situations. Applications are only as relevant as the underlying data fluidity served up by the data access (this issue is data format agnostic).</p> <p>Virtuoso addresses this problem through its support of Persistent and Transient forms of XML VIEWs (which are derived from SQL, XML, Web Services, or any combination of these).</p> <p>Final excerpt:<br /><em>The relational data sources can be exposed using simple default XML Schemas, and the other sources - SAP and the credit-checking Web service - can be exposed to XQuery as callable XQuery functions with appropriate signatures.</em> </p> <p>Unfortunately XML Schemas aren't easy, so making this a requirement for producing XML VIEWs is somewhat problematic (or should I say challenging). Of course this approach has it merits, but it does put a significant knowledge acquisition burden on the end-user or developer. This is why Virtuoso also supports an approach based on SQL extensions for generating XML from SQL that facilitate the production of Well Formed and/or Valid XML documents on the fly from heterogeneous SQL Data Sources (this syntax is identical to the FOR XML RAW | AUTO | EXPLICIT modes of SQL Server). It can also use it's in-built XSL-T engine to further transform other non SQL XML data sources (and then generate an XML Schema for the final product if required and validate against this schema using it's in-build XML Schema validaton engine).</p> <p>This article certainly sheds light on the kinds of problems that EII based technologies such as Virtual Databases are positioned to address.</p> <p>There is a live XQuery demo of Virtuoso at: <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com:8890/xqdemo"><a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com:8890/xqdemo">http://demo.openlinksw.com:8890/xqdemo</a></a></p>
<a href="http://www.sys-con.com/xml/article2a.cfm?id=652&count=18437&tot=14&page=12">piece</a>
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/241
<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">When Virtuoso first unleashed support for XML (in-built XSL, Native XML Storage, Validating XML Parser, XPath, and XQuery) the core message was the delivery of a single server solution that would address the challenges of creating XML data.</span></p><p xmlns="o"></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">In the year 2000 the question of the shape and form of XML data was unclear to many, and reading the article below basically took me back in time to when we released <a href="http://www.it-director.com/article.php?articleid=916">Virtuoso 2.0</a> (we are now at <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/virtuoso">release 3.0</a> commercially with a <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/press/virt32_wwdc1.htm">3.2 beta </a>dropping any minute).</span></p><p xmlns="o"></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">RSS is a great XML application, and it does a great job of demonstrating how XML --the new data access foundation layer-- will galvanize the next generation Web (I refer to this as Web 2.0.). </span></p> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="margin-right: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"> <p><a href="http://jena.hpl.hp.com:3030/blojsom-hp/blog/technologies/blogging/metadata/?permalink=1214847A10C1966396472E816A7A4243.textile">RSS: INJAN (It's not just about news)</a> </p> <p><span class="caps">RSS</span> is not just about news, according to <a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rss-dev/message/5764">Ian Davis on rss-dev</a>.<br />He presents a nice list of alternatives, which I reproduce here (and to which I�d add, of course, bibliography management)</p> <ul> <li>Sitemaps: one of the S�s in <span class="caps">RSS</span> stands for summary. A sitemap is a summary of the content on a site, the items are pages or content areas. This is clearly a non-chronological ordering of items. Is a hierarchy of <span class="caps">RSS</span> sitemaps implied here � how would the linking between them work? How hard would it be to hack a web browser to pick up the <span class="caps">RSS</span> sitemap and display it in a sidebar when you visit the site?</li> <li>Small ads: also known as classifieds. These expire so there�s some kind of dynamic going on here but the ordering of items isn�t necessarily chronological. How to describe the location of the seller, or the condition of the item or even the price. Not every ad is selling something � perhaps it�s to rent out a room.</li> <li>Personals: similar model to the small ads. No prices though (I hope). Comes with a ready made vocabulary of terms that could be converted to an <span class="caps">RDF</span> schema. Probably should do that just for the hell of it anyway � gsoh</li> <li>Weather reports: how about a week�s worth of weather in an <span class="caps">RSS</span> channel. If an item is dated in the future, should an aggregator display it before time? Alternate representations include maps of temperature and pressure etc.</li> <li>Auctions: again, related to small ads, but these are much more time limited since there is a hard cutoff after which the auction is closed. The sequence of bids could be interesting � would it make sense to thread them like a discussion so you can see the tactics?</li> <li>TV listings: this is definitely chronological but with a twist � the items have durations. They also have other metadata such as cast lists, classification ratings, widescreen, stereo, program type. Some types have additional information such as director and production year.</li> <li>Top ten listings: top ten singles, books, dvds, richest people, ugliest, rear of the year etc. Not chronological, but has definate order. May update from day to day or even more often.</li> <li>Sales reporting: imagine if every department of a company reported their sales figures via <span class="caps">RSS</span>. Then the divisions aggregate the departmental figures and republish to the regional offices, who aggregate and add value up the chain. The chairman of the company subscribes to one super-aggregate feed.</li> <li>Membership lists / buddy lists: could I publish my buddy list from Jabber or other instant messengers? Maybe as an interchange format or perhaps could be used to look for shared contacts. Lots of potential overlap with <span class="caps">FOAF</span> here.</li> <li>Mailing lists: or in fact any messaging system such as usenet. There are some efforts at doing this already (e.g. yahoogroups) but we need more information � threads; references; headers; links into archives.</li> <li>Price lists / inventory: the items here are products or services. No particular ordering but it�d be nice to be able to subscribe to a catalog of products and prices from a company. The aggregator should be able to pick out price rises or bargains given enough history.</li> <div align="right">[via <a href="http://jena.hpl.hp.com:3030/blojsom-hp/blog/">Semantic Blogging Demonstrator</a>] </div></ul></span></blockquote> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">Thus, if we can comprehend RSS (the blog article below does a great job) we should be able to see the fundamental challenges that are before any organization seeking to exploit the potential of the imminent Web 2.0 inflection; how will you cost-effectively create XML data from existing data sources? Without upgrading or switching database engines, operating systems, programming languages? Put differently how can you exploit this phenomenon without losing your ever dwindling technology choices (believe me choices are dwindling fast but most are oblivious to this fact).</span></p><p xmlns="o"></p> <p> </p> <a href="index.vspx?tag=xml" rel="tag" style="display:none;">xml</a><a href="index.vspx?tag=rss" rel="tag" style="display:none;">rss</a><a href="index.vspx?tag=syndication" rel="tag" style="display:none;">syndication</a>
RSS: INJAN (It's not just about news)
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/234
An interesting article that shed's light on how corporate blogging can impact the enterprise. Ironically, we pretty much work this way at OpenLink and this was one of the overriding reasons for adding weblog functionality to Virtuoso. If we can use blogs as electronic filing cabinets, then the obvious need to integrate weblog data with other corporate data sources for a myriad of other data, information, and knowledge creation and dissemination efforts should be pretty obvious. To quote <a href="http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/">Dave Pollard</a> the article author: <blockquote>"In a previous post, <a href="http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2003/03/23.html#a133">The Weblog as Filing Cabinet</a> , I proposed that business weblogs could be used to codify and 'publish', in a completely voluntary and personal manner, the individual worker's entire filing cabinet. The key advantage of providing such a capability is vastly increased access to, and sharing of, a company's knowledge. This post outlines a content architecture that could enable this to occur. This architecture would have two principal components: The Enterprise Content Architecture and the Desktop Content Architecture".</blockquote> <a href="http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2003/03/23.html#a133">Read On.</a>
A Weblog-Based Content Architecture for Business
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/232
<p dir="ltr">Very interesting, we have basically ported Zeroconfig as released by Apple (in Open Source) too, and used it in both our <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/virtuoso/whatis.htm">Virtuoso</a> 3.x and <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/product.htm">UDA</a> 5.x products.</p> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p><a href="http://www.swampwolf.com/products/">Howl</a> is Rendezvous for Windows and Linux. [via <a href="http://www.scripting.com/">Scripting News</a>]</p></blockquote> <p dir="ltr">In the case of UDA you can configure ODBC and JDBC consumable data source names that are hosted on the server. Users can nownbspsimply picknbspDSNs from anbspcombo box and they are ready to make connections to remote databases from any ODBC, JDBC, OLE DB, or ADO.NET application.nbspAnother benefit ofnbspZeroconfignbspis that it facilitates centralized server side configuration which further enhances our server side session rules book;nbspwhich serves all our Multi-Tier data access drivers.</p> <p dir="ltr">In the case of Virtuoso you are able to bind to pre-configured Virtuoso instances in exactly the same way.</p> <p dir="ltr">Our Zeroconfig support has beennbspimplemented across Solaris, AIX, Digital UNIX, IRIX, HP-UX amongst others, but this is a project of interest all the same, and we may end up contributing to this effort.</p>
Howl is Rendezvous for Windows and Linux
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/209
<p dir="ltr">Microsoft just made the <a href="http://www.vsipdev.com/">VSIP program free of charge</a>. Awesome.</p> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p dir="ltr">[via <a href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/">The Scobleizer Weblog</a>]</p></blockquote> <p>Now this is good news from Microsoft! This means that products like <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/virtuoso/whatis.htm">Virtuoso</a> can now compete head-on with Yukon (on a level playing field when it arrives) as far as Visual Studio.NET integration goes. Hopefully I will no longer have to rant about any of the following:</p> <ol> <li>Missing Data Access Controls and Wizards for ODBC (we already have annbsp interesting Generic ADO.NET Provider en route to GA release)</li> <li>Tightly bound integration between Visual Studio.NET <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2003/Jul03/07-29InnovationListPR.asp">("Whidbey" or "Orcas")</a>nbspand Yukon (next release of SQL Server), it's up to us (OpenLink) to get the same degree of integration re. Virtuoso (via VSIP), but most importantly Visual Studio's future will not be inextricably linked to Yukon's (let's hope the same applies to IE and Longhorn)</li></ol> <p>I wonder if the same degree of openness could extend to Web Matrix? That would be something indeed!</p>
VSIP program free of charge
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/202
<p><a href="http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/07/04/1955241">O'Reilly on the Commoditization of Software</a> </p> <p>Certinaly an interesting proposition, or should I say vision, but I don't think this proposition does justice to some of the valid insights contained in this recent <a href="http://www.idg.se/ArticlePages/idgnet.asp?id=4635">IDG interview </a>with <a href="http://tim.oreilly.com/">Tim O'Reilly</a>. Here are some of Tim's quotes:</p> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p><em>"Nobody is pointing out something that I think is way more significant: all of the killer apps of the Internet era: Amazon (.com, Inc), Google (Inc.), and Maps.yahoo.com. They run on Linux or FreeBSD, but they're not apps in the way that people have traditionally thought of applications, so they just don't get considered. Amazon is built with Perl on top of Linux. It's basically a bunch of open source hackers, but they're working for a company that's as fiercely proprietary as any proprietary software company."</em></p></blockquote> <p dir="ltr">Solutions are always more important that the technology that makes up the solutions from a business development perspective. The trouble is that the constituent parts of a solution ultimately affect the longevity of the solution (the future adaptability of the solution), hence the middleware and components segments of the software industry.</p> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p dir="ltr"><em>"With eBay it's even clearer. The fact is, it's the critical mass of marketplace buyers and sellers and all the information that people have put in that marketplace as a repository."<br /><br />"So I think we're going to find more and more places where that happens, where somebody gets a critical mass of customers and data and that becomes their source of value. On that basis, I will predict that -- this is an outrageous prediction -- but eBay will buy Oracle someday. The value will have moved so much to people who are not now seen as software suppliers."</em></p></blockquote> <p>In reading this article that I can only assume that Tim does realize the inevitable; computing is, and always will be about data -- creation, transformation, dissemination, and exploitation. That said, you don't maximize the opportunities that such a realization accords by acquiring the largest vendor of database software. </p> <p>The largest database vendor doesn't imply dominance in any of the following areas:</p> <ol> <li>Data Creation </li> <li>Data Storage</li> <li>Data Access</li> <li>Data Dissemination</li> <li>Data Exploitation</li></ol> <p>I see the Internet as the Database (comprising various forms), and the Web as a dominant database segment within Internet realm. Every Internet Point of Presence is really a point of Data interaction; Creation, Storage, Access, Dissemination, and Exploitation.</p> <p>eBay can acquire a license from Oracle or any other database vendor and still be sucessful, and all they need to do is come to the actual realization that like Amazon and Google they could become a very important Executable and Semantic Web platform by finally understanding that their home page isn't that important, it's the interactions with the site that matter. All of this is certainly achievable without acquiring Oracle.</p> <p>In short, this applies to any organization that seeks to incorporate the Internet into their operational strategy (Business Development, Customer Services, Intranets, Extranets etc.). I am inclined to believe that Sofware Commoditization (which has been with us for a very long time) is the new moniker for "its all about data" or to quote <a href="http://www.intertwingly.net/blog/index.rss">Sam Ruby</a>, "It's just data".</p>
eBay Will Someday Buy Oracle?
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/201
<p><a href="http://blog.bitflux.ch/p1077.html">Tim O'Reilly about network aware software</a> </p> <p>Tim O'Reilly wrote some thoughts about network aware software. Good sumup and nice ideas, why not only blogs should be net-aware (and where even blogs can be improved ;) ) </p> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <div align="left">"<i>For the desktop, my personal vision is to see existing software instrumented to become increasingly web aware. It seems that Apple are doing a good job with this. (What does web aware mean for me? Being able to grok URIs, speaking WebDAV, and using open standard data formats.)</i>" -- <strong>Edd Dumbill</strong> </div> <div align="left"></div> <div align="left">[via <a href="http://blog.bitflux.ch/">Bitflux Blog</a>]</div></blockquote> <div align="left">I agree, but you do have to add Open Data Access formats (such as ODBC and to some degree JDBC) to this mix otherwise the you will need to create data for Open Standard Data Formats from sratch (tough for any enterprise irrespective of size).</div> <div align="left"></div> <div align="left">Tim O'Reilly added the following items to Edd's list:</div> <div align="left"> <ul> <li> <p>Rendezvous-like functionality for automatic discovery of and potential synchronization with other instances of the application on other computers. Apple is showing the power of this idea with iChat and iTunes, but it really could be applied in so many other places. For example, if every PIM supported this functionality, we could have the equivalent of "phonester" where you could automatically ask peers for contact information. Of course, that leads to guideline 2. </p></li></ul></div> <p>Another application is discovery of <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/info/docs/uda50/mt/features.html#features">ODBC data sources</a>, and database servers. Rendezvous can also simply security and administration of data sources accessible by either one of these standards data access mechanisms. It can also apply to XML databases and data sources exposed by <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/virtuoso/whatis.htm">XML Databases</a>.</p> <p></p> <p></p> <ul> <li>If you assume ad-hoc networking, you have to automatically define levels of access. I've always thought that the old Unix ugo (user, group, other) three-level permission system was simple and elegant, and if you replace the somewhat arbitrary "group" with "on my buddy list", you get something quite powerful. Which leads me to... <p></p> <p></p></li> <ul> <li>Buddy lists ought to be supported as a standard feature of many apps, and in a consistent way. What's more, our address books really ought to make it easy to indicate who is in a "buddy list" and support numerous overlapping lists for different purposes. <br /></li></ul> <li>Every application ought to expose some version of its data as an XML feed via some well-defined and standard access mechanism. It strikes me that one of the really big wins that fueled the early web was a simple naming scheme: you could go to a site called www.foo.com, and you'd find a web server there. While it wasn't required, it made web addresses eminently guessable. We missed the opportunity for xml.foo.com to mean "this is where you get the data feed" but it's probably still possible to come up with a simple, consistent naming scheme. And of course, if we can do it for web sites, we also need to think about how to do it for local applications, since... </li></ul> <p>The very point I continue to make about Internet Points of Presence beingactual data acces points, in short these end points should be served by database serverprocesses. This is the very basis of <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/virtuoso">Virtuoso</a>, the inevitability of this realization remains the undepinings of this product. There are other products out there that have some sense of this vision too, but there is a little snag (at least so far in my research efforts), and that is the tendency to create dedicated independent server per protocol (an ultimate integration, administration, and maintenance nightmare).</p> <ul> <li>We ought to be able to have the expectation that all applications, whether local or remote (web) will be set up for two-way interactions. That is, they can be either a source or sink of online data. So, for example, the natural complement to amazon's web services data feeds is data input (for example, the ability to comment on a book on your local blog, and syndicate the review via RSS to amazon's detail page for the book.) And that leads to: <p></p> <p></p></li> <li>We really need to understand who owns what, and come up with mechanisms that protect the legitimate rights of individuals and businesses to their own data, while creating the "liquidity" and free movement of data that will fuel the next great revolution in computer functionality. (I'm doing a panel on this subject at next week's Open Source Convention, entitled "<a href="http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/os2003/view/e_sess/4526">We Need a Bill of Rights for Web Services</a>.") <p></p> <p></p></li> <li>We need easy gateways between different application domains. I was recently in Finland at a Nokia retreat, and we used camera-enabled cell phones to create a mobile photoblog. That was great. But even more exciting was the ease with which I could send a photo from the phone not just to another phone but also to an email address. This is the functionality that enabled the blog gateway, but it also made it trivial to send photos home to my family and friends. Similarly, I often blog things that I hear on mailing lists, and read many web sites via screen-scraping enabled email lists. It would be nice to have cross-application gateways be a routine part of software, rather than something that has to be hacked on after the fact.</li></ul> <div align="left">The wish list is pretty much a clear articulation of key items that should matter most to decision makers (CTOs and CIOs) ; in particular those that continue to wrestle with the identification and isolation of relevantcomponentsfor their enterprisearchitectures. </div>
Tim O'Reilly about network aware software
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/181
<p><a href="http://www.lockergnome.com/update/archives/week_2003_06_22.html#005997">Amazon RSS Feeds</a></p> <p>RSS feeds are everywhere, and they are changing the Web landscape fast. The Web is shifting from distributed freeform database, to distributed semi-structured database. </p> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p><a href="http://www.lockergnome.com/update/archives/week_2003_06_22.html#005997">Amazon.com RSS Feeds</a> They never got around to it, so we set up <a href="http://www.lockergnome.com/amazon/" target="_blank">160+ separate RSS channels</a> for darn near every type of product on Amazon.com for you. If you have any feedback for this new (free) service, please let us know immediately! We're looking to make it an outstanding and permanent part to your <a href="http://chris.pirillo.com/MySubscriptions.opml" target="_blank">collection</a>. Enjoy! (Chris) [via <a href="http://update.lockergnome.com/">Lockergnome's Bits and Bytes</a>]</p></blockquote> <p>Your Web Site is gradually becoming a database (what?). Yes, your Web Site needs to be driven by database software that can rapidly create RSS feeds for your organizations non XML and XML data sources. Your web site needs to provide direct data access to users, bots, Web Services.</p> <p>Here is my <a href="http://kidehen.com:8890/blogdb/">blog database </a>for instance, you can query the XML data in this database using XQuery, XPath, and Web Services (if I decide to publish any of my XML Query Templates as Web Services). </p> <p>Note the teaser here, each XML document is zero bytes! This is becuase these are live <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/virtuoso/whatis.htm">Virtuoso SQL-XML </a>documents that are producing a variety of XML documents on the fly, which means that they retain a high degree of sensitivity to changes in the underlying databases supplying the data. I could have chosen to make these persistent XML docs with interval based synchronization with the backen data sources (but I chose not to for maximum effect).</p> <p>As you can see SQL and XML (Relational and Hierarchical Models) engines can co-exist in a single server, ditto Object-Relational (which might be hidden from view but could be used in the SQL that serves the SQL-XML docs), ditto Full Text (see the search feature of this blog) and finally, ditto directed graph model for accessing my RDF data.(more on this as the RDF data pool increases).</p> <div></div>
Amazon.com RSS Feeds
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/179
<p><a href="http://techdirt.com/articles/20030624/0155223.shtml">How Amazon Opens Up And Cleans Up</a> </p> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <p>Just yesterday we had an article about how Amazon's technology was becoming their <a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20030623/0132207.shtml">biggest product</a>, but that could soon change as people continue to innovate around <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jun2003/tc20030624_9735_tc113.htm">Amazon's web services offering</a>, letting just about anyone access Amazon's vast database, and built interesting and useful applications on it. When they originally launched this offering a number of developers thought it was cool, but weren't sure what could actually be done with it. However, given some time, data, and an open API, creative developers are always going to come up with interesting solutions. I don't know if any of these are really a "killer app" yet, but Amazon now has a vision of being the "e-commerce platform" for the world. There's something appealing about that notion. If, anytime you wanted to sell something on your website, you could easily hook into Amazon's catalog, transaction processing, and fulfillment process, there are some interesting possibilities. Right now, it's just simple things, such as creating a way to automatically match up the top song titles being played on the radio with those CDs at Amazon. In the future, though, you could see how an even bigger and more powerful Amazon could become something of a central "bucket of e-commerce" which many other sites pull from in creative ways. So, then, the question becomes how big is this opportunity, really? As I said, it's an appealing idea, but how many people actually buy through these sorts of applications vs. those who just go to Amazon and buy it themselves. The "killer app" built on top of Amazon would need to have really compelling reasons to buy directly through it - and I don't think anyone's gotten that far yet. [via <a href="http://www.techdirt.com/">Techdirt</a>]</p></blockquote> <p>There is nothing wrong with embracing Open Standards. Amazon is demonstrating</p>
How Amazon Opens Up And Cleans Up
2006-06-22T12:56:58Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1662
<p>There is increasing coalescence around the idea that HTTP-based <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id0x1e93cbd0">Linked Data</a> adds a tangible dimension to the <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web" id="link-id0x1dfdde10">World Wide Web</a> (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a>). This <i><a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">Data</a> Dimension</i> grants end-users, power-users, integrators, and developers the ability to experience the Web not solely as a <i><a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information" id="link-id0x19d02b00">Information</a> Space</i> or <i>Document Space,</i> but now also as a <i><a class="auto-href" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Spaces" id="link-id0x1ac33378">Data Space</a>.</i> </p> <p>Here is a simple What and Why guide covering the essence of Data Spaces.</p> <h2>What is a Data Space?</h2> <p>A Data Space is a point of presence on a network, where every <i>Data Object</i> (item or <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id0x1d55f910">entity</a>) is given a <i>Name</i> (e.g., a <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-id0x1736ea28">URI</a>) by which it may be Referenced or Identified. </p> <p>In a Data Space, every <i>Representation</i> of those Data Objects (i.e., every <i>Object Representation</i>) has an <i>Address</i> (e.g., a <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Locator" id="link-id0x1f17f5a8">URL</a>) from which it may be Retrieved (or "gotten").</p> <p>In a Data Space, every Object Representation is a time variant (that is, it changes over time), streamable, and format-agnostic <i>Resource.</i> </p> <p>An Object Representation is simply a Description of that Object. It takes the form of a graph, pictorially constructed from sets of 3 elements which are themselves named <i>Subject,</i> <i>Predicate,</i> and <i>Object</i> (or <i>SPO</i>); or <i>Entity,</i> <i>Attribute,</i> and <i>Value</i> (or <i>EAV</i>). Each <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity-attribute-value_model" id="link-id0x1dedcfe0">Entity</a>+Attribute+Value or Subject+Predicate+Object set (or <i>triple</i>), is one datum, one piece of data, one persisted observation about a given Subject or Entity.</p> <p>The underlying Schema that defines and constrains the construction of Object Representations is based on Logic, specifically <i>First-Order Logic</i>. Each Object Representation is a collection of persisted observations (<i>Data</i>) about a given Subject, which aid observers in materializing their perception (<i>Information</i>), and ultimately comprehension (<i><a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Knowledge" id="link-id0x1a4c7bf8">Knowledge</a></i>), of that Subject.</p> <h2>Why are Data Spaces important?</h2> <p>In the real-world -- which is networked by nature -- data is heterogeneously (or "differently") shaped, and disparately located. </p> <p>Data has been increasing at an alarming rate since the advent of computing; the interWeb simply provides <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Context_%28language_use%29" id="link-id0x1ad97358">context</a> that makes this reality more palpable and more exploitable, and in the process virtuously ups the ante through increasingly exponential growth rates.</p> <p>We can't stop data heterogeneity; it is endemic to the nature of its producers -- humans and/or human-directed machines. What we can do, though, is create a powerful Conceptual-level "bus" or "interface" for data integration, based on <i>Data Description oriented Logic</i> rather than Data Representation oriented Formats. Basically, it's possible for us to use a <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-order_predicate_logic" id="link-id0x1a481248">Common Logic</a></i> as the basis for expressing and blending SPO- or EAV-based Object Representations in a variety of Formats (or "dialects").</p> <p>The roadmap boils down to:</p> <ol> <li> <p>Assigning unambiguous Object Names to:</p> <ul> <li> <p>Every record (or, in table terms, every row); </p> </li> <li> <p>Every record attribute (or, in table terms, every field or column);</p> </li> <li> <p>Every record relationship (that is, every relationship between one record and another);</p> </li> <li> <p>Every record container (e.g., every table or view in a relational database, every named graph, every spreadsheet, every text file, etc.);</p> </li> </ul> </li> <li> <p>Making each Object Name resolve to an Address through which Create, Read, Update, and Delete ("CRUD") operations can be performed against (can <i>access</i>) the associated Object Representation graph.</p> </li> </ol>
Data Spaces
2011-03-01T22:26:15Z
2011-03-01T17:26:15-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1655
<h3>What?</h3> <p>A simple guide usable by any <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Perl" id="link-id0x1bdcab80">Perl</a> developer seeking to exploit <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id0x17b447e8">SPARQL</a> without hassles.</p> <h3>Why?</h3> <p>SPARQL is a powerful query language, results serialization format, and an HTTP based <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">data</a> access protocol from the W3C. It provides a mechanism for accessing and integrating data across <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deductive_database" id="link-id0x1cc76540">Deductive Database Systems</a> (colloquially referred to as triple or quad stores in <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id0x1d944d78">Semantic Web</a> and <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id0x1c7a87c8">Linked Data</a> circles) -- database systems (or data spaces) that manage proposition oriented records in 3-tuple (triples) or 4-tuple (quads) form. </p> <h3>How?</h3> <p>SPARQL queries are actually HTTP payloads (typically). Thus, using a RESTful client-server interaction pattern, you can dispatch calls to a SPARQL compliant data server and receive a payload for local processing.</p> <h4>Steps:</h4> <ol> <li>Determine which SPARQL endpoint you want to access e.g. <a href="http://dbpedia.org/sparql" id="link-id0x1d476520">DBpedia</a> or a local <a class="auto-href" href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com" id="link-id0x1bcfe140">Virtuoso</a> instance (typically: http://localhost:8890/sparql). </li> <li>If using Virtuoso, and you want to populate its quad store using SPARQL, assign "<a href="http://docs.openlinksw.com/virtuoso/rdfsparql.html#rdfsupportedprotocolendpointuri" id="link-id0x1c7630b8">SPARQL_SPONGE</a>" privileges to user "SPARQL" (this is basic control, more sophisticated WebID based ACLs are available for controlling SPARQL access).</li> </ol> <h4>Script:</h4> <pre> # # Demonstrating use of a single query to populate a # Virtuoso Quad Store via Perl. # # # HTTP <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Locator" id="link-id0x1d6465e8">URL</a> is constructed accordingly with CSV query results format as the default via mime type. # use CGI qw/:standard/; use LWP::UserAgent; use Data::Dumper; use Text::CSV_XS; sub sparqlQuery(@args) { my $query=shift; my $baseURL=shift; my $format=shift; %params=( "default-graph" => "", "should-sponge" => "soft", "query" => $query, "debug" => "on", "timeout" => "", "format" => $format, "save" => "display", "fname" => "" ); @fragments=(); foreach $k (keys %params) { $fragment="$k=".CGI::escape($params{$k}); push(@fragments,$fragment); } $query=join("&", @fragments); $sparqlURL="${baseURL}?$query"; my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new; $ua->agent("MyApp/0.1 "); my $req = HTTP::Request->new(GET => $sparqlURL); my $res = $ua->request($req); $str=$res->content; $csv = Text::CSV_XS->new(); foreach $line ( split(/^/, $str) ) { $csv->parse($line); @bits=$csv->fields(); push(@rows, [ @bits ] ); } return \@rows; } # Setting Data Source Name (DSN) $dsn="http://dbpedia.org/resource/DBpedia"; # Virtuoso pragmas for instructing SPARQL engine to perform an HTTP GET using the IRI in # FROM clause as Data Source URL en route to DBMS # record Inserts. $query="DEFINE get:soft \"replace\"\n # Generic (non Virtuoso specific SPARQL # Note: this will not add records to the # DBMS SELECT DISTINCT * FROM <$dsn> WHERE {?s ?p ?o}"; $data=sparqlQuery($query, "http://localhost:8890/sparql/", "text/csv"); print "Retrieved data:\n"; print Dumper($data); </pre> <h4>Output</h4> <pre> Retrieved data: $VAR1 = [ [ 's', 'p', 'o' ], [ 'http://dbpedia.org/resource/DBpedia', 'http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type', 'http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#Thing' ], [ 'http://dbpedia.org/resource/DBpedia', 'http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type', 'http://dbpedia.org/ontology/Work' ], [ 'http://dbpedia.org/resource/DBpedia', 'http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type', 'http://dbpedia.org/class/yago/Software106566077' ], ... </pre> <h3>Conclusion</h3> <p> CSV was chosen over XML (re. output format) since this is about a "no-brainer installation and utilization" guide for a Perl developer that already knows how to use Perl for HTTP based data access within HTML. SPARQL just provides an added bonus to URL dexterity (delivered via <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-id0x1d29da98">URI</a> abstraction) with regards to constructing Data Source Names or Addresses.</p> <h3>Related</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="http://cpansearch.perl.org/src/TOBYINK/RDF-Query-Client-0.103/README" id="link-id0x1c279130">RDF::Query::Client Guide</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1653" id="link-id0x1cf307f0">SPARQL Guide for the Perl Developer</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1652" id="link-id0x1b0ffb28">SPARQL Guide for the PHP Developer</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1651" id="link-id0x1a8c5ae0">SPARQL Guide for the Python Developer</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1648" id="link-id0x1b86ad28">SPARQL Guide for the Ruby Developer</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1646" id="link-id0x1c7af188">Simple Guide for using SPARQL with Virtuoso</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.delicious.com/kidehen/sparql_tutorial" id="link-id0x1ac1ba48">General SPARQL Tutorial Collection</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.delicious.com/kidehen/virtuoso_sparql_tutorial" id="link-id0x1c7be660">Virtuoso Specific SPARQL Tutorial Collection</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1567" id="link-id0x1c52b438">The URI, URL, and Linked Data Meme's Generic HTTP URI</a>. </li> </ul>
SPARQL Guide for the Perl Developer
2011-01-26T23:11:13Z
2011-01-26T18:11:13-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1653
<h3>What?</h3> <p>A simple guide usable by any Javascript developer seeking to exploit <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id0x17b447e8">SPARQL</a> without hassles.</p> <h3>Why?</h3> <p>SPARQL is a powerful query language, results serialization format, and an HTTP based <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">data</a> access protocol from the W3C. It provides a mechanism for accessing and integrating data across <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deductive_database" id="link-id0x1cc76540">Deductive Database Systems</a> (colloquially referred to as triple or quad stores in <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id0x1d944d78">Semantic Web</a> and <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id0x1c7a87c8">Linked Data</a> circles) -- database systems (or data spaces) that manage proposition oriented records in 3-tuple (triples) or 4-tuple (quads) form. </p> <h3>How?</h3> <p>SPARQL queries are actually HTTP payloads (typically). Thus, using a RESTful client-server interaction pattern, you can dispatch calls to a SPARQL compliant data server and receive a payload for local processing.</p> <h4>Steps:</h4> <ol> <li>Determine which SPARQL endpoint you want to access e.g. <a href="http://dbpedia.org/sparql" id="link-id0x1d476520">DBpedia</a> or a local <a class="auto-href" href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com" id="link-id0x1bcfe140">Virtuoso</a> instance (typically: http://localhost:8890/sparql). </li> <li>If using Virtuoso, and you want to populate its quad store using SPARQL, assign "<a href="http://docs.openlinksw.com/virtuoso/rdfsparql.html#rdfsupportedprotocolendpointuri" id="link-id0x1c7630b8">SPARQL_SPONGE</a>" privileges to user "SPARQL" (this is basic control, more sophisticated WebID based ACLs are available for controlling SPARQL access).</li> </ol> <h4>Script:</h4> <pre> /* Demonstrating use of a single query to populate a # Virtuoso Quad Store via Javascript. */ /* HTTP <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Locator" id="link-id0x1bc27a18">URL</a> is constructed accordingly with JSON query results format as the default via mime type. */ function sparqlQuery(query, baseURL, format) { if(!format) format="application/json"; var params={ "default-graph": "", "should-sponge": "soft", "query": query, "debug": "on", "timeout": "", "format": format, "save": "display", "fname": "" }; var querypart=""; for(var k in params) { querypart+=k+"="+encodeURIComponent(params[k])+"&"; } var queryURL=baseURL + '?' + querypart; if (window.XMLHttpRequest) { xmlhttp=new XMLHttpRequest(); } else { xmlhttp=new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP"); } xmlhttp.open("GET",queryURL,false); xmlhttp.send(); return JSON.parse(xmlhttp.responseText); } /* setting Data Source Name (DSN) */ var dsn="http://dbpedia.org/resource/DBpedia"; /* Virtuoso pragma "DEFINE get:soft "replace" instructs Virtuoso SPARQL engine to perform an HTTP GET using the IRI in FROM clause as Data Source URL with regards to DBMS record inserts */ var query="DEFINE get:soft \"replace\"\nSELECT DISTINCT * FROM <"+dsn+"> WHERE {?s ?p ?o}"; var data=sparqlQuery(query, "/sparql/"); </pre> <h4>Output</h4> <p> Place the snippet above into the <script/> section of an HTML document to see the <a href="http://twitpic.com/3s2vs3/full" id="link-id0x1cff2288">query result</a>. </p> <h3>Conclusion</h3> <p> JSON was chosen over XML (re. output format) since this is about a "no-brainer installation and utilization" guide for a Javascript developer that already knows how to use Javascript for HTTP based data access within HTML. SPARQL just provides an added bonus to URL dexterity (delivered via <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-id0x1d29da98">URI</a> abstraction) with regards to constructing Data Source Names or Addresses.</p> <h3>Related</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1652" id="link-id0x1b0ffb28">SPARQL Guide for the PHP Developer</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1651" id="link-id0x1a8c5ae0">SPARQL Guide for the Python Developer</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1648" id="link-id0x1b86ad28">SPARQL Guide for the Ruby Developer</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1646" id="link-id0x1c7af188">Simple Guide for using SPARQL with Virtuoso</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.delicious.com/kidehen/sparql_tutorial" id="link-id0x1ac1ba48">General SPARQL Tutorial Collection</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.delicious.com/kidehen/virtuoso_sparql_tutorial" id="link-id0x1c7be660">Virtuoso Specific SPARQL Tutorial Collection</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1567" id="link-id0x1c52b438">The URI, URL, and Linked Data Meme's Generic HTTP URI</a>. </li> </ul>
SPARQL Guide for the Javascript Developer
2011-01-26T23:10:28Z
2011-01-26T18:10:28-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1652
<h3>What?</h3> <p>A simple guide usable by any <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/PHP_programming_language" id="link-id0x1bdca7b8">PHP</a> developer seeking to exploit <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id0x1c894338">SPARQL</a> without hassles.</p> <h3>Why?</h3> <p>SPARQL is a powerful query language, results serialization format, and an HTTP based <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">data</a> access protocol from the W3C. It provides a mechanism for accessing and integrating data across <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deductive_database" id="link-id0x1c319af0">Deductive Database Systems</a> (colloquially referred to as triple or quad stores in <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id0x1d944d78">Semantic Web</a> and <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id0x1c7a87c8">Linked Data</a> circles) -- database systems (or data spaces) that manage proposition oriented records in 3-tuple (triples) or 4-tuple (quads) form. </p> <h3>How?</h3> <p>SPARQL queries are actually HTTP payloads (typically). Thus, using a RESTful client-server interaction pattern, you can dispatch calls to a SPARQL compliant data server and receive a payload for local processing e.g. local object binding re. PHP.</p> <h4>Steps:</h4> <ol> <li> From your command line execute: aptitude search '^PHP26', to verify PHP is in place </li> <li>Determine which SPARQL endpoint you want to access e.g. <a href="http://dbpedia.org/sparql" id="link-id0x1d476520">DBpedia</a> or a local <a class="auto-href" href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com" id="link-id0x1bcfe140">Virtuoso</a> instance (typically: http://localhost:8890/sparql). </li> <li>If using Virtuoso, and you want to populate its quad store using SPARQL, assign "<a href="http://docs.openlinksw.com/virtuoso/rdfsparql.html#rdfsupportedprotocolendpointuri" id="link-id0x1c7630b8">SPARQL_SPONGE</a>" privileges to user "SPARQL" (this is basic control, more sophisticated WebID based ACLs are available for controlling SPARQL access).</li> </ol> <h4>Script:</h4> <pre> #!/usr/bin/env php <?php # # Demonstrating use of a single query to populate a # Virtuoso Quad Store via PHP. # # HTTP <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Locator" id="link-id0x1ce1d6d8">URL</a> is constructed accordingly with JSON query results format in mind. function sparqlQuery($query, $baseURL, $format="application/json") { $params=array( "default-graph" => "", "should-sponge" => "soft", "query" => $query, "debug" => "on", "timeout" => "", "format" => $format, "save" => "display", "fname" => "" ); $querypart="?"; foreach($params as $name => $value) { $querypart=$querypart . $name . '=' . urlencode($value) . "&"; } $sparqlURL=$baseURL . $querypart; return json_decode(file_get_contents($sparqlURL)); }; # Setting Data Source Name (DSN) $dsn="http://dbpedia.org/resource/DBpedia"; #Virtuoso pragmas for instructing SPARQL engine to perform an HTTP GET #using the IRI in FROM clause as Data Source URL $query="DEFINE get:soft \"replace\" SELECT DISTINCT * FROM <$dsn> WHERE {?s ?p ?o}"; $data=sparqlQuery($query, "http://localhost:8890/sparql/"); print "Retrieved data:\n" . json_encode($data); ?> </pre> <h4>Output</h4> <pre> Retrieved data: {"head": {"link":[],"vars":["s","p","o"]}, "results": {"distinct":false,"ordered":true, "bindings":[ {"s": {"type":"<a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-id0x1ca44a98">uri</a>","value":"http:\/\/dbpedia.org\/resource\/DBpedia"},"p": {"type":"uri","value":"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/1999\/02\/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type"},"o": {"type":"uri","value":"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2002\/07\/owl#Thing"}}, {"s": {"type":"uri","value":"http:\/\/dbpedia.org\/resource\/DBpedia"},"p": {"type":"uri","value":"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/1999\/02\/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type"},"o": {"type":"uri","value":"http:\/\/dbpedia.org\/ontology\/Work"}}, {"s": {"type":"uri","value":"http:\/\/dbpedia.org\/resource\/DBpedia"},"p": {"type":"uri","value":"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/1999\/02\/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type"},"o": {"type":"uri","value":"http:\/\/dbpedia.org\/class\/yago\/Software106566077"}}, ... </pre> <h3>Conclusion</h3> <p> JSON was chosen over XML (re. output format) since this is about a "no-brainer installation and utilization" guide for a PHP developer that already knows how to use PHP for HTTP based data access. SPARQL just provides an added bonus to URL dexterity (delivered via URI abstraction) with regards to constructing Data Source Names or Addresses.</p> <h3>Related</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1651" id="link-id0x1a8c5ae0">SPARQL Guide for the Python Developer</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1648" id="link-id0x1b86ad28">SPARQL Guide for the Ruby Developer</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1646" id="link-id0x1c7af188">Simple Guide for using SPARQL with Virtuoso</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.delicious.com/kidehen/sparql_tutorial" id="link-id0x1ac1ba48">General SPARQL Tutorial Collection</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.delicious.com/kidehen/virtuoso_sparql_tutorial" id="link-id0x1c7be660">Virtuoso Specific SPARQL Tutorial Collection</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1567" id="link-id0x1c52b438">The URI, URL, and Linked Data Meme's Generic HTTP URI</a>. </li> </ul>
SPARQL Guide for the PHP Developer
2011-01-25T15:36:58Z
2011-01-25T10:36:58-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1651
<h3>What?</h3> <p>A simple guide usable by any <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Python_programming_language" id="link-id0x1bdca7b8">Python</a> developer seeking to exploit <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id0x1c894338">SPARQL</a> without hassles.</p> <h3>Why?</h3> <p>SPARQL is a powerful query language, results serialization format, and an HTTP based <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">data</a> access protocol from the W3C. It provides a mechanism for accessing and integrating data across <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deductive_database" id="link-id0x1c319af0">Deductive Database Systems</a> (colloquially referred to as triple or quad stores in <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id0x1d944d78">Semantic Web</a> and <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id0x1c7a87c8">Linked Data</a> circles) -- database systems (or data spaces) that manage proposition oriented records in 3-tuple (triples) or 4-tuple (quads) form. </p> <h3>How?</h3> <p>SPARQL queries are actually HTTP payloads (typically). Thus, using a RESTful client-server interaction pattern, you can dispatch calls to a SPARQL compliant data server and receive a payload for local processing e.g. local object binding re. Python.</p> <h4>Steps:</h4> <ol> <li> From your command line execute: aptitude search '^python26', to verify Python is in place </li> <li>Determine which SPARQL endpoint you want to access e.g. <a href="http://dbpedia.org/sparql" id="link-id0x1d476520">DBpedia</a> or a local <a class="auto-href" href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com" id="link-id0x1bcfe140">Virtuoso</a> instance (typically: http://localhost:8890/sparql). </li> <li>If using Virtuoso, and you want to populate its quad store using SPARQL, assign "<a href="http://docs.openlinksw.com/virtuoso/rdfsparql.html#rdfsupportedprotocolendpointuri" id="link-id0x1c7630b8">SPARQL_SPONGE</a>" privileges to user "SPARQL" (this is basic control, more sophisticated WebID based ACLs are available for controlling SPARQL access).</li> </ol> <h4>Script:</h4> <pre> #!/usr/bin/env python # # Demonstrating use of a single query to populate a # Virtuoso Quad Store via Python. # import urllib, json # HTTP <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Locator" id="link-id0x1bd91cf0">URL</a> is constructed accordingly with JSON query results format in mind. def sparqlQuery(query, baseURL, format="application/json"): params={ "default-graph": "", "should-sponge": "soft", "query": query, "debug": "on", "timeout": "", "format": format, "save": "display", "fname": "" } querypart=urllib.urlencode(params) response = urllib.urlopen(baseURL,querypart).read() return json.loads(response) # Setting Data Source Name (DSN) dsn="http://dbpedia.org/resource/DBpedia" # Virtuoso pragmas for instructing SPARQL engine to perform an HTTP GET # using the IRI in FROM clause as Data Source URL query="""DEFINE get:soft "replace" SELECT DISTINCT * FROM <%s> WHERE {?s ?p ?o}""" % dsn data=sparqlQuery(query, "http://localhost:8890/sparql/") print "Retrieved data:\n" + json.dumps(data, sort_keys=True, indent=4) # # End </pre> <h4>Output</h4> <pre> Retrieved data: { "head": { "link": [], "vars": [ "s", "p", "o" ] }, "results": { "bindings": [ { "o": { "type": "<a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-id0x1b1470b8">uri</a>", "value": "http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#Thing" }, "p": { "type": "uri", "value": "http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type" }, "s": { "type": "uri", "value": "http://dbpedia.org/resource/DBpedia" } }, ... </pre> <h3>Conclusion</h3> <p> JSON was chosen over XML (re. output format) since this is about a "no-brainer installation and utilization" guide for a Python developer that already knows how to use Python for HTTP based data access. SPARQL just provides an added bonus to URL dexterity (delivered via URI abstraction) with regards to constructing Data Source Names or Addresses.</p> <h3>Related</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1648" id="link-id0x1c9e26b0">SPARQL Guide for the Ruby Developer</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1646" id="link-id0x1c7af188">Simple Guide for using SPARQL with Virtuoso</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.delicious.com/kidehen/sparql_tutorial" id="link-id0x1ac1ba48">General SPARQL Tutorial Collection</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.delicious.com/kidehen/virtuoso_sparql_tutorial" id="link-id0x1c7be660">Virtuoso Specific SPARQL Tutorial Collection</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1567" id="link-id0x1c52b438">The URI, URL, and Linked Data Meme's Generic HTTP URI</a>. </li> </ul>
SPARQL Guide for Python Developer
2011-01-25T15:35:46Z
2011-01-25T10:35:46-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1648
<h3>What?</h3> <p>A simple guide usable by any <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Ruby_programming_language" id="link-id0x1bb88908">Ruby</a> developer seeking to exploit <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id0x1ae67500">SPARQL</a> without hassles.</p> <h3>Why?</h3> <p>SPARQL is a powerful query language, results serialization format, and an HTTP based <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">data</a> access protocol from the W3C. It provides a mechanism for accessing and integrating data across <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deductive_database" id="link-id0x1bc61d88">Deductive Database Systems</a> (colloquially referred to as triple or quad stores in <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id0x1cc11420">Semantic Web</a> and <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id0x1b2e7780">Linked Data</a> circles) -- database systems (or data spaces) that manage proposition oriented records in 3-tuple (triples) or 4-tuple (quads) form. </p> <h3>How?</h3> <p>SPARQL queries are actually HTTP payloads (typically). Thus, using a RESTful client-server interaction pattern, you can dispatch calls to a SPARQL compliant data server and receive a payload for local processing e.g. local object binding re. Ruby. </p> <h4>Steps:</h4> <ol> <li> From your command line execute: aptitude search '^ruby', to verify Ruby is in place </li> <li>Determine which SPARQL endpoint you want to access e.g. <a href="http://dbpedia.org/sparql" id="link-id0x1d476520">DBpedia</a> or a local <a class="auto-href" href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com" id="link-id0x1bcfe140">Virtuoso</a> instance (typically: http://localhost:8890/sparql). </li> <li>If using Virtuoso, and you want to populate its quad store using SPARQL, assign "<a href="http://docs.openlinksw.com/virtuoso/rdfsparql.html#rdfsupportedprotocolendpointuri" id="link-id0x1c7630b8">SPARQL_SPONGE</a>" privileges to user "SPARQL" (this is basic control, more sophisticated WebID based ACLs are available for controlling SPARQL access).</li> </ol> <h4>Script:</h4> <pre> #!/usr/bin/env ruby # # Demonstrating use of a single query to populate a # Virtuoso Quad Store. # require 'net/http' require 'cgi' require 'csv' # # We opt for CSV based output since handling this format is straightforward in Ruby, by default. # HTTP <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Locator" id="link-id0x1acee348">URL</a> is constructed accordingly with CSV as query results format in mind. def sparqlQuery(query, baseURL, format="text/csv") params={ "default-graph" => "", "should-sponge" => "soft", "query" => query, "debug" => "on", "timeout" => "", "format" => format, "save" => "display", "fname" => "" } querypart="" params.each { |k,v| querypart+="#{k}=#{CGI.escape(v)}&" } sparqlURL=baseURL+"?#{querypart}" response = Net::HTTP.get_response(<a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-id0x1d24dfd8">URI</a>.parse(sparqlURL)) return CSV::parse(response.body) end # Setting Data Source Name (DSN) dsn="http://dbpedia.org/resource/DBpedia" #Virtuoso pragmas for instructing SPARQL engine to perform an HTTP GET #using the IRI in FROM clause as Data Source URL query="DEFINE get:soft \"replace\" SELECT DISTINCT * FROM <#{dsn}> WHERE {?s ?p ?o} " #Assume use of local installation of Virtuoso #otherwise you can change URL to that of a public endpoint #for example DBpedia: http://dbpedia.org/sparql data=sparqlQuery(query, "http://localhost:8890/sparql/") puts "Got data:" p data # # End </pre><h4>Output</h4> <pre> Got data: [["s", "p", "o"], ["http://dbpedia.org/resource/DBpedia", "http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type", "http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#Thing"], ["http://dbpedia.org/resource/DBpedia", "http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type", "http://dbpedia.org/ontology/Work"], ["http://dbpedia.org/resource/DBpedia", "http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type", "http://dbpedia.org/class/yago/Software106566077"], ... </pre> <h3>Conclusion</h3> <p> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comma-separated_values" id="link-id0x1cac8420">CSV</a> was chosen over XML (re. output format) since this is about a "no-brainer installation and utilization" guide for a Ruby developer that already knows how to use Ruby for HTTP based data access. SPARQL just provides an added bonus to URL dexterity (delivered via URI abstraction) with regards to constructing Data Source Names or Addresses.</p> <h3>Related</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="http://www.taxonconcept.org/how-to/ruby-code-examples/how-do-i-use-ruby-to-query-a-sparql-endpoint.html" id="link-id0x1aa83678">SPARQL and Ruby SPARQL Client Library Example</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1646" id="link-id0x1c7af188">Simple Guide for using SPARQL with Virtuoso</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.delicious.com/kidehen/sparql_tutorial" id="link-id0x1ac1ba48">General SPARQL Tutorial Collection</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.delicious.com/kidehen/virtuoso_sparql_tutorial" id="link-id0x1c7be660">Virtuoso Specific SPARQL Tutorial Collection</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1567" id="link-id0x1c52b438">The URI, URL, and Linked Data Meme's Generic HTTP URI</a>. </li> </ul>
SPARQL for the Ruby Developer
2011-01-25T15:17:12Z
2011-01-25T10:17:12.000002-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1647
<h3>What is <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id0x1ab60ac0">SPARQL</a>?</h3> <p>A declarative query language from the W3C for querying structured propositional <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">data</a> (in the form of 3-<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuple" id="link-id0x1b1e0010">tuple</a> [triples] or 4-tuple [quads] records) stored in a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deductive_database" id="link-id0x1cf8af98">deductive database</a> (colloquially referred to as triple or quad stores in <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id0x1caf5050">Semantic Web</a> and <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id0x19d781b8">Linked Data</a> parlance).</p> <p>SPARQL is inherently platform independent. Like <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SQL" id="link-id0x1b879140">SQL</a>, the query language and the backend database engine are distinct. Database clients capture SPARQL queries which are then passed on to compliant backend databases.</p> <h3>Why is it important?</h3> <p>Like SQL for relational databases, it provides a powerful mechanism for accessing and joining data across one or more data partitions (named graphs identified by IRIs). The aforementioned capability also enables the construction of sophisticated Views, Reports (HTML or those produced in native form by desktop productivity tools), and data streams for other services.</p> <p>Unlike SQL, SPARQL includes result serialization formats and an HTTP based wire protocol. Thus, the ubiquity and sophistication of HTTP is integral to SPARQL i.e., client side applications (user agents) only need to be able to perform an HTTP GET against a <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Locator" id="link-id0x1ba287e8">URL</a> en route to exploiting the power of SPARQL.</p> <h3>How do I use it, generally?</h3> <ol> <li>Locate a SPARQL endpoint (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/sparql" id="link-id0x1d7436b0">DBpedia</a>, <a href="http://lod.openlinksw.com/sparql" id="link-id0x1bf20690">LOD Cloud Cache</a>, <a href="http://semantic.data.gov" id="link-id0x1a8ebc28">Data.Gov</a>, <a href="http://linkeddata.uriburner.com/sparql" id="link-id0x1be93070">URIBurner</a>, <a href="http://www.delicious.com/kidehen/sparql_endpoint" id="link-id0x1cce9b40">others</a>), or;</li> <li>Install a SPARQL compliant database server (quad or triple store) on your desktop, workgroup server, data center, or cloud (e.g., <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VirtuosoEC2AMI" id="link-id0x1cd697a0">Amazon EC2 AMI</a>)</li> <li>Start the database server</li> <li>Execute SPARQL Queries via the <a href="http://lod.openlinksw.com/sparql" id="link-id0x1b99d790">SPARQL endpoint.</a> </li> </ol> <h3>How do I use SPARQL with <a class="auto-href" href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com" id="link-id0x1c9adc80">Virtuoso</a>?</h3> <p>What follows is a very simple guide for using SPARQL against your own instance of Virtuoso:</p> <ol> <li>Software Download and Installation</li> <li>Data Loading from Data Sources exposed at Network Addresses (e.g. HTTP URLs) using very simple methods</li> <li>Actual SPARQL query execution via SPARQL endpoint.</li> </ol> <h3>Installation Steps</h3> <ol> <li> Download <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VOSDownload" id="link-id0x1b795100">Virtuoso Open Source</a> or <a href="http://download.openlinksw.com/virtwiz/virtuoso.php" id="link-id0x1cce46f0">Virtuoso Commercial</a> Editions </li> <li> Run installer (if using Commercial edition of Windows Open Source Edition, otherwise follow build guide) </li> <li> Follow post-installation guide and verify installation by typing in the command: virtuoso -? (if this fails check you've followed installation and setup steps, then verify environment variables have been set) </li> <li> Start the Virtuoso server using the command: virtuoso-start.sh </li> <li> Verify you have a connection to the Virtuoso Server via the command: isql localhost (assuming you're using default DB settings) or the command: isql localhost:1112 (assuming demo database) or goto your browser and type in: http://<virtuoso-server-host-name>:[port]/conductor (e.g. http://localhost:8889/conductor for default DB or http://localhost:8890/conductor if using Demo DB) </li> <li> Go to SPARQL endpoint which is typically -- http://<virtuoso-server-host-name>:[port]/sparql </li> <li> Run a quick sample query (since the database always has system data in place): select distinct * where {?s ?p ?o} limit 50 .</li> </ol> <h3>Troubleshooting</h3> <ol> <li>Ensure environment settings are set and functional -- if using Mac OS X or Windows, so you don't have to worry about this, just start and stop your Virtuoso server using native OS services applets</li> <li>If using the Open Source Edition, follow the <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VOSMake#Getting%20Started" id="link-id0x1bfa7548">getting started guide</a> -- it covers PATH and startup directory location re. starting and stopping Virtuoso servers.</li> <li>Sponging (HTTP GETs against external Data Sources) within SPARQL queries is disabled by default. You can enable this feature by assigning "<a href="http://docs.openlinksw.com/virtuoso/rdfsparql.html#rdfsupportedprotocolendpointuri" id="link-id0x1d566270">SPARQL_SPONGE</a>" privileges to user "SPARQL". Note, more sophisticated security exists via <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VirtAuthPolicyFOAFSSL" id="link-id0x1a3c9eb8">WebID based ACLs</a>. </li> </ol> <h3>Data Loading Steps</h3> <ol> <li> Identify an RDF based structured data source of interest -- a file that contains 3-tuple / triples available at an address on a public or private HTTP based network </li> <li>Determine the Address (URL) of the RDF data source</li> <li>Go to your Virtuoso SPARQL endpoint and type in the following SPARQL query: DEFINE GET:SOFT "replace" SELECT DISTINCT * FROM <RDFDataSourceURL> WHERE {?s ?p ?o} </li> <li> All the triples in the RDF resource (data source accessed via URL) will be loaded into the Virtuoso Quad Store (using RDF Data Source URL as the internal quad store Named Graph IRI) as part of the SPARQL query processing pipeline. </li> </ol> <p> Note: the data source URL doesn't even have to be RDF based -- which is where the Virtuoso <a class="auto-href" href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/Whitepapers/html/VirtSpongerWhitePaper.html" id="link-id0x1d1a0978">Sponger</a> Middleware comes into play (download and install the <a href="http://s3.amazonaws.com/opldownload/uda/vad-packages/6.1/virtuoso/rdf_mappers_dav.vad" id="link-id0x1d0e1530">VAD installer package</a> first) since it delivers the following features to Virtuoso's SPARQL engine: </p> <ol> <li> Transformation of data from non RDF data sources (file content, hypermedia resources, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">web</a> services output etc..) into RDF based 3-tuples (triples)</li> <li> Cache Invalidation Scheme Construction -- thus, subsequent queries (without the define get:soft "replace" pragma will not be required bar when you forcefully want to override cache).</li> <li> If you have very large data sources like DBpedia etc. from CKAN, simply use our <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VirtBulkRDFLoader" id="link-id0x1d19b4b0">bulk loader</a> . </li> </ol> <h3>SPARQL Endpoint Discovery</h3> <p>Public SPARQL endpoints are emerging at an ever increasing rate. Thus, we've setup up a DNS lookup service that provides access to a large number of SPARQL endpoints. Of course, this doesn't cover all existing endpoints, so if our endpoint is missing please ping <a class="auto-href" href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/person/kidehen#this" id="link-id0x1d634848">me</a>.</p> <p>Here are a collection of commands for using DNS-SD to discover SPARQL endpoints:</p> <ol> <li>dns-sd -B _sparql._tcp sparql.openlinksw.com -- browse for services instances</li> <li>dns-sd -Z _sparql._tcp sparql.openlinksw.com -- output results in Zone File format</li> <li></li> </ol> <h3>Related</h3> <ol> <li> <a href="http://www.ensta.fr/~diam/ruby/online/ruby-doc-stdlib/libdoc/net/http/rdoc/index.html" id="link-id0x1b156610">Using HTTP from Ruby</a> -- you can just make <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VOSSparqlProtocol" id="link-id0x1d024d60">SPARQL Protocol URLs</a> re. SPARQL</li> <li> <a href="http://sparql.rubyforge.org/client/" id="link-id0x1cd43a48">Using SPARQL Endpoints via Ruby</a> -- Ruby example using DBpedia endpoint</li> <li> <a href="http://wikis.openlinksw.com/dataspace/owiki/wiki/OATWikiWeb/InteractiveSparqlQueryBuilder" id="link-id0x1b9d2190">Interactive SPARQL Query By Example (QBE) tool</a> -- provides a graphical user interface (as is common in SQL realm re. query building against <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Relational_database_management_system" id="link-id0x1bfffb70">RDBMS</a> engines) that works with any SPARQL endpoint </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VirtRDFInsert" id="link-id0x1ab63de0">Other methods of loading RDF data into Virtuoso</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VirtSponger" id="link-id0x1ca248e0">Virtuoso Sponger</a> -- architecture and how it turns a wide variety of non RDF data sources into SPARQL accessible data </li> <li> <a href="http://ode.openlinksw.com/example.html" id="link-id0x1be34758">Using OpenLink Data Explorer</a> (ODE) to populate Virtuoso -- locate a resource of interest; click on a bookmarklet or use <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Context_%28language_use%29" id="link-id0x1ca84af0">context</a> menus (if using ODE extensions for Firefox, Safari, or Chrome); and you'll have SPARQL accessible data automatically inserted into your Virtuoso instance. </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1295" id="link-id0x1c9060f0">W3C's SPARQLing Data Access Ingenuity</a> -- an older generic SPARQL introduction post </li> <li> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VirtSPARQLRef" id="link-id0x1cf1e298">Collection of SPARQL Query Examples </a>-- GoodRelations (Product Offers), <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Friend_of_a_friend" id="link-id0x1c0445d0">FOAF</a> (Profiles), <a class="auto-href" href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SIOC" id="link-id0x1b785e48">SIOC</a> (Data Spaces -- <a href="http://ods.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/ODS/ODSAtomOWLRefExampleBlog" id="link-id0x1b6c9f78">Blogs</a>, <a href="http://ods.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/ODS/ODSAtomOWLRefExampleWiki" id="link-id0x1c188280">Wikis</a>, <a href="http://ods.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/ODS/ODSAtomOWLRefExampleBookmarks" id="link-id0x1a9a8f98">Bookmarks</a>, <a href="http://ods.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/ODS/ODSAtomOWLRefExampleFeeds" id="link-id0x1720c658">Feed Collections</a>, <a href="http://ods.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/ODS/ODSAtomOWLRefExampleGallery" id="link-id0x1cdba348">Photo Galleries</a>, <a href="http://ods.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/ODS/ODSAtomOWLRefExampleBriefcase" id="link-id0x1c8f1148">Briefcase/DropBox</a>, <a href="http://ods.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/ODS/ODSAtomOWLRefExampleAddressbook" id="link-id0x1b5eb7e0">AddressBook</a>, <a href="http://ods.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/ODS/ODSAtomOWLRefExampleCalendar" id="link-id0x1c575120">Calendars</a>, <a href="http://ods.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/ODS/ODSAtomOWLRefExampleDiscussions" id="link-id0x1c73be98">Discussion Forums</a>) </li> <li> <a href="http://lod.openlinksw.com/demo_queries/" id="link-id0x1b08aa00">Collection of Live SPARQL Queries against LOD Cloud Cache</a> -- simple and advanced queries. </li> </ol>
Simple Virtuoso Installation & Utilization Guide for SPARQL Users (Update 5)
2011-01-19T15:43:35Z
2011-01-19T10:43:35-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1611
<p>Motivation for this post arose from a series of Twitter exchanges between <a href="http://ouseful.wordpress.com/about/#this" id="link-id115699ae8">Tony Hirst</a> and I, in relation to his <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Blog" id="link-id11a0cbc08">blog</a> post titled: <a href="http://ouseful.wordpress.com/2010/03/03/so-what-is-it-about-linked-data-that-makes-it-linked-data%e2%84%a2/" id="link-id1158f8ce8">So What Is It About Linked Data that Makes it Linked Data™ ?</a> </p> <p>At the end of the marathon session, it was clear to <a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/person/kidehen#this" id="link-id11557da58">me</a> that a blog post was required for future reference, at the very least :-)</p> <h3>What is <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id11a7ee3a8">Linked Data</a>?</h3> <p>"<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Reference_(computer_science)" id="link-id11a682338">Data Access by Reference</a>" mechanism for Data Objects (or Entities) on HTTP networks. It enables you to Identify a Data Object and Access its structured Data Representation via a single Generic HTTP scheme based Identifier (HTTP <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-id125037288">URI</a>). Data Object representation formats may vary; but in all cases, they are <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Hypermedia" id="link-id115548f78">hypermedia</a> oriented, fully structured, and negotiable within the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Context_%28language_use%29" id="link-id11c955888">context</a> of a client-server message exchange.</p> <h3>Why is it Important?</h3> <p> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information" id="link-id125154778">Information</a> makes the world tick!</p> <p>Information doesn't exist without data to contextualize.</p> <p>Information is inaccessible without a projection (presentation) medium. </p> <p>All information (without exception, when produced by humans) is subjective. Thus, to truly maximize the innate heterogeneity of collective human intelligence, loose coupling of our information and associated data sources is imperative.</p> <h3>How is Linked Data Delivered?</h3> <p>Linked Data is exposed to HTTP networks (e.g. <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web" id="link-id125321238">World Wide Web</a>) via hypermedia resources bearing structured representations of data object descriptions. Remember, you have a single Identifier abstraction (generic HTTP URI) that embodies: Data Object Name and Data Representation Location (aka <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Locator" id="link-id1249a7a88">URL</a>).</p> <h3>How are Linked Data Object Representations Structured?</h3> <p>A structured representation of data exists when an <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id1250630d8">Entity</a> (Datum), its Attributes, and its Attribute Values are clearly discernible. In the case of a Linked Data Object, structured descriptions take the form of a hypermedia based <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity-attribute-value_model" id="link-id126ed7608">Entity</a>-Attribute-Value (EAV) graph pictorial -- where each Entity, its Attributes, and its Attribute Values (optionally) are identified using Generic HTTP URIs. </p> <p>Examples of structured data representation formats (content types) associated with Linked Data Objects include:</p> <ul> <li>text/html</li> <li>text/turtle</li> <li>text/n3</li> <li>application/json</li> <li>application/rdf+xml</li> <li>Others </li> </ul> <h3>How Do I Create Linked Data oriented Hypermedia Resources?</h3> <p>You markup resources by expressing distinct entity-attribute-value statements (basically these a 3-tuple records) using a variety of notations:</p> <ul> <li>(X)HTML+<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/RDFa" id="link-id1252975b8">RDFa</a>,</li> <li> <a href="http://n2.talis.com/wiki/RDF_JSON_Specification" id="link-id115015458">JSON</a>,</li> <li> <a href="http://www.dajobe.org/2004/01/turtle/" id="link-id116458478">Turtle</a>,</li> <li> <a href="http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/Notation3" id="link-id11a62f9f8">N3</a>,</li> <li> <a href="http://swdev.nokia.com/trix/trix.html" id="link-id11a8f56b8">TriX</a>,</li> <li> <a href="http://www4.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/bizer/TriG/" id="link-id117156978">TriG</a>,</li> <li> <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-rdf-syntax/" id="link-id126f52a58">RDF/XML</a>, and</li> <li>Others (for instance you can use Atom data format extensions to model EAV graph as per OData initiative from Microsoft).</li> </ul> <p>You can achieve this task using any of the following approaches:</p> <ul> <li>Notepad</li> <li>WYSIWYG Editor </li> <li>Transformation of Database Records via Middleware</li> <li>Transformation of XML based <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a> Services output via Middleware</li> <li>Transformation of other Hypermedia Resources via Middleware</li> <li>Transformation of non Hypermedia Resources via Middleware</li> <li>Use a platform that delivers all of the above.</li> </ul> <h3>Practical Examples of Linked Data Objects Enable</h3> <ul> <li>Describe Who You Are, What You Offer, and What You Need via your structured profile, then leave your HTTP network to perform the REST (serendipitous discovery of relevant things)</li> <li>Identify (via map overlay) all items of interest based on a 2km+ radious of my current location (this could include vendor offerings or services sought by existing or future customers)</li> <li>Share the latest and greatest family photos with family members *only* without forcing them to signup for Yet Another Web 2.0 service or Social Network</li> <li>No repetitive signup and username and password based login sequences per Web 2.0 or Mobile Application combo</li> <li>Going beyond imprecise Keyword Search to the new frontier of Precision Find - Example, Find Data Objects associated with the keywords: Tiger, while enabling the seeker disambiguate across the "Who", "What", "Where", "When" dimensions (with negation capability)</li> <li>Determine how two Data Objects are Connected - person to person, person to subject matter etc. (LinkedIn outside the walled garden)</li> <li>Use any resource address (e.g <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Blog" id="link-id124fd8118">blog</a> or bookmark URL) as the conduit into a Data Object mesh that exposes all associated Entities and their social network relationships</li> <li>Apply patterns (social dimensions) above to traditional enterprise data sources in combination (optionally) with external data without compromising security etc.</li> </ul> <h3>How Do <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/organization/openlink#this" id="link-id124fd0d98">OpenLink Software</a> Products Enable Linked Data Exploitation?</h3> <p>Our data access middleware heritage (which spans 16+ years) has enabled us to assemble a rich portfolio of coherently integrated products that enable cost-effective evaluation and utilization of Linked Data, without writing a single line of code, or exposing you to the hidden, but extensive admin and configuration costs. Post installation, the benefits of Linked Data simply materialize (along the lines described above).</p> <p>Our main Linked Data oriented products include:</p> <ul> <li> <a href="http://ode.openlinksw.com" id="link-id125058d68">OpenLink Data Explorer</a> -- visualizes Linked Data or Linked Data transformed "on the fly" from hypermedia and non hypermedia data sources </li> <li> <a href="http://uriburner.com" id="link-id1251db6a8">URIBurner</a> -- a "deceptively simple" solution that enables the generation of Linked Data "on the fly" from a broad collection of data sources and resource types</li> <li> <a href="http://ods.openlinksw.com/wiki/ODS/" id="link-id1252caae8">OpenLink Data Spaces</a> -- a platform for enterprises and individuals that enhances distributed collaboration via Linked Data driven virtualization of data across its native and/or 3rd party content manager for: Blogs, Wikis, Shared Bookmarks, Discussion Forums, Social Networks etc</li> <li> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/overview/index.htm" id="link-id124809b58">OpenLink Virtuoso</a> -- a secure and high-performance native hybrid data server (Relational, RDF-Graph, Document models) that includes in-built Linked Data transformation middleware (aka. Sponger). </li> </ul> <h3>Related</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2616.txt" id="link-id125306d78">Hypertext Transfer Protocol 1.1 RFC</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.odata.org/docs/%5BMC-APDSU%5D.htm#_Toc246716495" id="link-id11c948e98">Open Data Protocol Glossary</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1543" id="link-id126fae278">Simple Explanation of RDF and Linked Data Dynamics</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=linked%20data%0D%0A&type=text&output=html" id="link-id1252e0018">Collection of post from the past about Linked Data</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1584" id="link-id124fefea8">Are We There Yet Re. Web++?</a> -- includes link to <a href="http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail4233.html" id="link-id125188078">podcast conversation with Jon Udell</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/gary_flake_is_pivot_a_turning_point_for_web_exploration.html" id="link-id11a501c28">Web of Linked Data Pivoting Demo from TED</a> -- by Microsoft's Gary Flake </li> <li> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G29DBIEcIuQ" id="link-id1204fff18">Microsoft Pivot atop Virtuoso Quad Store's Faceted Browser Engine</a>-- My Demonstration of EAV model transcending data representation variations (i.e., RDF's EAV data model data served up in Microsoft CXML data representation format). </li> </ul>
Revisiting HTTP based Linked Data (Update 1 - Demo Video Links Added)
2010-03-08T14:59:37Z
2010-03-08T09:59:37.000010-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1610
<p>Socially enhanced enterprise and invididual collaboration is becoming a focal point for a variety of solutions that offer erswhile distinct content managment features across the realms of Blogging, Wikis, Shared Bookmarks, Discussion Forums etc.. as part of an integrated platform suite. Recently, <a href="http://www.socialtext.com/" id="link-id112be850">Socialtext</a> has caught my attention courtesy of its nice <a href="http://www.socialtext.com/products/socialnetworking.php" id="link-id145d9850">features and benefits page</a> . In addition, I've also found the <a href="http://mike2.openmethodology.org/" id="link-id14103cc8">Mike 2.0 portal</a> immensely interesting and valuable, for those with an enterprise collaboration bent.</p> <p>Anyway, Socialtext and Mike 2.0 (they aren't identical and juxtaposition isn't seeking to imply this) provide nice demonstrations of socially enhanced collaboration for individuals and/or enterprises is all about:</p> <ol> <li>Identifying Yourself</li> <li>Identifying Others (key contributors, peers, collaborators)</li> <li>Serendipitous Discovery of key contributors, peers, and collaborators</li> <li>Serendipitous Discovery by key contributors, peers, and collaborators</li> <li>Develop and sustain relationships via socially enhanced professional network hybrid</li> <li>Utilize your new "trusted network" (which you've personally indexed) when seeking help or propagating a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Meme" id="link-id13ad00d0">meme</a>.</li> </ol> <p>As is typically the case in this emerging realm, the critical issue of discrete "identifiers" (record keys in sense) for <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">data</a> items, data containers, and data creators (individuals and groups) is overlooked albeit unintentionally. </p> <h3>How HTTP based <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id112e1ba8">Linked Data</a> Addresses the Identifier Issue</h3> <p>Rather than using platform constrained identifiers such as: </p> <ul> <li>email address (a "mailto" scheme identifier), </li> <li>a dbms user account, </li> <li>application specific account, or</li> <li>OpenID.</li> </ul> <p>It enables you to leverage the platform independence of HTTP scheme Identifiers (Generic URIs) such that Identifiers for: </p> <ol> <li>You, </li> <li>Your Peers, </li> <li>Your Groups, and </li> <li>Your Activity Generated Data, </li> </ol> <p>simply become conduits into a mesh of <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/presentations/Creating_Deploying_Exploiting_Linked_Data2/images/My_Data_Spaces.png" id="link-id13fe1168">HTTP -- referencable and accessible -- Linked Data Objects</a> endowed with High SDQ (Serendipitious Discovery Quotient). For example my <a href="http://kingsley.idehen.name/dataspace/person/kidehen#this" id="link-id13bdcc80">Personal WebID </a>is all anyone needs to know if they want to explore:</p> <ol> <li>My Profile (which includes references to data objects associated with my interests, social-network, calendar, bookmarks etc.)</li> <li>Data generated by my activities across various data spaces (via data objects associated with my online accounts e.g. <a href="http://linkeddata.uriburner.com/about/id/entity/http/feeds.delicious.com/v2/rss/kidehen?count=15" id="link-id141cce38">Del.icio.us</a>, <a href="http://linkeddata.uriburner.com/about/id/entity/http/twitter.com/kidehen" id="link-id11802ce8">Twitter</a>, <a href="http://linkeddata.uriburner.com/about/id/entity/http/www.last.fm/user/kidehen" id="link-id118bf470">Last.FM</a>)</li> <li> <a href="http://uriburner.com/fct/rdfdesc/usage.vsp?g=http%3A%2F%2Fkingsley.idehen.name%2Fdataspace%2Fperson%2Fkidehen%23this&tp=4" id="link-id13c0f528">Linked Data Meshups via URIBurner</a> (or any other <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com" id="link-id11334f00">Virtuoso</a> instance) that provide an extend view of my profile</li> </ol> <h3>How <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Friend_of_a_friend" id="link-id14324eb0">FOAF</a>+SSL adds Socially aware Security </h3> <p>Even when you reach a point of equilibrium where: your daily activities trigger orchestratestration of CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations against Linked Data Objects within your socially enhanced collaboration network, you still have to deal with the thorny issues of security, that includes the following: </p> <ol> <li>Single Sign On, </li> <li>Authentication, and </li> <li>Data Access Policies.</li> </ol> <p>FOAF+SSL, an application of HTTP based Linked Data, enables you to enhance your Personal HTTP scheme based Identifer (or WebID) via the following steps (peformed by a FOAF+SSL compliant platform):</p> <ol> <li>Imprint WebID within a self-signed x.509 based public key (certificate) associated with your private key (generated by FOAF+SSL platform or manually via OpenSSL)</li> <li>Store public key components (modulous and exponent) into your FOAF based profile document which references your Personal HTTP Identifier as its primary topic</li> <li>Leverage HTTP <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Locator" id="link-id141f8b30">URL</a> component of WebID for making public key components (modulous and exponent) available for x.509 certificate based authentication challenges posed by systems secured by FOAF+SSL (directly) or OpenID (indirectly via FOAF+SSL to OpenID proxy services).</li> </ol> <p>Contrary to conventional experiences with all things PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) related, FOAF+SSL compliant platforms typically handle the PKI issues as part of the protocol implementation; thereby protecting you from any administrative tedium without compromising security.</p> <h3>Conclusions</h3> <p>Understanding how new technology innovations address long standing problems, or understanding how new solutions inadvertently fail to address old problems, provides time tested mechanisms for product selection and value proposition comprehension that ultimately save scarce resources such as time and money. </p> <p>If you want to understand real world problem solution #1 with regards to HTTP based Linked Data look no further than the issues of secure, socially aware, and platform independent identifiers for data objects, that build bridges across erstwhile data silos.</p> <p>If you want to cost-effectively experience what I've outlined in this post, take a look at <a href="http://ods.openlinksw.com/wiki/ODS/" id="link-id13c21220">OpenLink Data Spaces</a> (<a href="http://ods.openlinksw.com/wiki/ODS/" id="link-id1422cdd8">ODS</a>) which is a distributed collaboration engine (enterprise of individual) built around the <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com" id="link-id14211c98">Virtuoso</a> database engines. It simply enhances existing collaboration tools via the following capabilities:</p> <p>Addition of Social Dimensions via HTTP based <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Identity_(object-oriented_programming)" id="link-id116ecd88">Data Object Identifiers</a> for all Data Items (if missing)</p> <ol> <li>Ability to integrate across a myriad of Data Source Types rather than a select few across RDBM Engines, LDAP, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a> Services, and various HTTP accessible Resources (Hypermedia or Non Hypermedia content types)</li> <li>Addition of FOAF+SSL based authentication</li> <li>Addition of FOAF+SSL based Access Control Lists (ACLs) for policy based data access.</li> </ol> <h3>Related:</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="http://ods.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/ODS/GetAPersonalURIIn5MinutesOrLess" id="link-id117b2610">Get Yourself A WebID in 5 Minutes or Less</a> via OpenLink Data Spaces (an application layer built atop Virtuoso)</li> <li> <a href="http://ods.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/ODS/ODSBriefcaseFOAFSSL" id="link-id140311a0">How To Share Resources Securely Using FOAF+SSL</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRbdeNMPCug" id="link-id11ad5448">FOAF+SSL & WebID Demonstration</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/kidehen/linked-data-spaces-data-portability-access" id="link-id141f43a8">OpenLink Data Spaces & Data Portability</a>.</li> </ul>
Linked Data & Socially Enhanced Collaboration (Enterprise or Individual) -- Update 1
2010-03-04T00:50:37Z
2010-03-03T19:50:37-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1609
<h2>Situation Analysis</h2> <p>Since the beginning of the modern IT era, each period of innovation has inadvertently introduced its fair share of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">Data</a> Silos. The driving force behind this anomaly remains an overemphasis on the role of applications when selecting problem solutions. Unfortunately, most solution selecting decision makers remain oblivious to the fact that most applications are architecturally monolithic; i.e., they fail to separate the following five layers that are critical to all solutions: </p> <ol> <li>Data Unit (Datum or Data Object) Identity,</li> <li>Data Storage/Persistence,</li> <li>Data Access,</li> <li>Data Representation, and</li> <li>Data Presentation/Visualization. </li> </ol> <p>The rise of the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Internet" id="link-id13fe21b0">Internet</a>, and its exponentially-growing user-friendly enclave known as the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web" id="link-id1233c608">World Wide Web</a>, is bringing the intrinsic costs of the monolithic application architecture anomaly to bear -- in manners unanticipated by many. For example, the emergence of network-oriented solutions across the realms of Enterprise 2.0-based Collaboration and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a> 2.0-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), combined with the overarching influence of Social Media, are producing more heterogeneously-structured and disparately-located data sources than people can effectively process.</p> <p>As is often the case, a variety of problem and product monikers have emerged for the data access and integration challenges outlined above. Contemporary examples include Enterprise <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information" id="link-id13f7e458">Information</a> Integration, Master Data Management, and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Federated_database_system" id="link-id13f57da0">Data Virtualization</a>. Labeling aside, the fundamental issues of the unresolved Data Integration challenge boil down to the following:</p> <ul> <li>Data Model Heterogeneity</li> <li>Data Quality (Cleanliness)</li> <li>Semantic Variance across Contexts (e.g., weights and measures).</li> </ul> <p>Effectively solving today's data integration challenges requires a move away from monolithic application architecture to loosely-coupled, network-centric application architectures. Basically, we need a ubiquitous network-centric application protocol that lends itself to loosely-coupled across-the-wire orchestration of data interactions. In short, this will be what revitalizes the art of application development and deployment.</p> <p>The World Wide Web is built around a network application protocol called HTTP. This protocol intrinsically separates the five layers listed earlier, thereby enabling:</p> <ul> <li>Use of Generic HTTP URIs as Data Object (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id113b7318">Entity</a>) Identifiers;</li> <li>Identifier Co-reference, such that multiple <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Identity_(object-oriented_programming)" id="link-id117151d8">Data Object Identifiers</a> may reference the same Data Object;</li> <li>Use of the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity-attribute-value_model" id="link-id13fa4fa0">Entity</a>-Attribute-Value Model to describe Data Objects using real world modeling friendly conceptual graphs;</li> <li>Use of HTTP URLs to Identify Locations of Resources that bear (host) Data Object Descriptions (Representations);</li> <li>Data Access mechanism for retrieving Data Object Representations from persistent or transient storage locations.</li> </ul> <h2>What is <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com" id="link-id116af950">Virtuoso</a>?</h2> <p>A uniquely designed to address today's escalating Data Access and Integration challenges without compromising performance, security, or platform independence. At its core lies an unrivaled commitment to industry standards combined with unique technology innovation that transcends erstwhile distinct realms such as: </p> <ul> <li>Data Management (<a href="http://blogs.usnet.private:8893/main/rdbms-engine.html" id="link-id11943dc0">Relational</a>, <a href="http://blogs.usnet.private:8893/main/rdf-quad-store.html" id="link-id12312240">RDF Graph</a>, or Document), </li> <li> <a href="http://blogs.usnet.private:8893/main/middleware.htm" id="link-id115d71c0">Data Access Middleware</a>, </li> <li> <a href="http://blogs.usnet.private:8893/main/web-application-server.html" id="link-id142ca788">Web Application & Services Deployment</a>, </li> <li> <a href="http://blogs.usnet.private:8893/main/linked-data.html" id="link-id112b92c0">Linked Data Deployment</a>, and </li> <li>Messaging. </li> </ul> <p>When Virtuoso is installed and running, HTTP-based Data Objects are automatically created as a by-product of its powerful data virtualization, transcending data sources and data representation formats. The benefits of such power extend across profiles such as:</p> <ul> <li> <a href="http://blogs.usnet.private:8893/information-and-knowledge-worker-benefits" id="link-id118df198">Information & Knowledge Workers</a>, </li> <li> <a href="http://blogs.usnet.private:8893/systems-integrator-benefits" id="link-id1429d178">Systems Integrators & Architects</a>, </li> <li> <a href="http://blogs.usnet.private:8893/distributed-collaboration-benefits" id="link-id142fa2a0">Distributed Collaboration & Social Media</a>, </li> <li> <a href="http://blogs.usnet.private:8893/cloud-computing-benefits" id="link-id11aee6b0">Cloud Computing</a>, and </li> <li> <a href="http://blogs.usnet.private:8893/application-developer-benefits" id="link-id142440b8">Application Development</a>. </li> </ul> <h2>Product Benefits Summary</h2> <ul> <li> <b>Enterprise Agility</b> — Virtuoso lets you mix-&-match best-of-class combinations of Operating Systems, Programming Environments, Database Engines and Data-Access Middleware when building or tweaking your IS infrastructure, without the typical impedance of vendor-lock-in.</li> <li> <b>Data Model Dexterity</b> — By supporting multiple protocols and data models in a single product, Virtuoso protects you against costly vulnerabilities such as: perennial acquisition and accumulation of expensive data model specific DBMS products that still operate on the fundamental principle of: proprietary technology lock-in, at a time when heterogeneity continues to intrinsically define the information technology landscape.</li> <li> <b>Cost-effectiveness</b> — By providing a single point of access (and single-sign-on, SSO) to a plethora of Web 2.0-style social networks, Web Services, and Content Management Systems, and by using Data Object Identifiers as units of Data Virtualization that become the focal points of all data access, Virtuoso lowers the cost to exploit emerging frontiers such as socially-enhanced enterprise collaboration.</li> <li> <b>Speed of Exploitation</b> — Virtuoso provides the ability to rapidly assemble 360-degree conceptual views of data, across internal line-of-business application (CRM, ERP, ECM, HR, etc.) data and/or external data sources, whether these are unstructured, semi-structured, or fully structured.</li> </ul> <p>Bottom line, Virtuoso delivers unrivaled flexibility and scalability, without compromising performance or security.</p> <h2>Related</h2> <ul> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com's BLOG [127]/1567" id="link-id13ee6840">HTTP URI Abstraction and Linked Data</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://blog.jonudell.net/2009/09/09/talking-with-kingsley-idehen-about-mastering-your-own-search-index/" id="link-id1428b698">Be The Master of Your Own Search Index</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://walkingoncoals.blogspot.com/2009/12/whos-data-is-it-part-1.html" id="link-id117db508">Who's Data Is It?</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1482" id="link-id13f64d90">MDM & Linked Data</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1453" id="link-id118861d8">What is Linked Data Oriented RDF-zation?</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1444" id="link-id11820d70">Semantic Web: Travails to Harmony Illustrated</a> </li> </ul> <p> </p>
OpenLink Virtuoso - Product Value Proposition Overiew
2010-02-27T17:46:36Z
2010-02-27T12:46:36-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1601
<p>Thanks to the <a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/" id="link-id114eb070">TechCrunch</a> post titled: <a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/01/01/ten-technologies-2010/" id="link-id1146e550">Ten Technologies That Will Rock 2010</a>, I've been able to quickly construct a derivative post that condenses the ten item list down to a Single Technology That Will Rock 2010 :-)</p> <p>Sticking with the TechCrunch layout, here is why all roads simply lead to <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id11141d50">Linked Data</a> come 2010 and beyond: </p> <ol> <li> <strong>The Tablet: </strong>a new form factor addition re. <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Internet" id="link-id13f09418">Internet</a> and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a> application hosts which is just another way of saying: Linked Data will be accessible from Tablet applications.</li> <li> <strong>Geo:</strong> GPS chips are now standard features of mobile phones, so <a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/12/23/location-2010/" id="link-id112cfdd0">geolocation</a> is increasingly becoming a necessary feature for any killer app. Thus, GeoSpatial Linked Data and GeopSpatial Queries are going to be a critical success factor for any endeavor that seeks to engage mobile applications developers and ultimately their end-users. Basiacally, you want to be able to perform Esoteric Search from these devices of the form: Find Vendors of a Camcorder (e.g., with a Zoom Factor: Weight Ratio of X) within a 2km Radius of my current location. Or how many items from my WishList are available from a Vendor within a 2km radius of my current location. Conversely, provide Vendors with the ability to spot potential Customers within a 2km of a given "clicks & mortar" location (e.g. BestBuy store).</li> <li> <strong>Realtime Search: </strong>Rich Structured Profiles that leverage standards such as <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Friend_of_a_friend" id="link-id140ece38">FOAF</a> and <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/bblfish/entry/foaf_ssl_creating_a_global" id="link-id11856318">FOAF+SSL</a> will enable Highly Personalized Realtime Search (HPRS) without compromisng privacy. Tecnically, this is about <a href="http://esw.w3.org/topic/WebID" id="link-id13ec6260">WebID</a>s securely bound to X.509 Certificates, providing access to verifiable and highly navigable Personal Profile <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">Data</a> Spaces that also double as personal search index entry points.</li> <li> <strong>Chrome OS: </strong>Just another operating system for exploiting the burgeoning Web of Linked Data</li> <li> <strong>HTML5: </strong>Courtesy of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/RDFa" id="link-id115b08f0">RDFa</a>, just another mechanism for exposing Linked Data by making HTML+RDFa a bona fide markup for <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Metadata" id="link-id1195b070">metadata</a> (i.e., format for describing real world objects via their attribute-value graphs)</li> <li> <strong>Mobile Video:</strong> Simplifies the production and sharing of Video annotations (comments, reviews etc.) en route to creating rich Linked Discourse Data Spaces.</li> <li> <strong>Augmented Reality:</strong> Ditto</li> <li> <strong>Mobile Transactions:</strong> As per points 1&2 above, Vendor Discovery and Transaction Conusmation will increasingly be driven by high SDQ applications. The "Funnel Effect" (more choices based on individual preferences) will be a critical success factor for any one operating in the Mobile Transaction realm. Note, without Linked Data you cannot deliver scalable solutions that handle the combined requirements of: SDQ, "Funnel Effect", and Mobile Device form factor, will simply maginify the importance of Web accessible Linked Data.</li> <li> <strong>Android:</strong> An additional platform for items 1-8; basically, 2010 isn't going to be an iPhone only zone. Personally, this reminds <a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/person/kidehen#this" id="link-id111ab5e8">me</a> of a battle from the past i.e., Microsoft vs Apple, re. desktop computing dominance. Google has studied history very well :-)</li> <li> <strong>Social CRM:</strong> this is simply about applying points 1-9 alongide the construction of Linked Data from eCRM Data Spaces.</li> </ol> <p>As I've stated in the past (across a variety of mediums), you cannot build applications that have long term value without addressing the following issues:</p> <ol> <li>Data Item or Object Identity</li> <li>Data Structure -- Data Models</li> <li>Data Representation -- Data Model <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id1148eaf8">Entity</a> & Relationships Representation mechanism (as delivered by metadata oriented markup)</li> <li>Data Storage -- Database Management Systems</li> <li>Data Access -- Data Access Protocols </li> <li>Data Presentation -- How you present Views and Reports from Structured Data Sources</li> <li>Data Security -- Data Access Policies</li> </ol> <p>The items above basically showcase the very essence of the HTTP <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-id1239af68">URI</a> abstraction that drives HTTP based Linked Data; which is also the basic payload unit that underlies <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Representational_State_Transfer" id="link-id11489a98">REST</a>.</p> <h3>Conclusion</h3> <p>I simply hope that the next decade marks a period of broad appreciation and comprehension of Data Access, Integration, and Management issues on the parts of: application developers, integrators, analysts, end-users, and decision makers. Remember, without structured Data we cannot produce or share <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information" id="link-id13cb5040">Information</a>, and without Information, we cannot produce of share <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Knowledge" id="link-id647abb0">Knowledge</a>.</p> <h3>Related</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1567" id="link-id13fa3a20">HTTP URI Abstraction and Linked Data</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.dataflux.com/dfblog/?p=1458," id="link-id138f3ea8">First Law of Data Quality</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://walkingoncoals.blogspot.com/2009/12/whos-data-is-it-part-1.html" id="link-id13efccb8">Who's Data Is It?</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1442" id="link-id1355df68">Serendipitous Discovery Quotient</a> (SDQ)</li> <li> <a href="http://www.seangolliher.com/2009/linked-data/serendipitous-discovery-quotient-sdq-the-future-of-seo-or-an-abstract-concept/" id="link-id11217cb8">SDQ: The Future of SEO or an Abstract Concept?</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/oerling/weblog/Orri%20Erling%27s%20Blog/1587" id="link-id139cfbe0">SPARQL & GeoSpatial Indexing</a> (implications of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id13f51b78">SPARQL</a>-GEO)</li> <li> <a href="http://blog.jonudell.net/2009/09/09/talking-with-kingsley-idehen-about-mastering-your-own-search-index/" id="link-id13c5c248">Mastering Your Own Search Index</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://blog.jonudell.net/2009/11/23/talking-with-martin-hepp-about-solving-the-paradox-of-choice/" id="link-id135ba4d0">Solving the Paradox of Choice</a>.</li> </ul>
One Technology That Will Rock 2010 (Update 1)
2010-02-01T14:02:41Z
2010-02-01T09:02:41-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1595
<p> One of the real problems that pervades all routes to <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id13539328">Linked Data</a> value prop. incomprehension stems from the layering of its value pyramid; especially when communicating with -initially detached- end-users. </p> <p> <strong>Note to <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web" id="link-id0x1c85f498">Web</a> Programmers:</strong> Linked Data is about <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data" id="link-id0x1c85f650">Data</a> (Wine) and not about Code (Fish). Thus, it isn't a "programmer only zone", far from it. More than anything else, its inherently inclusive and spreads its participation net widely across: Data Architects, Data Integrators, Power Users, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Knowledge" id="link-id13600d98">Knowledge</a> Workers, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information" id="link-id149f8230">Information</a> Workers, Data Analysts, etc.. Basically, everyone that can "click on a link" is invited to this particular party; remember, it is about "Linked Data" not "Linked Code", after all. :-) </p> <h3>Problematic Value Pyramid Layering</h3> <p> Here is an example of a Linked Data value pyramid that I am stumbling across --with some frequency-- these days (note: 1 being the pyramid apex):</p> <ol> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id10e85538">SPARQL</a> Queries</li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Resource_Description_Framework" id="link-id1495b578">RDF</a> Data Stores</li> <li> RDF Data Sets </li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Hypertext_Transfer_Protocol" id="link-id158e4be0">HTTP</a> scheme URIs</li> </ol> <p> Basically, Linked Data deployment (assigning de-referencable HTTP URIs to DBMS records, their attributes, and attribute values [optionally] ) is occurring last. Even worse, this happens in the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Context_%28language_use%29" id="link-id626d988">context</a> of Linked Open Data oriented endeavors, resulting in nothing but confusion or inadvertent perpetuation of the overarching pragmatically challenged "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id111774b8">Semantic Web</a>" stereotype. </p> <p> As you can imagine, hitting SPARQL as your introduction to Linked Data is akin to hitting <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SQL" id="link-id151f9938">SQL</a> as your introduction to Relational Database Technology, neither is an elevator-style value prop. relay mechanism. </p> <p> In the relational realm, killer demos always started with desktop productivity tools (spreadsheets, report-writers, SQL QBE tools etc.) accessing, relational data sources en route to unveiling the "Productivity" and "Agility" value prop. that such binding delivered i.e., the desktop application (clients) and the databases (servers) are distinct, but operating in a mutually beneficial manner to all, courtesy of a data access standards such as <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Open_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id1519aac0">ODBC</a> (Open Database Connectivity). </p> <p> In the Linked Data realm, learning to embrace and extend best practices from the relational dbms realm remains a challenge, a lot of this has to do with hangovers from a misguided perception that RDF databases will somehow completely replace <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Relational_database_management_system" id="link-id110dec88">RDBMS</a> engines, rather than compliment them. Thus, you have a counter productive variant of NIH (Not Invented Here) in play, taking us to the dreaded realm of: Break the Pot and You Own It (exemplified by the 11+ year Semantic Web Project comprehension and appreciation odyssey). </p> <p> From my vantage point, here is how I believe the <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/presentations/Creating_Deploying_Exploiting_Linked_Data2/images/URI_Data_Source_SemWeb.png" id="link-id1592f528">Linked Data value pyramid should be layered</a>, especially when communicating the essential value prop.: </p> <ol> <li> HTTP URLs -- LINKs to documents (Reports) that users already appreciate, across the public Web and/or Intranets </li> <li> HTTP URIs -- typically not visually distinguishable from the URLs, so use the Data exposed by de-referencing a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Locator" id="link-id11209ce8">URL</a> to show how each Data Item (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id1449b558">Entity</a> or Object) is uniquely identified by a Generic HTTP <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-id112065f8">URI</a>, and how clicking on the said URIs leads to more structured metadata bearing documents available in a variety of data representation formats, thereby enabling flexible data presentation (e.g., smarter HTML pages) </li> <li> SPARQL -- when a user appreciates the data representation and presentation dexterity of a Generic HTTP URI, they will be more inclined to drill down an additional layer to unravel how HTTP URIs mechanically deliver such flexibility </li> <li> RDF Data Stores -- at this stage the user is now interested data sources behind the Generic HTTP URIs, courtesy of natural desire to tweak the data presented in the report; thus, you now have an engaged user ready to absorb the "How Generic HTTP URIs Pull This Off" message </li> <li>RDF Data Sets -- while attempting to make or tweak HTTP URIs, users become curious about the actual data loaded into the RDF Data Store, which is where data sets used to create powerful Lookup Data Spaces (e.g., <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/DBpedia" id="link-id110675c0">DBpedia</a>) come into play such as those from the <a href="http://www4.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/bizer/pub/lod-datasets_2009-07-14.html" id="link-id11127ff8">LOD</a> constellation as exemplified by <a href="http://wiki.dbpedia.org/Datasets" id="link-id14a2fad8">DBpedia (extractions from Wikipedia)</a>.</li> </ol> <h3>Related</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1565" id="link-id149c7048">Exploring the Linked Data Value Proposition</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1543" id="link-id14998f98">Simple Explanation of Linked Data & RDF Dynamics</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1546" id="link-id114fbd58">What is the Linked Data Meme About?</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1547" id="link-id1447ada0">Linked Data & Data Item Identifiers (Identity)</a> </li> </ul>
Getting The Linked Data Value Pyramid Layers Right (Update #2)
2010-01-31T22:47:04Z
2010-01-31T17:47:04-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1594
<p>The recent <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:DBpedia" id="link-id1120a260">Wikipedia imbroglio</a> centered around <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/DBpedia" id="link-id14a5e588">DBpedia</a> is the fundamental driver for this particular <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Blog" id="link-id113ddc10">blog</a> post. At time of writing this blog post, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DBpedia" id="link-id158edec0">DBpedia project definition in Wikipedia</a> remains unsatisfactory due to the following shortcomings:</p> <ol> <li>inaccurate and incomplete definition of the Project's What, Why, Who, Where, When, and How</li> <li>inaccurate reflection of project essence, by skewing focus towards <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data" id="link-id0x1bc892d0">data</a> extraction and data set dump production, which is at best a quarter of the project.</li> </ol> <p>Here are some insights on DBpedia, from the perspective of someone intimately involved with the other three-quarters of the project.</p> <h3>What is DBpedia?</h3> <p>A live <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web" id="link-id0x1c0c0cc0">Web</a> accessible RDF model database (Quad Store) derived from Wikipedia content snapshots, taken periodically. The RDF database underlies a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id11ba0ad0">Linked Data</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Spaces" id="link-id1183c978">Space</a> comprised of: HTML (and most recently HTML+<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/RDFa" id="link-id602eab8">RDFa</a>) based data browser pages and a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id11af5400">SPARQL</a> endpoint.</p> <p>Note: <a href="http://blog.dbpedia.org/2009/11/11/dbpedia-34-released/" id="link-id110b8248">DBpedia 3.4</a> now exists in snapshot (warehouse) and <a href="http://dbpedia-live.openlinksw.com/stats/" id="link-id6473258">Live Editions</a> (currently being hot-staged). This post is about the snapshot (warehouse) edition, I'll drop a different post about the DBpedia Live Edition where a new Delta-Engine covers both extraction and database record replacement, in realtime.</p> <h3>When was it Created?</h3> <p>As an idea under the moniker "DBpedia" it was conceptualized in late 2006 by researchers at University of Leipzig (lead by Soren Auer) and Freie University, Berlin (lead by <a href="http://www.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/en/institute/pwo/bizer/" id="link-id14982c78">Chris Bizer</a>). The first public instance of DBpedia (as described above) was released in February 2007. The official DBpedia coming out party occurred at <a href="http://www2007.org/" id="link-id1497c788">WWW2007</a>, Banff, during the <a href="http://esw.w3.org/topic/SweoIG/TaskForces/CommunityProjects/LinkingOpenData/BanffGathering" id="link-id1448b9e8">inaugural Linked Data gathering</a>, where it showcased the virtues and immense potential of <a href="http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/card#i" id="link-id152257e0">TimBL</a>'s <a href="http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html" id="link-id111759a8">Linked Data meme</a>.</p> <h3>Who's Behind It?</h3> <p> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/organization/openlink#this" id="link-id110e70f8">OpenLink Software</a> (developers of OpenLink <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com" id="link-id14462f60">Virtuoso</a> and providers of Web Hosting infrastructure), University of Leipzig, and Freie Univerity, Berlin. In addition, there is a burgeoning community of collaborators and contributors responsible DBpedia based applications, cross-linked data sets, ontologies (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Cyc" id="link-id11244aa0">OpenCyc</a>, <a href="http://www.ontologyportal.org/" id="link-id110e4a40">SUMO</a>, <a href="http://umbel.org/about/" id="link-id11109e48">UMBEL</a>, and <a href="http://www.mpi-inf.mpg.de/yago-naga/yago/" id="link-id10fb4218">YAGO</a>) and other utilities. Finally, DBpedia wouldn't be possible without the global content contribution and curation efforts of Wikipedians, a point typically overlooked (albeit inadvertently).</p> <h3>How is it Constructed?</h3> <p>The steps are as follows:</p> <ol> <li> RDF data set dump preparation via Wikipedia content extraction and transformation to RDF model data, using the N3 data representation format - Java and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/PHP" id="link-id111c93b8">PHP</a> extraction code produced and maintained by the teams at Leipzig and Berlin </li> <li> Deployment of Linked Data that enables Data browsing and exploration using any HTTP aware user agent (e.g. basic Web Browsers) - handled by OpenLink Virtuoso (handled by Berlin via the Pubby Linked Data Server during the early months of the DBpedia project) </li> <li> SPARQL compliant Quad Store, enabling direct access to database records via SPARQL (Query language, REST or SOAP Web Service, plus a variety of query results serialization formats) - OpenLink Virtuoso since first public release of DBpedia </li> </ol> <p> In a nutshell, there are four distinct and vital components to DBpedia. Thus, DBpedia doesn't exist if all the project offered was a collection of RDF data dumps. Likewise, it doesn't exist if you have a SPARQL compliant Quad Store without loaded data sets, and of course it doesn't exist if you have a fully loaded SPARQL compliant Quad Store is up to the cocktail of challenges presented by live Web accessibility.</p> <h3>Why is it Important?</h3> <p> It remains a live exemplar for any individual or organization seeking to publishing or exploit HTTP based Linked Data on the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web" id="link-id118e6388">World Wide Web</a>. Its existence continues to stimulate growth in both density and quality of the burgeoning Web of Linked Data.</p> <h3>How Do I Use it?</h3> <p> In the most basic sense, simply browse the HTML pages en route to discovery erstwhile relationships that exist across <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Named_entity_recognition" id="link-id112def88">named entities</a> and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Topic" id="link-id1591c5f8">subject matter concepts</a> / headings. Beyond that, simply look at DBpedia as a master lookup table in a Web hosted <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/federated_database_system" id="link-id11762618">distributed database</a> setup; enabling you to mesh your local domain specific details with DBpedia records via structured relations (triples or 3-tuples records) comprised of HTTP URIs from both realms e.g., owl:sameAs relations.</p> <h3>What Can I Use it For?</h3> <p> Expanding on the Master-Details point above, you can use its rich <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-id1170c000">URI</a> corpus to alleviate tedium associated with activities such as: </p> <ol> <li>List maintenance - e.g., Countries, States, Companies, Units of Measurement, Subject Headings etc.</li> <li>Tagging - as a compliment to existing practices</li> <li>Analytical Research - you're only a LINK (URI) away from erstwhile difficult to attain research data spread across a broad range of topics</li> <li>Closed Vocabulary Construction - rather than commence the futile quest of building your own closed vocabulary, simply leverage Wikipedia's human curated vocabulary as our common base. </li> </ol> <h3>Related</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VirtAWSDBpedia34S" id="link-id14a2e698">Pre-loaded and Pre-configured instances of DBpedia 3.4</a> - via publicly shared <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/ebs/" id="link-id1147fcf0">Amazon Elastic Block Storage</a> Snapshots</li> <li> <a href="http://docs.openlinksw.com/virtuoso/rdfperformancetuning.html#rdfperfgeneraldbpedia" id="link-id149ab528">Virtuoso & DBpedia Tunning Guide</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://dowhatimean.net/2009/11/whats-in-a-name-and-the-linked-data-police" id="link-id110cba10">What's In a Name & The Linked Data Police</a>. </li> </ul>
What is the DBpedia Project? (Updated)
2010-01-31T22:46:10Z
2010-01-31T17:46:10.000002-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1593
<p> One of the real problems that pervades all routes to <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id13539328">Linked Data</a> value prop. incomprehension stems from the layering of its value pyramid; especially when communicating with -initially detached- end-users. </p> <p> <strong>Note to <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a> Programmers:</strong> Linked Data is about <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">Data</a> (Wine) and not about Code (Fish). Thus, it isn't a "programmer only zone", far from it. More than anything else, its inherently inclusive and spreads its participation net widely across: Data Architects, Data Integrators, Power Users, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Knowledge" id="link-id13600d98">Knowledge</a> Workers, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information" id="link-id149f8230">Information</a> Workers, Data Analysts, etc.. Basically, everyone that can "click on a link" is invited to this particular party; remember, it is about "Linked Data" not "Linked Code", after all. :-) </p> <h3>Problematic Value Pyramid Layering</h3> <p> Here is an example of a Linked Data value pyramid that I am stumbling across --with some frequency-- these days (note: 1 being the pyramid apex):</p> <ol> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id10e85538">SPARQL</a> Queries</li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Resource_Description_Framework" id="link-id1495b578">RDF</a> Data Stores</li> <li> RDF Data Sets </li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Hypertext_Transfer_Protocol" id="link-id158e4be0">HTTP</a> scheme URIs</li> </ol> <p> Basically, Linked Data deployment (assigning de-referencable HTTP URIs to DBMS records, their attributes, and attribute values [optionally] ) is occurring last. Even worse, this happens in the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Context_%28language_use%29" id="link-id626d988">context</a> of Linked Open Data oriented endeavors, resulting in nothing but confusion or inadvertent perpetuation of the overarching pragmatically challenged "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id111774b8">Semantic Web</a>" stereotype. </p> <p> As you can imagine, hitting SPARQL as your introduction to Linked Data is akin to hitting <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SQL" id="link-id151f9938">SQL</a> as your introduction to Relational Database Technology, neither is an elevator-style value prop. relay mechanism. </p> <p> In the relational realm, killer demos always started with desktop productivity tools (spreadsheets, report-writers, SQL QBE tools etc.) accessing, relational data sources en route to unveiling the "Productivity" and "Agility" value prop. that such binding delivered i.e., the desktop application (clients) and the databases (servers) are distinct, but operating in a mutually beneficial manner to all, courtesy of a data access standards such as <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Open_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id1519aac0">ODBC</a> (Open Database Connectivity). </p> <p> In the Linked Data realm, learning to embrace and extend best practices from the relational dbms realm remains a challenge, a lot of this has to do with hangovers from a misguided perception that RDF databases will somehow completely replace <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Relational_database_management_system" id="link-id110dec88">RDBMS</a> engines, rather than compliment them. Thus, you have a counter productive variant of NIH (Not Invented Here) in play, taking us to the dreaded realm of: Break the Pot and You Own It (exemplified by the 11+ year Semantic Web Project comprehension and appreciation odyssey). </p> <p> From my vantage point, here is how I believe the <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/presentations/Creating_Deploying_Exploiting_Linked_Data2/images/URI_Data_Source_SemWeb.png" id="link-id1592f528">Linked Data value pyramid should be layered</a>, especially when communicating the essential value prop.: </p> <ol> <li> HTTP URLs -- LINKs to documents (Reports) that users already appreciate, across the public Web and/or Intranets </li> <li> HTTP URIs -- typically not visually distinguishable from the URLs, so use the Data exposed by de-referencing a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Locator" id="link-id11209ce8">URL</a> to show how each Data Item (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id1449b558">Entity</a> or Object) is uniquely identified by a Generic HTTP <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-id112065f8">URI</a>, and how clicking on the said URIs leads to more structured metadata bearing documents available in a variety of data representation formats, thereby enabling flexible data presentation (e.g., smarter HTML pages) </li> <li> SPARQL -- when a user appreciates the data representation and presentation dexterity of a Generic HTTP URI, they will be more inclined to drill down an additional layer to unravel how HTTP URIs mechanically deliver such flexibility </li> <li> RDF Data Stores -- at this stage the user is now interested data sources behind the Generic HTTP URIs, courtesy of natural desire to tweak the data presented in the report; thus, you now have an engaged user ready to absorb the "How Generic HTTP URIs Pull This Off" message </li> <li>RDF Data Sets -- while attempting to make or tweak HTTP URIs, users become curious about the actual data loaded into the RDF Data Store, which is where data sets used to create powerful Lookup Data Spaces (e.g., <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/DBpedia" id="link-id110675c0">DBpedia</a>) come into play such as those from the <a href="http://www4.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/bizer/pub/lod-datasets_2009-07-14.html" id="link-id11127ff8">LOD</a> constellation as exemplified by <a href="http://wiki.dbpedia.org/Datasets" id="link-id14a2fad8">DBpedia (extractions from Wikipedia)</a>.</li> </ol> <h3>Related</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1565" id="link-id149c7048">Exploring the Linked Data Value Proposition</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1543" id="link-id14998f98">Simple Explanation of Linked Data & RDF Dynamics</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1546" id="link-id114fbd58">What is the Linked Data Meme About?</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1547" id="link-id1447ada0">Linked Data & Data Item Identifiers (Identity)</a> </li> </ul>
Getting The Linked Data Value Pyramid Layers Right (Update #2)
2010-02-01T14:02:14Z
2010-02-01T09:02:14.000004-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1592
<p> The recent <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:DBpedia" id="link-id1120a260">Wikipedia imbroglio</a> centered around <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/DBpedia" id="link-id14a5e588">DBpedia</a> is the fundamental driver for this particular <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Blog" id="link-id113ddc10">blog</a> post. At time of writing this blog post, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DBpedia" id="link-id158edec0">DBpedia project definition in Wikipedia</a> remains unsatisfactory due to the following shortcomings:</p> <ol> <li> inaccurate and incomplete definition of the Project's What, Why, Who, Where, When, and How</li> <li> inaccurate reflection of project essence, by skewing focus towards <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">data</a> extraction and data set dump production, which is at best a quarter of the project.</li> </ol> <p> Here are some insights on DBpedia, from the perspective of someone intimately involved with the other three-quarters of the project.</p> <h3> What is DBpedia?</h3> <p> A live <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a> accessible RDF model database (Quad Store) derived from Wikipedia content snapshots, taken periodically. The RDF database underlies a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id11ba0ad0">Linked Data</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Spaces" id="link-id1183c978">Space</a> comprised of: HTML (and most recently HTML+<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/RDFa" id="link-id602eab8">RDFa</a>) based data browser pages and a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id11af5400">SPARQL</a> endpoint.</p> <p> Note: <a href="http://blog.dbpedia.org/2009/11/11/dbpedia-34-released/" id="link-id110b8248">DBpedia 3.4</a> now exists in snapshot (warehouse) and <a href="http://dbpedia-live.openlinksw.com/stats/" id="link-id6473258">Live Editions</a> (currently being hot-staged). This post is about the snapshot (warehouse) edition, I'll drop a different post about the DBpedia Live Edition where a new Delta-Engine covers both extraction and database record replacement, in realtime.</p> <h3> When was it Created?</h3> <p> As an idea under the moniker "DBpedia" it was conceptualized in late 2006 by researchers at University of Leipzig (lead by Soren Auer) and Freie University, Berlin (lead by <a href="http://www.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/en/institute/pwo/bizer/" id="link-id14982c78">Chris Bizer</a>). The first public instance of DBpedia (as described above) was released in February 2007. The official DBpedia coming out party occurred at <a href="http://www2007.org/" id="link-id1497c788">WWW2007</a>, Banff, during the <a href="http://esw.w3.org/topic/SweoIG/TaskForces/CommunityProjects/LinkingOpenData/BanffGathering" id="link-id1448b9e8">inaugural Linked Data gathering</a>, where it showcased the virtues and immense potential of <a href="http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/card#i" id="link-id152257e0">TimBL</a>'s <a href="http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html" id="link-id111759a8">Linked Data meme</a>.</p> <h3> Who's Behind It?</h3> <p> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/organization/openlink#this" id="link-id110e70f8">OpenLink Software</a> (developers of OpenLink <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com" id="link-id14462f60">Virtuoso</a> and providers of Web Hosting infrastructure), University of Leipzig, and Freie Univerity, Berlin. In addition, there is a burgeoning community of collaborators and contributors responsible DBpedia based applications, cross-linked data sets, ontologies (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Cyc" id="link-id11244aa0">OpenCyc</a>, <a href="http://www.ontologyportal.org/" id="link-id110e4a40">SUMO</a>, <a href="http://umbel.org/about/" id="link-id11109e48">UMBEL</a>, and <a href="http://www.mpi-inf.mpg.de/yago-naga/yago/" id="link-id10fb4218">YAGO</a>) and other utilities. Finally, DBpedia wouldn't be possible without the global content contribution and curation efforts of Wikipedians, a point typically overlooked (albeit inadvertently).</p> <h3> How is it Constructed?</h3> <p> The steps are as follows:</p> <ol> <li> RDF data set dump preparation via Wikipedia content extraction and transformation to RDF model data, using the N3 data representation format - Java and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/PHP" id="link-id111c93b8">PHP</a> extraction code produced and maintained by the teams at Leipzig and Berlin</li> <li> Deployment of Linked Data that enables Data browsing and exploration using any HTTP aware user agent (e.g. basic Web Browsers) - handled by OpenLink Virtuoso (handled by Berlin via the Pubby Linked Data Server during the early months of the DBpedia project)</li> <li> SPARQL compliant Quad Store, enabling direct access to database records via SPARQL (Query language, REST or SOAP Web Service, plus a variety of query results serialization formats) - OpenLink Virtuoso since first public release of DBpedia</li> </ol> <p> In a nutshell, there are four distinct and vital components to DBpedia. Thus, DBpedia doesn't exist if all the project offered was a collection of RDF data dumps. Likewise, it doesn't exist without a fully populated SPARQL compliant Quad Store. Last but not least, it doesn't exist if you have a fully loaded SPARQL compliant Quad Store isn't up to the cocktail of challenges (query load and complexity) presented by live Web database accessibility.</p> <h3> Why is it Important?</h3> <p> It remains a live exemplar for any individual or organization seeking to publishing or exploit HTTP based Linked Data on the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web" id="link-id118e6388">World Wide Web</a>. Its existence continues to stimulate growth in both density and quality of the burgeoning Web of Linked Data.</p> <h3> How Do I Use it?</h3> <p> In the most basic sense, simply browse the HTML based resource decriptor pages en route to discovering erstwhile undiscovered relationships that exist across <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Named_entity_recognition" id="link-id112def88">named entities</a> and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Topic" id="link-id1591c5f8">subject matter concepts</a> / headings. Beyond that, simply look at DBpedia as a master lookup table in a Web hosted <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/federated_database_system" id="link-id11762618">distributed database</a> setup; enabling you to mesh your local domain specific details with DBpedia records via structured relations (triples or 3-tuples records), comprised of HTTP URIs from both realms e.g., via owl:sameAs relations.</p> <h3> What Can I Use it For?</h3> <p> Expanding on the Master-Details point above, you can use its rich <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-id1170c000">URI</a> corpus to alleviate tedium associated with activities such as:</p> <ol> <li> List maintenance - e.g., Countries, States, Companies, Units of Measurement, Subject Headings etc.</li> <li> Tagging - as a compliment to existing practices</li> <li> Analytical Research - you're only a LINK (URI) away from erstwhile difficult to attain research data spread across a broad range of topics</li> <li> Closed Vocabulary Construction - rather than commence the futile quest of building your own closed vocabulary, simply leverage Wikipedia's human curated vocabulary as our common base.</li> </ol> <h3> Related</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VirtAWSDBpedia34S" id="link-id14a2e698">Pre-loaded and Pre-configured instances of DBpedia 3.4</a> - via publicly shared <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/ebs/" id="link-id1147fcf0">Amazon Elastic Block Storage</a> Snapshots</li> <li> <a href="http://docs.openlinksw.com/virtuoso/rdfperformancetuning.html#rdfperfgeneraldbpedia" id="link-id149ab528">Virtuoso & DBpedia Tunning Guide</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://dowhatimean.net/2009/11/whats-in-a-name-and-the-linked-data-police" id="link-id110cba10">What's In a Name & The Linked Data Police</a>.</li> </ul>
What is the DBpedia Project? (Updated)
2010-09-15T22:10:51Z
2010-09-15T18:10:51.000002-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1591
<ol> <li> It isn't <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web" id="link-id115dfd68">World Wide Web</a> Specific (HTTP != World Wide Web)</li> <li> It isn't Open <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">Data</a> Specific </li> <li> It isn't about "Free" (Beer or Speech) </li> <li> It isn't about Markup (so don't expect to grok it via "markup first" approach) </li> <li>It's about <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id13a6aa98">Hyperdata</a> - the use of HTTP and REST to deliver a powerful platform agnostic mechanism for Data Reference, Access, and Integration.</li> </ol> <p> When trying to understand HTTP based <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id18aa1490">Linked Data</a>, especially if you're well versed in DBMS technology use (User, Power User, Architect, Analyst, DBA, or Programmer) think: <br /> </p> <ul> <li> Open Database Connectivity (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Open_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id1428fba0">ODBC</a>) without operating system, data model, or wire-protocol specificity or lock-in potential </li> <li> Java Database Connectivity (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Java_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id18d3c2a8">JDBC</a>) without programming language specificity </li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/ADO.NET" id="link-id125725b8">ADO</a>.NET without .NET runtime specificity and .NET bound language specificity </li> <li> OLE-DB without Windows operating system & programming language specificity </li> <li> XMLA without XML format specificity - with Tabular and Multidimensional results formats expressible in a variety of data representation formats. </li> <li>All of the above scoped to the Record rather than Container level, with Generic HTTP scheme URIs associated with each Record, Field, and Field value (optionally) </li> </ul> <p>Remember the need for Data Access & Integration technology is the by product of the following realities:</p> <ol> <li> Human curated data is ultimately dirty, because: <ul> <li>our thick thumbs, inattention, distractions, and general discomfort with typing, make typos prevalent</li> <li>database engines exist for a variety of data models - Graph, Relational, Hierarchical;</li> <li>within databases you have different record container/partition names e.g. Table Names;</li> <li>within a database record container you have records that are really aspects of the same thing (different keys exist in a plethora of operational / line of business systems that expose aspects of the same <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id13378338">entity</a> e.g., customer data that spans Accounts, CRM, ERP application databases);</li> <li>different field names (one database has "EMP" while another has "Employee") for the same record</li>.</ul> </li> <li>Units of measurement is driven by locale, the UK office wants to see sales in Pounds Sterling while the French office prefers Euros etc.</li> <li>All of the above is subject to <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Context_%28language_use%29" id="link-id17e46398">context</a> halos which can be quite granular re. sensitivity e.g. staff travel between locations that alter locales and their roles; basically, profiles matters a lot.</li> </ol> <h3>Related</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1364" id="link-id128f0fe8">ODBC and WODBC (Web Open Database Connectivity) Comparison</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1364" id="link-id1367cd18">Creating, Deploying, and Exploiting Linked Data Presentation</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.odata.org/" id="link-id122ab708">Open Data Protocol Project</a> </li> </ul>
5 Very Important Things to Note about HTTP based Linked Data
2010-02-01T14:00:56Z
2010-02-01T09:00:56-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1584
<p> Personally, I believe that we've actually reached a watershed moment re. the evolution of the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a> from a mesh of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id123169a8">Linked Data</a> Containers (Web of Linked Documents) to a mesh of Linked Data Items (entities or real world objects).</p> <p> The journey towards this watershed moment started with the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id14f69f48">Semantic Web</a> Project, gained focus and pragmatism via the <a href="http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html" id="link-id11155f78">Linked Data meme</a>, attained substance & credibility via efforts such as <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/DBpedia" id="link-id15857c78">DBpedia</a> and the resulting cloud of <a href="http://www4.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/bizer/pub/lod-datasets_2009-07-14.html" id="link-id16adf918">Open Linked Data Spaces</a>, and finally arrived at the most important destination of all: broad comprehension and coherence, via <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/RDFa" id="link-id1229b960">RDFa</a>. </p> <p> Over the years, I've chronicled the journey above via entries in this particular <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Spaces" id="link-id14f76338">data space</a> (my <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Blog" id="link-idfd32c88">blog</a>) and most recently, via my rapid-fire comments and debates on <a href="http://twitter.com" id="link-id11339e80">Twitter</a> (basically hastag #linkeddata account: <a href="http://twitter.com/kidehen#this" id="link-id115e9af8">kidehen</a>). </p> <p> On a parallel front re. my chronicles, I've periodically had conversations with <a href="http://blog.jonudell.net/about/" id="link-id11829170">Jon Udell</a>, who has always provided a coherent sounding board and reconciliation framework for my world views and open data access vision; naturally, this has a lot to do with his holistic grasp of the big picture issues, associated technical details, and special communication prowess :-) </p> <p> Against this backdrop, I refer you to my <a href="http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail4233.html" id="link-id14ac9c08">most recent podcast conversation with Jon</a>, which is about how the tandem of HTML+RDFa and the <a href="http://www.heppnetz.de/projects/goodrelations/" id="link-id14279be8">GoodRelations vocabulary</a> deliver the critical missing links re. broad comprehension of the Semantic Web vision en route to mass exploitation. </p> <h3>Related</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="http://webbackplane.com/node/57" id="link-id113b5b00">Mark Birbeck Introduces RDFa</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://webbackplane.com/rdfa-handbook" id="link-id11b36ac0">RDFa Handbook</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.ebusiness-unibw.org/wiki/GoodRelations#CookBook:_GoodRelations_Recipes_and_Examples" id="link-id1519f458">GoodRelations Usage Examples & Templates</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://blog.jonudell.net/2009/09/09/talking-with-kingsley-idehen-about-mastering-your-own-search-index/" id="link-id11a62ce0">Be the master of your own search index</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail4312.html" id="link-id115d54f0">Jon Udell Interviews Martin Hepp about GoodRelations, RDFa, and Esoteric Web Search</a> <br /> </li> </ul>
Conversation with Jon Udell: Are We There Yet Re. Web++ ?
2010-02-01T13:58:04Z
2010-02-01T08:58:04.000002-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1567
<h3> Situation Analysis</h3> <p> As the "<a href="http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html" id="link-id12f96a00">Linked Data" meme</a> has gained momentum you've more than likely been on the receiving end of dialog with Linked Open <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">Data</a> community members (myself included) that goes something like this:</p> <blockquote> <cite>"Do you have a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-id139252a0">URI</a>", "Get yourself a URI", "Give <a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/person/kidehen#this" id="link-id140eab68">me</a> a de-referencable URI" etc..</cite> </blockquote> <p> And each time, you respond with a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Locator" id="link-id112c1860">URL</a> -- which to the best of your <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Knowledge" id="link-id140b51c0">knowledge</a> is a bona fide URI. But to your utter confusion you are told: Nah! You gave me a Document URI instead of the URI of a real-world thing or object etc..</p> <h3> What's up with that?</h3> <p> Well our everyday use of the Web is an unfortunate conflation of two distinct things, which have Identity: Real World Objects (RWOs) & Address/Location of Documents (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information" id="link-id144838b0">Information</a> bearing Resources).</p> <p> The "Linked Data" meme is about enhancing the Web by unobtrusively reintroducing its core essence: the generic HTTP URI, a vital piece of Web Architecture DNA. Basically, its about so realizing the full capabilities of the Web as a platform for Open Data Identification, Definition, Access, Storage, Representation, Presentation, and Integration.</p> <h3> What is a Real World Object?</h3> <p> People, Places, Music, Books, Cars, Ideas, Emotions etc..</p> <h3> What is a URI?</h3> <p> A Uniform Resource Identifier. A global identifier mechanism for network addressable data items. Its sole function is Name oriented Identification.</p> <h4> URI Generic Syntax</h4> <p> The constituent parts of a URI (from <a href="http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2396.txt" id="link-id1180c700">URI Generic Syntax RFC</a>) are depicted below: <img src="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/images/generic_uri_syntax_image.png" /> </p> <h3> What is a URL?</h3> <p> A location oriented HTTP scheme based URI. The HTTP scheme introduces a powerful and inherent duality that delivers:</p> <ol> <li> Resource Address/Location Identifier</li> <li> Data Access mechanism for an Information bearing Resource (Document, File etc..)</li> </ol> <p> So far so good!</p> <h3> What is an HTTP based URI?</h3> <p> The kind of URI <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id11100a28">Linked Data</a> aficionados mean when they use the term: URI.</p> <p> An HTTP URI is an HTTP scheme based URI. Unlike a URL, this kind of HTTP scheme URI is devoid of any Web Location orientation or specificity. Thus, Its inherent duality provides a more powerful level of abstraction. Hence, you can use this form of URI to assign Names/Identifiers to Real World Objects (RWO). Even better, courtesy of the Identity/Address duality of the HTTP scheme, a single URI can deliver the following:</p> <ol> <li> RWO Identfier/Name</li> <li> RWO Metadata document Locator (courtesy of URL aspect)</li> <li> Negotiable Representation of the Located Document (courtesy of HTTP's content negotiation feature).</li> </ol> <h3> What is Metadata?</h3> <p> Data about Data. Put differently, data that describes other data in a structured manner.</p> <h3> How Do we Model Metadata?</h3> <p> The predominant model for metadata is the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity-attribute-value_model" id="link-id11193d30">Entity</a>-Attribute-Value + Classes & Relationships model (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity-attribute-value_model" id="link-id11725710">EAV</a>/CR). A model that's been with us since the inception of modern computing (long before the Web).</p> <h3> What about RDF?</h3> <p> The Resource Description Framework (RDF) is a framework for describing Web addressable resources. In a nutshell, its a framework for adding Metadata bearing Information Resources to the current Web. Its comprised of:</p> <ol> <li> Entity-Attribute-Value (aka. Subject-Predictate-Object) plus Classes & Relationships (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data_dictionary" id="link-id138df0f8">Data Dictionaries</a> e.g., <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Web_Ontology_Language" id="link-id116bf590">OWL</a>) metadata model</li> <li> A plethora of instance data representation formats that include: <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/RDFa" id="link-id13360b90">RDFa</a> (when doing so within (X)HTML docs), Turtle, N3, TriX, RDF/XML etc.</li> </ol> <h3> What's the Problem Today?</h3> <p> The ubiquitous use of the Web is primarily focused on a Linked Mesh of Information bearing Documents. URLs rather than generic HTTP URIs are the prime mechanism for Web tapestry; basically, we use URLs to conduct Information -- which is inherently subjective -- instead of using HTTP URIs to conduct "Raw Data" -- which is inherently objective.</p> <blockquote> <strong>Note:</strong> Information is "data in <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Context_%28language_use%29" id="link-id1395ca50">context</a>", it isn't the same thing as "Raw Data". Thus, if we can link to Information via the Web, why shouldn't we be able to do the same for "Raw Data"?</blockquote> <h3> How Does the Link Data <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Meme" id="link-id1160ab70">meme</a> solve the problem?</h3> <p> The meme simply provides a set of guidelines (best practices) for producing Web architecture friendly metadata. Meaning: when producing EAV/CR model based metadata, endow Subjects, their Attributes, and Attribute Values (optionally) with HTTP URIs. By doing so, a new level of Link Abstraction on the Web is possible i.e., "Data Item to Data Item" level links (aka <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id137a78a0">hyperdata</a> links). Even better, when you de-reference a RWO hyperdata link you end up with a negotiated representations of its metadata.</p> <h3> Conclusion</h3> <p> Linked Data is ultimately about an HTTP URI for each item in the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data_hierarchy" id="link-id1393c3e0">Data Organization Hierarchy</a> :-)</p> <h3> Related</h3> <ol> <li> <a href="http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2009Aug/0000.html" id="link-id140c1e78">History of how "Resource" became part of URI</a> - historic account by <a href="http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/card#i" id="link-id1172b128">TimBL</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html" id="link-id1338cbd0">Linked Data Design Issues Document</a> - <a href="http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/card#i" id="link-id13536ad8">TimBL</a>'s initial Linked Data Guide</li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1561" id="link-id116c1af8">Linked Data Rules Simplified</a> - My attempt at simplifying the Linked Data Meme without <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id116c3b40">SPARQL</a> & RDF distraction</li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1547" id="link-id135dd1b8">Linked Data & Identity</a> - another related post</li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1565" id="link-id134afc50">The Linked Data Meme's Value Proposition</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1323" id="link-id1251e9248">So What Does "HREF" stand for anyway?</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://delicious.com/kidehen/identifier_scheme" id="link-id14cc7e18">My Del.icio.us hosted Bookmark Data Space for Identity Schemes</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/tim_berners_lee_on_the_next_web.html" id="link-id115a3748">TimBL's Ted Talk re. "Raw Linked Data"</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.infoq.com/articles/roa-rest-of-rest" id="link-id11b25558">Resource Oriented Architecture</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.blipfoto.com/view.php?id=465380&month=2&year=2010" id="link-id139824c8">More Famous Than Simon Cowell</a> .</li> </ol>
The URI, URL, and Linked Data Meme's Generic HTTP URI (Updated)
2010-03-28T16:19:00Z
2010-03-28T12:19:00-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1565
<h3>What is <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id138c9aa8">Linked Data</a>?</h3> <p> The primary topic of a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Meme" id="link-id12f86100">meme</a> penned by <a href="http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/card#i" id="link-id115b4c98">TimBL</a> in the form of a <a href="http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html" id="link-id1333f300">Design Issues Doc</a> (note: this is how TimBL has shared his thoughts since the <a href="http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/" id="link-id1128a1d0">Beginning of the Web</a>). </p> <p> There are a number of dimensions to the meme, but its primary purpose is the reintroduction of the HTTP <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-id13c43cb8">URI</a> -- a vital component of the Web's core architecture. </p> <h3> What's Special about HTTP URIs?</h3> <p> They possess an intrinsic duality that combines persistent and unambiguous <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">Data</a> Identity with platform & representation format independent Data Access. Thus, you can use a string of characters that look like a contemporary Web <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Locator" id="link-id119cd8a0">URL</a> to unambiguously achieve the following: </p> <ol> <li>Identity or Name Anything of Interest</li> <li>Describe Anything of Interest by associating the Description Subject's Identity with a constellation of Attribute and Value pairs (technically: an <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity-attribute-value_model" id="link-id1133e8a8">Entity</a>-Attribute-Value or Subject-Predicate-Object graph)</li> <li>Make the Description of Named Things of Interest discoverable on the Web by implicitly binding the aforementioned to Documents that hold their descriptions (technically: metadata documents or <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information" id="link-id1391da40">information</a> resources)</li> </ol> <h3>What's the basic value proposition of the <a href="http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html" id="link-id113bb690">Linked Data meme</a>?</h3> <p>Enabling more productive use of the Web by users and developers alike. All of which is achieved by tweaking the Web's Hyperlinking feature such that it now includes Hypertext and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id1337a3f0">Hyperdata</a> as link types.</p> <p>Note: Hyperdata Linking is simply what an HTTP URI facilitates.</p> <p>Examples problems solved by injecting Linked Data into the Web:</p> <ol> <li>Federated Identity by enabling Individuals to unambiguously Identify themselves (Profiles++) courtesy of existing <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Internet" id="link-id13926e28">Internet</a> and Web protocols (e.g., <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Friend_of_a_friend" id="link-id13646ec8">FOAF</a>+SSL's WebIDs which combine Personal Identity with X.509 certificates and HTTPs based client side certification)</li> <li>Security and Privacy challenge alleviation by delivering a mechanism for policy based data access that feeds off federated individual identity and social network (graph) traversal</li> <li>Spam Busting via the above</li>. <li> Increasing the Serendipitous Discovery Quotient (SDQ) of Web accessible resources by embedding Rich Metadata into (X)HTML Documents e.g., structured descriptions of your "WishLists" and "OfferLists" via a common set of terms offered by vocabularies such as <a href="http://www.heppnetz.de/projects/goodrelations/" id="link-id1199b4d0">GoodRelations</a> and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SIOC" id="link-id1334cfb0">SIOC</a> </li> <li>Coherent integration of disparate data across the Web and/or within the Enterprise via "Data Meshing" rather than "Data Mashing"</li> <li>Moving beyond imprecise statistically driven "Keyword Search" (e.g. Page Rank) to "Precision Find" driven by typed link based <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id135f6fe8">Entity</a> Rank plus Entity Type and Entity Property filters.</li> </ol> <h3>Conclusion</h3> <p>If all of the above still falls into the technical mumbo-jumbo realm, then simply consider Linked Data as delivering Open Data Access in granular form to Web accessible data -- that goes beyond data containers (documents or files).</p> <p>The value proposition of Linked Data is inextricably linked to the value proposition of the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web" id="link-id1356f5c0">World Wide Web</a>. This is true, because the Linked Data meme is ultimately about an enhancement of the current Web; achieved by reintroducing its architectural essence -- in new <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Context_%28language_use%29" id="link-id11300828">context</a> -- via a new level of link abstraction, courtesy of the Identity and Access duality of HTTP URIs.</p> <p>As a result of Linked Data, you can now have Links on the Web for a Person, Document, Music, Consumer Electronics, Products & Services, Business Opening & Closing Hours, Personal "WishLists" and "OfferList", an Idea, etc.. in addition to links for Properties (Attributes & Values) of the aforementioned. Ultimately, all of these links will be indexed in a myriad of ways providing the substrate for the next major period of Internet & Web driven innovation, within our larger human-ingenuity driven innovation continuum.</p> <h3>Related</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="http://www.ebusiness-unibw.org/wiki/GoodRelations#Recipes_and_Examples" id="link-id11386648">Recipes for Describing Your Business and its Offerings using the GoodRelations Vocabulary / Schema</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://slidesix.com/view/SolvingRealProblemsUsingLinkedData" id="link-id13658ee0">Solving Real Problems with RDF based Linked Data</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=linked%20data&type=text&output=html" id="link-id1175a650">Other Linked Data Posts from this Blog oriented Linked Data Space</a> (goes back a few years!)</li> <li>Various practical <a href="http://delicious.com/kidehen/linked_data_demo" id="link-id13390cf8">Linked Data demo links from my Del.icio.us Bookmark oriented Data Space</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/person/kidehen#this" id="link-id132cda80">My personal WebID</a> which is conduit to a Linked Data mesh covering vast variety of things I've opted to share with others via the Web (best viewed using a Linked Data aware User Agent like ODE).</li> </ul>
Exploring the Value Proposition of Linked Data
2009-07-24T12:20:01Z
2009-07-24T08:20:01-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1564
<p>Based on the prevalence of confusion re. the <a href="http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html" id="link-id135eee50">Linked Data meme</a>, here are a few important points to remember about the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web" id="link-id1118b210">World Wide Web</a>.</p> <ol> <li>Its an HTTP based Network Cluster within the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Internet" id="link-id1332a6e8">Internet</a> (remember: Networks are about meshes of Nodes connected by Links)</li> <li>Its underlying <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">data</a> model is that of a Network (we've had Network Data models for eons. <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity-attribute-value_model" id="link-id13350310">EAV</a>/CR is an example)</li> <li>Links are facilitated via URIs</li> <li>Until recently the granularity of Networking on the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a> was scoped to Data Containers (documents) (due to prevalence of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Locator" id="link-id12f7c078">URL</a> style links</li> <li>The Linked Data meme adds Data Item (Datum) level granularity to World Wide Web networking via HTTP URIs</li> <li>Data Items become Web Reference-able when you Identify/Name them using HTTP based URIs</li> <li>An HTTP <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-id135ffdb8">URI</a> implicitly binds a Web Reference-able Data Item (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id113afb60">Entity</a>, Datum, Data Object, Resource) to its Web Accessible Metadata</li> <li>Web Accessible Metadata resides within Data Containers (documents or <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information" id="link-id11402318">information</a> resources)</li> <li>The representation of a Web Accessible Metadata container is negotiable</li> <li>I am able to write and dispatch this <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Blog" id="link-id0x770cbd0">blog</a> post courtesy of the Web features listed above</li> <li>You are able to explore the many dimensions to data exposed by this blog should you decide to explore the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id0x7acd540">Linked Data</a> mesh exposed by this post's HTTP URI (via its permalink permalink)</li> </ol> <p>The HTTP URI is the secret sauce of the Web that is powerfully and unobtrusively reintroduced via the Linked Data meme (classic back to the future act). This powerful sauce possess a unique power courtesy of its inherent duality i.e., how it uniquely combines Data Item Identity (think keys in traditional DBMS parlance) with Data Access (e.g. access to negotiable representations of associated metadata).</p> <p>As you can see, I've made no mention of RDF or <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id1183bd48">SPARQL</a>, and I can still articulate the inherent value of the "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id132e7058">Linked Data</a>" dimension that the "Linked Data" meme adds to the World Wide Web.</p> <p>As per usual this post is a live demonstration of Linked Data (dog-food style) :-)</p> <h3>Related</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="http://www.semanticsincorporated.com/2009/07/if-linked-data-is-a-brand-it-has-big-problems-to-address.html" id="link-id1171d4e8">Greg Boutin's post about Linked Data Brand Management</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://iandavis.com/blog/2009/07/the-linked-data-brand" id="link-id12db0880">Ian Davis' "Linked Data Brand" post</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://cloudofdata.com/2009/07/does-linked-data-need-rdf/" id="link-id13537230">Paul Miller's "Does Linked Data need RDF" post</a> </li> </ul>
Important Things to Note about the World Wide Web
2009-07-23T14:33:58Z
2009-07-23T10:33:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1546
<p>The act of using URIs to "refer to" (reference) <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a> addressable <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">data</a> objects. It's also the act of using the same <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-id12b41fc0">URI</a> to de-reference the description of a referenced data object; in this case, the representation of the description is negotiated by a Web client and/or Web server. Thus, you can access the description of a data object via data representation formats such as: JSON, XML, (X)HTML, RDF/XML, N3, Turtle, TriX etc. </p> <p> <strong>Note:</strong> In proper Web parlance, a data object is referred to as a resource.</p> <h3>Simple example (using <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/DBpedia" id="link-id0x131005a0">DBpedia</a>)</h3> <p>In the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id0x13299d20">Linked Data</a> realm, If you want to make a reference to the <a href="http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html" id="link-id0x188210a8">Linked Data meme</a> in a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Blog" id="link-id0x158a3fc0">blog</a> post, you are better off using the resource <strong>URI</strong>: http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data, instead of the Web page <strong><a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Locator" id="link-id0x142865b0">URL</a></strong>: http://dbpedia.org/page/Linked_Data, which is the address of a physical document (an <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information" id="link-id0x15884030">information</a> conveying artifact) that at best visually presents the negotiated representation of a resource description.</p> <h3>Why is this valuable?</h3> <p>In the simplest sense, you only have one focal point for referencing (referring to) and de-referencing (retrieving data about) a given Web resource. It protects you from the impact of Web document location changes (amongst many other things).</p> <p>Remember, a single URI is a conduit into a realm where the identity, access, representation, presentation, and storage of a resource (data object) are completely distinct. It's the mechanism for conducting data across network, machine, operating system, dbms engine, application, and service (API) boundaries. Thus, without "linked data meme" prescribed URI referencing and de-referencing, we are simply back to "business as usual" re. the industry at large, where networks, operating systems, dbms engines, applications, and services (APIs) become the basis for "data lock-in" and silo construction.</p> <h3>Going forward</h3> <p>Take a second to think about the profound virtues of the ubiquitous Web of Linked Document URLs that we have today, and then apply that thinking to the burgeoning Web of Linked Data URIs, that has just turned corner and heading in everyone's direction at full blast.</p> <p> <strong>Note to "Social Media" players:</strong> Who you know isn't the canonical object of sociality. What you are i.e., your description and the data objects it exposes, are real objects of your sociality :-)</p> <h3>Related</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=%22Linked%20Data%22&type=text&output=html" id="link-id14d44430">Other post in this Blog Data Space associated with "Linked Data"</a>. </li> </ul>
What is the Linked Data Meme about?
2009-04-29T20:31:10Z
2009-04-29T16:31:10-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1543
<h3>What is RDF?</h3> <p>The acronym stands for: Resource Description Framework. And that's just what it is.</p> <p>RDF is comprised of a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">Data</a> Model (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity-attribute-value_model" id="link-id11bb5cd8">EAV</a>/CR Graph) and Data Representation Formats such as: N3, Turtle, RDF/XML etc.</p> <p>RDF's essence is about: "Entities" and "Attributes" being <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-id14362100">URI</a> based, while "Values" may be URI or Literals (typed or untyped) based. </p> <p>URIs are <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id139066e8">Entity</a> Identifiers.</p> <h3>What is <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id11ed5340">Linked Data</a>?</h3> <p>Short for "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a> of Linked Data" or "Linked Data <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Giant_Global_Graph" id="link-id13f4b878">Web</a>".</p> <p>A term coined by <a href="http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/card#i" id="link-id117b4310">TimBL</a> that describes an HTTP based "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Reference_(computer_science)" id="link-id138fed30">data access by reference</a> pattern" that uses a single pointer or handle for "referring to" and "obtaining actual data about" an entity.</p> <p>Linked Data uses the deceptively simple messaging scheme of HTTP to deliver a granular entity reference and access mechanism that transcends traditional computing boundaries such as: operating system, application, database engines, and networks.</p> <h3>How are Linked Data & RDF Related?</h3> <p>Linked Data simply mandates the following re. RDF:</p> <ul> <li>URIs should be HTTP based so that you can "refer to" (Reference) an Entity, its Attributes, or URI based Attribute values via the Web (infact any HTTP based network e.g., Intranets and Extranets)</li> <li> URIs should also be HTTP based so that you can use them to de-reference resource descriptions via the Web (or Intranets and Extranets).</li> </ul> <p> <strong>Note:</strong> by Entity I am also referring to: a resource (Web parlance), data item, data object, real-world object, or datum. </p> <p>Linked Data is also about, using URIs and HTTP's content negotiation feature to separate: presentation, representation, access, and identity of data items. Even better, content negotiation can be driven by user agent and/or data server based quality of service algorithms (representation preference order schemes).</p> <p>To conclude, Linked Data is ultimately about the realization that: Data is the new Electricity, and it's conductors are URIs :-)</p> <p> <strong>Tip to governments of the world</strong>: we are in exponential times, the current downturn is but one side of the "exponential times ledger", the other side of the "exponential times ledger" is simply about unleashing "raw data" -- in structured form -- into the Web, so that "citizen analysts" can blossom and ultimately deliver the transparency desperately sought at every level of the economic value chain. Think: "raw data ready" whenever you ponder about "shovel ready" infrastructure projects!</p>
Simple Explanation of RDF and Linked Data Dynamics
2009-04-24T21:14:41Z
2009-04-24T17:14:41-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1542
<h3>Problem:</h3> <p>Your Life, Profession, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a>, and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Internet" id="link-id0x1c6687f8">Internet</a> do not need to become mutually exclusive due to "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information" id="link-id0x1c6696e8">information</a> overload".</p> <h3>Solution:</h3> <p> A platform or service that delivers a point of online presence that embodies the fundamental separation of: Identity, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">Data</a> Access, Data Representation, Data Presentation, by adhering to Web and Internet protocols.</p> <h3>How:</h3> <p> Typical post installation (Local or Cloud) task sequence:</p> <ol> <li> Identify myself (happens automatically by way of registration)</li> <li>If in an LDAP environment, import accounts or associate system with LDAP for account lookup and authentication</li> <li> Identify Online Accounts (by fleshing out profile) which also connects system to online accounts and their data</li> <li>Use Profile for granular description (Biography, Interests, WishList, OfferList, etc.)</li> <li>Optionally upstream or downstream data to and from my online accounts</li> <li>Create content Tagging Rules</li> <li>Create rules for associating Tags with formal URIs</li> <li>Create automatic Hyperlinking Rules for reuse when new content is created (e.g. <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Blog" id="link-id11a7c660">Blog</a> posts)</li> <li>Exploit Data Portability virtues of RSS, Atom, OPML, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/RDFa" id="link-id13f54d50">RDFa</a>, RDF/XML, and other formats for imports and exports</li> <li>Automatically <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Tag" id="link-id121ddff0">tag</a> imported content</li> <li>Use function-specific helper application UIs for domain specific data generation e.g. AddressBook (optionally use vCard import), Calendar (optionally use iCalendar import), Email, File Storage (use WebDAV mount with copy and paste or HTTP GET), Feed Subscriptions (optionally import RSS/Atom/OPML feeds), Bookmarking (optionally import bookmark.html or XBEL) etc..</li> <li>Optionally enable "Conversation" feature (today: Social Media feature) across the relevant application domains (manage conversations under covers using NNTP, the standard for this functionality realm) </li> <li>Generate HTTP based <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id13d5d378">Entity</a> IDs (URIs) for every piece of data in this burgeoning <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Spaces" id="link-id11a69670">data space</a> </li> <li>Use REST based APIs to perform CRUD tasks against my data (local and remote) (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id11a76e10">SPARQL</a>, GData, Ubiquity Commands, Atom Publishing)</li> <li>Use OpenID, OAuth, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Friend_of_a_friend" id="link-id11c9b3e0">FOAF</a>+SSL, FOAF+SSL+OpenID for accessing data elsewhere</li> <li>Use OpenID, OAuth, FOAF+SSL, FOAF+SSL+OpenID for Controlling access to my data (Self Signed Certificate Generation, Browser Import of said Certificate & associated Private Key, plus persistence of Certificate to FOAF based profile data space in "one click")</li> <li>Have a simple UI for <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity-attribute-value_model" id="link-id14015bd0">Entity</a>-Attribute-Value or Subject-Predicate-Object arbitrary data annotations and creation since you can't pre model an "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Open_world_assumption" id="link-id11cd8548">Open World</a>" where the only constant is data flow</li> <li>Have my Personal <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-id142beee8">URI</a> (Web ID) as the single entry point for controlled access to my HTTP accessible data space</li> </ol> <p> I've just outlined a snippet of the capabilities of the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/OpenLink_Data_Spaces" id="link-id13d64740">OpenLink Data Spaces</a> platform. A platform built using OpenLink <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com" id="link-id13d74170">Virtuoso</a>, architected to deliver: open, platform independent, multi-model, data access and data management across heterogeneous data sources. </p> <p> All you need to remember is your URI when seeking to interact with your data space.</p> <h3>Related</h3> <ol> <li> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/GetAPersonalURIIn5MinutesOrLess" id="link-id13c97948">Get Yourself a URI (Web ID) in 5 Minutes or Less!</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=%22data%20spaces%22&type=text&output=html" id="link-id1431e088">Various posts over the years about Data Spaces</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1415" id="link-id11f837f0">Future of Desktop Post</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://bnode.org/blog/2009/04/22/semantic-web-apps-to-simplify-my-life" id="link-id1393f8a8">Simplify My Life Post</a> by <a href="http://bnode.org/about" id="link-id11da0cc8">Bengee Nowack</a> </li> </ol>
Take N: Yet Another OpenLink Data Spaces Introduction
2009-04-22T19:32:06Z
2009-04-22T15:32:06.000020-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1534
<p>This post is a reply to <a href="http://www.jasonkolb.com/" id="link-id11f11e90">Jason Kolb</a>'s post titled: <a href="http://www.jasonkolb.com/weblog/2009/03/using-advertising-to-take-over-the-world.html" id="link-id15528ae8">Using Advertising to Take Over the World</a>. Jason's post is a response to <a href="http://scobleizer.com/" id="link-id11a41fd0">Robert Scoble</a>'s post titled: <a href="http://scobleizer.com/2009/03/21/why-facebook-has-never-listened-and-why-it-definitely-wont-start-now/" id="link-id143e2d88">Why Facebook has never listened and why it definitely won’t start now.</a> </p> <p>Jason:</p> <p>Scoble is sensing what comes next, but in my opinion, describes it using an old obtrusive advertising model anecdote.</p> <p>I've penned a post or two about the "<a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1458" id="link-id15247e90">Magic of You</a>" which is all about the new <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web" id="link-id0x20b2da18">Web</a> power broker (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id15552ba0">Entity</a>: "You").</p> <p>Personally, I've long envisaged a complete overhaul of advertising where obtrusive advertising simply withers away; ultimately replaced by an unobtrusive model that is driven by individualized relevance and high doses of serendipity. Basically, this is ultimately about "taking the Ad out of item placement in Web pages".</p> <p>The fundamental ingredients of an unobtrusive advertising landscape would include the following Human facts:</p> <ol> <li>We are social beings and need stuff from time to time </li> <li>We know what we need and would like to "Find stuff" when we are in "I Need Stuff" mode.</li> </ol> <p>Ideally, we would like to be able to simply state the following, via a Web accessible profile:</p> <ol> <li> Here are my "Wants" or "Needs" (my Wish-List) </li> <li> Here are the products and services that I "Offer" (my Offer-List).</li> </ol> <p>Now put the above into the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Context_%28language_use%29" id="link-id157388c8">context</a> of an evolving Web where <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data" id="link-id0x226b34d0">data</a> items are becoming more visible by the second, courtesy of the "<a href="http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html" id="link-id11ab8f80">Linked Data" meme</a>. Thus, things that weren't discernable via the Web: "People", "Places", "Music", "Books", "Products", etc., become much easier to identify and describe.</p> <p>Assuming the comments above hold true re. the Web's evolution into a collection of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id11bf4830">Linked Data</a> Spaces, and the following occur:</p> <ol> <li> Structured profile pages become the basic units of Web presence</li> <li> Wish-Lists and Offer-Lists are exposed by profile pages</li> </ol> <p>Wish-Lists and Offer-Lists will gradually start bonding with increasing degrees of serendipity courtesy of exponential growth in Linked Data <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Giant_Global_Graph" id="link-id154a92f8">Web</a> density. </p> <p>So based on what I've stated so far, Scoble would simply browse the Web or visit his profile page, and in either scenario enjoy a "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQbVD5hlddk" id="link-id118d3878">minority report</a>" style of experience albeit all under his control (since he is the one driving his Web user agent).</p> <p>What I describe above simply comes down to "Wish-lists" and associated recommendations becoming the norm outside the confines of Amazon's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Spaces" id="link-id11a6c710">data space</a> on the Web. Serendipitous discovery, intelligent lookups, and linkages are going to be the fundamental essence of Linked Data Web oriented applications, services, agents.</p> <p>Beyond Scoble, it's also important to note that access to data will be controlled by entity "You". Your data space on the Web will be something you will controll access to in a myriad of ways, and it will include the option to provide licensed access to commercial entities on your terms. Naturally, you will also determine the currency that facilitates the value exchange :-)</p> <h3>Related</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1458" id="link-id11799a58">The Numerati & The Magic of You!</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1442" id="link-id15246d50">Serendipitous Discovery Quotient (SDQ) Explained</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQbVD5hlddk" id="link-id1360f6d0">Minority Report Clip</a> </li> </ul>
How Linked Data will change Advertising
2009-03-25T12:30:58Z
2009-03-25T08:30:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1531
<p>Here is a tabulated "compare and contrast" of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a> usage patterns 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0.</p> <table border="1" width="715" height="286"> <tbody> <tr> <td> </td> <td><strong>Web 1.0</strong></td> <td><strong>Web 2.0</strong></td> <td><strong>Web 3.0</strong></td> </tr> <tr> <td><strong>Simple Definition</strong></td> <td>Interactive / Visual Web</td> <td>Programmable Web</td> <td><a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id117a9a98">Linked Data</a> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Giant_Global_Graph" id="link-id146bcdb0">Web</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td><strong>Unit of Presence</strong></td> <td>Web Page</td> <td>Web Service Endpoint</td> <td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Spaces" id="link-id11a66c60">Data Space</a> (named structured data enclave)</td> </tr> <tr> <td><strong>Unit of Value Exchange</strong></td> <td>Page <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Locator" id="link-id146083f8">URL</a></td> <td>Endpoint URL for API</td> <td>Resource / <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id121b2148">Entity</a> / Object <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-id1467ed00">URI</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td><strong>Data Granularity</strong></td> <td>Low (HTML)</td> <td>Medium (XML)</td> <td>High (RDF)</td> </tr> <tr> <td><strong>Defining Services</strong></td> <td>Search </td> <td>Community (Blogs to Social Networks) </td> <td>Find</td> </tr> <tr> <td><strong>Participation Quotient</strong></td> <td>Low</td> <td>Medium</td> <td>High</td> </tr> <tr> <td><strong>Serendipitous Discovery Quotient </strong></td> <td>Low</td> <td>Medium</td> <td>High</td> </tr> <tr> <td><strong>Data Referencability Quotient </strong></td> <td>Low (Documents)</td> <td>Medium (Documents)</td> <td>High (Documents and their constituent Data)</td> </tr> <tr> <td><strong>Subjectivity Quotient</strong></td> <td>High</td> <td>Medium (from A-list bloggers to select source and partner lists)</td> <td>Low (everything is discovered via URIs)</td> </tr> <tr> <td> <strong><a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Transclusion" id="link-id155308d8">Transclusence</a> </strong></td> <td>Low</td> <td>Medium (Code driven Mashups)</td> <td>HIgh (Data driven Meshups)</td> </tr> <tr> <td><strong>What You See Is What You Prefer (WYSIWYP)</strong></td> <td>Low</td> <td>Medium </td> <td>High (negotiated representation of resource descriptions)</td> </tr> <tr> <td><strong>Open Data Access (Data Accessibility)</strong></td> <td>Low</td> <td>Medium (Silos)</td> <td>High (no Silos)</td> </tr> <tr> <td><strong>Identity Issues Handling</strong></td> <td>Low</td> <td>Medium (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/OpenID" id="link-id119d77f8">OpenID</a>)</td> <td><p>High (<a href="http://esw.w3.org/topic/foaf+ssl" id="link-id135cc348">FOAF+SSL</a>)</p></td> </tr> <tr> <td><strong>Solution Deployment Model</strong></td> <td>Centralized</td> <td>Centralized with sprinklings of Federation</td> <td>Federated with function specific Centralization (e.g. Lookup hubs like <a href="http://community.linkeddata.org/dataspace/organization/lod#this" id="link-id1496d1d0">LOD</a> Cloud or <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/DBpedia" id="link-id1571f690">DBpedia</a>)</td> </tr> <tr> <td><strong>Data Model Orientation</strong></td> <td>Logical (Tree based DOM)</td> <td>Logical (Tree based XML)</td> <td>Conceptual (Graph based RDF)</td> </tr> <tr> <td><strong>User Interface Issues</strong></td> <td>Dynamically generated static interfaces</td> <td>Dyanically generated interafaces with semi-dynamic interfaces (courtesy of XSLT or <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/XQuery" id="link-id118399e8">XQuery</a>/<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/XPath" id="link-id14b00ba0">XPath</a>)</td> <td>Dynamic Interfaces (pre- and post-generation) courtesy of self-describing nature of RDF</td> </tr> <tr> <td><strong>Data Querying</strong></td> <td><a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Full_text_search" id="link-id14fdd948">Full Text Search</a></td> <td>Full Text Search</td> <td>Full Text Search + Structured Graph Pattern Query Language (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id154a9368">SPARQL</a>)</td> </tr> <tr> <td><strong>What Each Delivers</strong></td> <td>Democratized Publishing</td> <td>Democratized Journalism & Commentary (Citizen Journalists & Commentators)</td> <td>Democratized Analysis (Citizen Data Analysts)</td> </tr> <tr> <td> <strong><a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Star_Wars" id="link-id155ce920">Star Wars Edition Analogy</a> </strong></td> <td>Star Wars (original fight for decentralization via rebellion)</td> <td>Empire Strikes Back (centralization and data silos make comeback)</td> <td>Return of the JEDI (<a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1474" id="link-id11706640">FORCE</a> emerges and facilitates decentralization from "Identity" all the way to "Open Data Access" and "Negotiable Descriptive Data Representation")</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <p>Naturally, I am not expecting everyone to agree with <a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/person/kidehen#this" id="link-id15be20c0">me</a>. I am simply making my contribution to what will remain facinating discourse for a long time to come :-)</p> <h3>Related</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="http://novaspivack.typepad.com/nova_spivacks_weblog/2007/10/web-30----the-a.html" id="link-id14a9d738">Web 3.0 The Best Official Definition Imaginable</a> -- Nova Spivack's </li> </ul>
Simple Compare & Contrast of Web 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 (Update 1)
2009-04-29T17:21:25Z
2009-04-29T13:21:25.000004-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1524
<p>Another post done in response to lost comments. This time, the comments relate to Robin Bloor's article titled: <a href="http://havemacwillblog.com/2008/12/16/what-is-web-30-and-why-should-i-care/" id="link-id12e79d70">What is Web 3.0 and Why Should I Care?</a> </p> <p>Robin:</p> <p> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Web_3.0" id="link-id12db8fb0">Web 3.0 </a>is fundamentally about the World Wid Web becoming a structured database equipped with a formal <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">data</a> model (RDF which is a moniker for <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity-attribute-value_model" id="link-id11490990">Entity-Attribute-Value</a> with Classes & Relationships based Graph Model), query language, and a protocol for handling divrerse data representational requirements via negotiation</p>. <p>Web 3.0 is about a Web that facilitates serendipitous discovery of relevant things; thereby making serendipitous discovery quotient (SDQ), rather than search engine optimization (SEO), the critical success factor that drives how resources get published on the Web.</p> <p>Personally, I believe we are on the cusp of a major industry inflection re. how we interact with data hosted in computing spaces. In a nutshell, the conceptual model interaction based on real-world entities such as people, places, and other things (including abstract subject matter) will usurp traditional logical model interaction based on rows and columns of typed and/or untyped literal values exemplified by relational data access and management systems.</p> <p>Labels such as "Web 3.0", "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id13664538">Linked Data</a>", and "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id157ff968">Semantic Web</a>", are simply about the aforementioned model transition playing out on the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web" id="link-id114bd0e8">World Wide Web</a> and across private Linked Data Webs such as Intranets & Extranets, as exemplified emergence of the "Master Data Management" label/buzzword.</p> <h3>What's the critical infrastructure supporting Web 3.0?</h3> <p>As was the case with Web Services re. Web 2.0, there is a critical piece of infrastructure driving the evolution in question, and in this case it comes down to the evolution of Hyperlinking.</p> <p>We now have a new and complimentary variant of Hyperlinking commonly referred to as "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id152ed150">Hyperdata</a>" that now sits alongside "Hypertext". Hyperdata when used in conjunction with HTTP based URIs as Data Source Names (or Identifiers), delivers a potent and granular data access mechanism scoped down to the datum (object or record) level; which is much different from the document (record or <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id1141e830">entity</a> container) level linkage that Hypertext accords.</p> <p>In addition, the incorporation of HTTP into this new and enhanced granular Data Source Naming mechanism also addresses past challenges relating to separation of data, data representation, and data transmission protocols -- remember XDR woes familiar to all sockets level programmers -- courtesy of in-built content negotiation. Hence, via a simple HTTP GET --against a Data Source Name exposed by a Hyperdata link -- I can negotiate (from client or server sides) the exact representation of the description (entity-attribute-value graph) of an Entity / Data Object / Resource, dispatched by a data server.</p> <blockquote>For example, this is how a description of entity "<strong><a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/person/kidehen#this" id="link-id141ce520">Me</a></strong>" ends up being available in (X)HTML or RDF document representations (as you will observe when you click on that link to my Personal <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-id15f9fed0">URI</a>).</blockquote> <p> The foundation of what I describe above comes from:</p> <ol> <li> Entity-Attribute-Value & Class Relationship Data Model (originating from LISP era with detours via the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Object_database" id="link-id12db8fb0">Object Database</a> era. into the Triples approach in RDF) </li> <li>Use of HTTP based Identifiers in the Entity <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Identity_%28object-oriented_programming%29" id="link-id1193af48">ID</a> construction process</li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id1348f188">SPARQL</a> query language for the Data Model.</li> </ol> <p>Some live examples from <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/DBpedia" id="link-id12e62a50">DBpedia</a>:</p> <ul> <li> http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data</li> <li>http://dbpedia.org/resource/Hyperdata</li> <li>http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity-attribute-value_model</li> <li>http://dbpedia.org/resource/Benjamin_Franklin</li> </ul> <h3>Related</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1519?sid=5097848d70f69738bd366e2b6374672c&realm=wa" id="link-id13c31500">The End of RDBMS Primacy is Nigh</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://esw.w3.org/topic/SweoIG/TaskForces/CommunityProjects/LinkingOpenData" id="link-id1356e6a0">Linking Open Data Community</a> </li> </ul>
Response to: What is Web 3.0 and Why Should I Care?
2009-01-29T18:45:11Z
2009-01-29T13:45:11-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1522
<p>Yesterday, I stumbled across an <a href="http://www.ebizq.net" id="link-id13e41be8">ebiz</a> article by <a href="http://www.ebizq.net/MT4/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=43&id=16" id="link-id11c080a0">David Linthicum</a> titled:<a href="http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/linthicum/2009/01/rdf_and_data_integration.php" id="link-id13620940"> RDF & Data Integration</a>. Naturally, I read it, and while reading encountered a number of inaccuracies that compelled <a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/person/kidehen#this" id="link-id152f4828">me</a> to comment on the post. </p> <p>Today, I revisited the same article -- and to my shock and horror -- my comments do not exist (note: the site did accept my comments yesterday!). Even more frustrating for me, I now have to expend time I don't have re-writing my comments due to the depth and danger of the inaccuracies in this post re. RDF in general.</p> <h3>Important Note to ebiz and David: </h3> <p>Please look into what happened to my comments. It's too early for me to conclude that subjective censorship is a play on the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a> -- which isn't a hard copy journalistic format style of platform where editors get away with such shenanigans. The Web is a sticky database, and outer joining is well and truly functional (meaning: exclusion and omission ultimately come back to bite via full outer join query results against the Web DB).</p> <p>By the way, if you publish the comments I made to the post (yesterday), I will add a note to this post, accordingly.</p> <p>Yes! David just confirmed to me via <a href="http://linkeddata.uriburner.com/about/html/http://dbpedia.org/resource/Category:Data_modeling" id="link-id15293c20">Twitter</a> that this is yet another comment system related issue and absolutely no intent to censor etc. His words <a href="http://linkeddata.uriburner.com/about/html/http://linkeddata.uriburner.com/about/rdf/http://twitter.com/DavidLinthicum/status/1159201301%23this" id="link-id14e5ac98">Twervatim</a> :-) </p> <p>For sake of clarity, I've itemized the inaccuracies and applied my correction comments (inline) accordingly:</p> <blockquote> <h3>Inaccuracy #1:</h3> <p>Resource Description Framework (RDF), a part of the XML story, provides interoperability between applications that exchange <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information" id="link-id15f48080">information</a>. </p> <h3>Correction #1: </h3> <p>RDF and XML are not inextricably linked in any way. RDF is part Data Model (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity-attribute-value_model" id="link-id119a7300">EAV</a>/CR style Graph) with associated markup and data serialization formats that include: N3, Turtle, TriX, RDF/XML etc.</p> <h3>Inaccuracy #2:</h3> <p>RDF uses XML to define a foundation for processing metadata and to provide a standard metadata infrastructure for both the Web and the enterprise. </p> <h3>Correction #2: </h3> <p>RDF/XML is an XML based markup and data serialization format. As a markup language it can be used for creating RDF model records/statements (using Subject, Predicate, Object or <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity-attribute-value_model" id="link-id15120c28">Entity</a>, Attribute, Value). As a serialization format, it provides a mechanism for marshaling RDF data across data managers and data consumers.</p> <h3>Inaccuracy #3:</h3> <p>The difference between the two is that XML is used to transport data using a common format, while RDF is layered on top of XML defining a broad category of data. </p> <h3>Correction #3:</h3> <p>See earlier corrections above.</p> <h3>Inaccuracy #4:</h3> <p>When the XML data is declared to be of the RDF format, applications are then able to understand the data without understanding who sent it. </p> <h3>Correction #4:</h3> <p>You do not declare data to be of RDF format. RDF isn't a format it is a data model (as stated above). You can "up lift" or map data from XML to RDF (hierarchical to graph model mapping). Likewise you can "down shift" or map data from RDF to XML (example: <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id146966c0">SPARQL</a> SELECT query patterns "down shift" to SPARQL Results XML, which isn't RDF/XML, while keeping access to graphs via URIs or <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id14282528">Entity</a> Identifiers that reside within the serialization).</p> <h3>Inaccuracy #5:</h3> <p>RDF extends the XML model and syntax to be specified for describing either resources or a collection of information. (XML points to a resource in order to scope and uniquely identify a set of properties known as the schema.).</p> <h3>Correction #5:</h3> <p>See earlier comments. </p> </blockquote> <p>The single accurate paragraph in this ebiz article lies right at the end and it states the following:</p> <blockquote> <cite>"I've always thought RDF has been underutilized for data integration, and it's really an old standard. Now that we're focused on both understanding and integrating data, perhaps RDF should make a comeback."</cite> </blockquote> <h3>Related:</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/SW-FAQ#whrdfxml" id="link-id1534cdc8">Semantic Web FAQ fragment re. RDF and XML</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=rdf%20data%20integration&type=text&output=html" id="link-id15a7dbc0">Various posts re. RDF and Data Integration</a> from this <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Blog" id="link-id15da4618">Blog</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Spaces" id="link-id1120d810">Data Space</a>.</li> </ul>
ebiz RDF & Data Integration Article Retort
2009-01-29T21:25:58Z
2009-01-29T16:25:58-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1520
<p> As the world works it way through a "once in a generation" economic crisis, the long overdue downgrade of the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Relational_database_management_system" id="link-id15750540">RDBMS</a>, from its pivotal position at the apex of the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data" id="link-id0x24ea3650">data</a> access and data management pyramid is nigh.</p> <h3>What is the Data Access, and Data Management Value Pyramid?</h3> <p> As depicted below, a top-down view of the data access and data management value chain. The term: apex, simply indicates value primacy, which takes the form of a data access API based entry point into a DBMS realm -- aligned to an underlying data model. Examples of data access APIs include: Native Call Level Interfaces (CLIs), <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Open_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id11c254c0">ODBC</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Java_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id149b16a8">JDBC</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/ADO.NET" id="link-id11451eb0">ADO</a>.NET, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/OLE_DB" id="link-id15b02478">OLE-DB</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/XML_for_Analysis" id="link-id1181fa10">XMLA</a>, and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web" id="link-id0x1f8394a8">Web</a> Services.</p> See: <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/images/Agility_Value_Factors_Pyramid.png" id="link-id146cadd8"> AVF Pyramid Diagram.</a> <p> The degree to which ad-hoc views of data managed by a DBMS can be produced and dispatched to relevant data consumers (e.g. people), without compromising concurrency, data durability, and security, collectively determine the "Agility Value Factor" (AVF) of a given DBMS. Remember, agility as the cornerstone of environmental adaptation is as old as the concept of evolution, and intrinsic to all pursuits of primacy. </p> <p>In simpler business oriented terms, look at AVF as the degree to which DBMS technology affects the ability to effectively implement "Market Leadership Discipline" along the following pathways: innovation, operation excellence, or customer intimacy. </p> <h3>Why has RDBMS Primacy has Endured?</h3> <p> Historically, at least since the late '80s, the RDBMS genre of DBMS has consistently offered the highest AVF relative to other DBMS genres en route to primacy within the value pyramid. The desire to improve on paper reports and spreadsheets is basically what DBMS technology has fundamentally addressed to date, even though conceptual level interaction with data has never been its forte.</p> See: <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/images/Old_RDBMS_Primacy_Pyramid.png" id="link-id134dab90"> RDBMS Primacy Diagram.</a> <p> For more then 10 years -- at the very least -- limitations of the traditional RDBMS in the realm of conceptual level interaction with data across diverse data sources and schemas (enterprise, Web, and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Internet" id="link-id116001c0">Internet</a>) has been crystal clear to many RDBMS technology practitioners, as indicated by some of the quotes excerpted below:</p> <blockquote> <cite> <p> "Future of Database Research is excellent, but what is the future of data?" </p> "..it is hard for <a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/person/kidehen#this" id="link-id14932398">me</a> to disagree with the conclusions in this report. It captures exactly the right thoughts, and should be a must read for everyone involved in the area of databases and database research in particular." <p>-- <a href="http://jhingran.typepad.com/anant_jhingrans_musings/" id="link-id11334c50">Dr. Anant Jingran</a>, CTO, IBM <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information" id="link-id150c7970">Information</a> Management Systems, commenting on the <a href="http://db.cs.berkeley.edu/claremont/" id="link-id11c3b408">2007 RDBMS technology retreat</a> attended by a number of key DBMS technology pioneers and researchers.</p> </cite> </blockquote> <blockquote> <cite> <p> "<a href="http://www.databasecolumn.com/2007/09/one-size-fits-all.html" id="link-id15c14f08">One size fits all: A concept whose time has come and gone</a> </p> <p> </p> <ol> <li> They are direct descendants of System R and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Ingres" id="link-id146da780">Ingres</a> and were architected more than 25 years ago</li> <li> They are advocating "one size fits all"; i.e. a single engine that solves all DBMS needs. </li> </ol> <p>-- Prof. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Stonebraker" id="link-id145c4e28">Michael Stonebreaker</a>, one of the founding fathers of the RDBMS industry.</p> </cite> </blockquote> <p>Until this point in time, the requisite confluence of "circumstantial pain" and "open standards" based technology required to enable an objective "compare and contrast" of RDBMS engine virtues and viable alternatives hasn't occurred. Thus, the RDBMS has endured it position of primacy albeit on a "one size fits all basis". </p> <h4>Circumstantial Pain</h4> <p> As mentioned earlier, we are in the midst of an economic crisis that is ultimately about a consistent inability to connect dots across a substrate of interlinked data sources that transcend traditional data access boundaries with high doses of schematic heterogeneity. Ironically, in a era of the dot-com, we haven't been able to make meaningful connections between relevant "real-world things" that extend beyond primitive data hosted database tables and content management style document containers; we've struggled to achieve this in the most basic sense, let alone evolve our ability to connect inline with the <a href="http://www.vldb2007.org/program/slides/s1161-brodie.pdf" id="link-id11a0dcf0">exponential rate at which the Internet & Web are spawning "universes of discourse" (data spaces) that emanate from user activity</a> (within the enterprise and across the Internet & Web). In a nutshell, we haven't been able to upgrade our interaction with data such that "conceptual models" and resulting "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Context_%28language_use%29" id="link-id12da4b00">context</a> lenses" (or facets) become concrete; by this I mean: real-world <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id146a48a8">entity</a> interaction making its way into the computer realm as opposed to the impedance we all suffer today when we transition from conceptual model interaction (real-world) to logical model interaction (when dealing with RDBMS based data access and data management). </p> <p>Here are some simple examples of what I can only best describe as: "critical dots unconnected", resulting from an inability to interact with data conceptually:</p> <strong>Government (Globally) -</strong> <p> Financial regulatory bodies couldn't effectively discern that a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Credit_default_swap" id="link-id115ba0e0">Credit Default Swap</a> is an Insurance policy in all but literal name. And in not doing so the cost of an unregulated <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Insurance" id="link-id158d4960">insurance policy</a> laid the foundation for exacerbating the toxicity of fatally flawed mortgage backed securities. Put simply: a flawed insurance policy was the fallback on a toxic security that financiers found exotic based on superficial packaging.</p> <strong>Enterprises - </strong> <p> Banks still don't understand that capital really does exists in tangible and intangible forms; with the intangible being the variant that is inherently dynamic. For example, a tech companies intellectual capital far exceeds the value of fixture, fittings, and buildings, but you be amazed to find that in most cases this vital asset has not significant value when banks get down to the nitty gritty of debt collateral; instead, a buffer of flawed securitization has occurred atop a borderline static asset class covering the aforementioned buildings, fixtures, and fittings. </p> <p> In the general enterprise arena, IT executives continued to "rip and replace" existing technology without ever effectively addressing the timeless inability to connect data across disparate data silos generated by internal enterprise applications, let alone the broader need to mesh data from the inside with external data sources. No correlations made between the growth of buzzwords and the compounding nature of data integration challenges. It's 2009 and only a miniscule number of executives dare fantasize about being anywhere within distance of the: relevant information at your fingertips vision. </p> <p> Looking more holistically at data interaction in general, whether you interact with data in the enterprise space (i.e., at work) or on the Internet or Web, you ultimately are delving into a mishmash of disparate computer systems, applications, service (Web or SOA), and databases (of the RDBMS variety in a majority of cases) associated with a plethora of disparate schemas. Yes, but even today "rip and replace" is still the norm pushed by most vendors; pitting one mono culture against another as exemplified by irrelevances such as: FOSS/LAMP vs Commercial or Web vs. Enterprise, when none of this matters if the data access and integration issues are recognized let alone addressed (see: <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1497?sid=0df0294caee8b37925c6a888bbbca136&realm=wa" id="link-id15c27300">Applications are Like Fish and Data Like Wine</a>). </p> <p> Like the current credit-crunch, exponential growth of data originating from disparate application databases and associated schemas, within shrinking processing time frames, has triggered a rethinking of what defines data access and data management value today en route to an inevitable RDBMS downgrade within the value pyramid.</p> <h3>Technology</h3> <p>There have been many attempts to address real-world modeling requirements across the broader DBMS community from Object Databases to Object-Relational Databases, and more recently the emergence of simple <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity-attribute-value_model" id="link-id1128dad0">Entity</a>-Attribute-Value model DBMS engines. In all cases failure has come down to the existence of one or more of the following deficiencies, across each potential alternative:</p> <ol> <li>Query language standardization - nothing close to <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SQL" id="link-id16002d60">SQL</a> standardization</li> <li>Data Access API standardization - nothing close to ODBC, JDBC, OLE-DB, or ADO.NET</li> <li>Wire protocol standardization - nothing close to HTTP</li> <li>Distributed Identity infrastructure - nothing close to the non-repudiatable digital Identity that <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Friend_of_a_friend" id="link-id14926b18">foaf</a>+ssl accords</li> <li>Use of Identifiers as network based pointers to data sources - nothing close to RDF based <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id16180a28">Linked Data</a> </li> <li>Negotiable data representation - nothing close to Mime and HTTP based Content Negotiation</li> <li>Scalability especially in the era of Internet & Web scale.</li> </ol> <h4>Entity-Attribute-Value with Classes & Relationships (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity-attribute-value_model" id="link-id13e741b8">EAV</a>/CR) data models</h4> <p>A common characteristic shared by all post-relational DBMS management systems (from Object Relational to pure Object) is an orientation towards variations of EAV/CR based data models. Unfortunately, all efforts in the EAV/CR realm have typically suffered from at least one of the deficiencies listed above. In addition, the same "one DBMS model fits all" approach that lies at the heart of the RDBMS downgrade also exists in the EAV/CR realm.</p> <h3>What Comes Next?</h3> <p>The RDBMS is not going away (ever), but its era of primacy -- by virtue of its placement at the apex of the data access and data management value pyramid -- is over! I make this bold claim for the following reasons: </p> <ol> <li> The Internet aided "Global Village" has brought "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_World_Assumption" id="link-id1148e560">Open World</a>" vs "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_World_Assumption" id="link-id11967cd0">Closed World</a>" assumption issues to the fore e.g., the current global economic crisis remains centered on the inability to connect dots across "Open World" and "Closed World" data frontiers </li> <li> Entity-Attribute-Value with Classes & Relationships (EAV/CR) based DBMS models are more effective when dealing with disparate data associated with disparate schemas, across disparate DBMS engines, host operating systems, and networks. </li> </ol> <p>Based on the above, it is crystal clear that a different kind of DBMS -- one with higher AVF relative to the RDBMS -- needs to sit atop today's data access and data management value pyramid. The characteristics of this DBMS must include the following:</p> <ol> <li> Every item of data (Datum/Entity/Object/Resource) has Identity</li> <li> Identity is achieved via Identifiers that aren't locked at the DBMS, OS, Network, or Application levels</li> <li> Object Identifiers and Object values are independent (extricably linked by association)</li> <li> Object values should be de-referencable via Object Identifier</li> <li> Representation of de-referenced value graph (entity, attributes, and values mesh) must be negotiable (i.e. content negotiation)</li> <li>Structured query language must provide mechanism for Creation, Deletion, Updates, and Querying of data objects</li> <li> Performance & Scalability across "Closed World" (enterprise) and "Open World" (Internet & Web) realms.</li> </ol> <p>Quick recap, I am not saying that RDBMS engine technology is dead or obsolete. I am simply stating that the era of RDBMS primacy within the data access and data management value pyramid is over. </p> <p>The problem domain (conceptual model views over heterogeneous data sources) at the apex of the aforementioned pyramid has simply evolved beyond the natural capabilities of the RDBMS which is rooted in "Closed World" assumptions re., data definition, access, and management. The need to maintain domain based conceptual interaction with data is now palpable at every echelon within our "Global Village" - Internet, Web, Enterprise, Government etc.</p> <p>It is my personal view that an EAV/CR model based DBMS, with support for the seven items enumerated above, can trigger the long anticipated RDBMS downgrade. Such a DBMS would be inherently multi-model because you would need to the best of RDBMS and EAV/CR model engines in a single product, with in-built support for HTTP and other Internet protocols in order to effectively address data representation and serialization issues.</p> <h4>EAV/CR Oriented Data Access & Management Technology</h4> <p>Examples of contemporary EAV/CR frameworks that provide concrete conceptual layers for data access and data management currently include:</p> <ul> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Resource_Description_Framework" id="link-id115d1cb0"> Resource Description Framework</a> (RDF) - an EAV/CR based framework</li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id116cf810">RDF Linked Data </a>- EAV/CR based framework that mandates de-referencable HTTP based Identifiers</li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/ADO.NET_Entity_Framework" id="link-id13daa160">ADO.NET Entity Frameworks</a> - Microsoft .NET based EAV/CR framework</li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/page/Core_Data" id="link-id11111838">Core Data Services </a>- Mac OS X based EAV/CR framework that evolved from NeXT's <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Enterprise_Objects_Framework" id="link-id15c27df0">Enterprise Object Frameworks</a> (EOF).</li> </ul> <p>The frameworks above provide the basis for a revised AVF pyramid, as depicted below, that reflects today's data access and management realities i.e., an Internet & Web driven global village comprised of interlinked distributed data objects, compatible with "Open World" assumptions.</p> See: <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/images/New_EAV_RDBMS_Pyramid.png" id="link-id158e0760">New EAV/CR Primacy Diagram.</a> <h3>Related</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="http://dynamicorange.com/2009/01/22/blueblog-how-and-why-glue-is-using-amazon-simpledb-instead-of-a-relational-database/" id="link-id15e07c10">How & Why Glue is Using Amazon SimpleDB</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/clamen/OODBMS/Manifesto/htManifesto/node4.html#SECTION00022000000000000000" id="link-id116cf450">Object Database Manifesto (Identity excerpt)</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.unixspace.com/context/databases.html" id="link-id150b2c20">Database Models Overview</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEj9vqVvHPc&feature=related" id="link-id0x1135d978">Ted Nelson Explaining Irregularity and Idiosyncrasy of Data Structures</a> - ZigZag Demo </li> </ul>
Time for RDBMS Primacy Downgrade is Nigh! (No Embedded Images Edition - Update 1)
2009-03-17T15:50:58Z
2009-03-17T11:50:58-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1519
<p> As the world works it way through a "once in a generation" economic crisis, the long overdue downgrade of the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Relational_database_management_system" id="link-id15750540">RDBMS</a>, from its pivotal position at the apex of the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data" id="link-id0x66a74b8">data</a> access and data management pyramid is nigh.</p> <h3>What is the Data Access, and Data Management Value Pyramid?</h3> <p> As depicted below, a top-down view of the data access and data management value chain. The term: apex, simply indicates value primacy, which takes the form of a data access API based entry point into a DBMS realm -- aligned to an underlying data model. Examples of data access APIs include: Native Call Level Interfaces (CLIs), <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Open_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id11c254c0">ODBC</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Java_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id149b16a8">JDBC</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/ADO.NET" id="link-id11451eb0">ADO</a>.NET, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/OLE_DB" id="link-id15b02478">OLE-DB</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/XML_for_Analysis" id="link-id1181fa10">XMLA</a>, and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web" id="link-id0x2fef498">Web</a> Services.</p> <div> <img alt="Image" src="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/images/Agility_Value_Factors_Pyramid.png" /> </div> <p> The degree to which ad-hoc views of data managed by a DBMS can be produced and dispatched to relevant data consumers (e.g. people), without compromising concurrency, data durability, and security, collectively determine the "Agility Value Factor" (AVF) of a given DBMS. Remember, agility as the cornerstone of environmental adaptation is as old as the concept of evolution, and intrinsic to all pursuits of primacy. </p> <p>In simpler business oriented terms, look at AVF as the degree to which DBMS technology affects the ability to effectively implement "Market Leadership Discipline" along the following pathways: innovation, operation excellence, or customer intimacy. </p> <h3>Why has RDBMS Primacy has Endured?</h3> <p> Historically, at least since the late '80s, the RDBMS genre of DBMS has consistently offered the highest AVF relative to other DBMS genres en route to primacy within the value pyramid. The desire to improve on paper reports and spreadsheets is basically what DBMS technology has fundamentally addressed to date, even though conceptual level interaction with data has never been its forte.</p> <div> <img alt="Image" src="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/images/Old_RDBMS_Primacy_Pyramid.png" /> </div> <p> For more then 10 years -- at the very least -- limitations of the traditional RDBMS in the realm of conceptual level interaction with data across diverse data sources and schemas (enterprise, Web, and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Internet" id="link-id116001c0">Internet</a>) has been crystal clear to many RDBMS technology practitioners, as indicated by some of the quotes excerpted below:</p> <blockquote> <cite> <p> "Future of Database Research is excellent, but what is the future of data?" </p> "..it is hard for <a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/person/kidehen#this" id="link-id14932398">me</a> to disagree with the conclusions in this report. It captures exactly the right thoughts, and should be a must read for everyone involved in the area of databases and database research in particular." <p>-- <a href="http://jhingran.typepad.com/anant_jhingrans_musings/" id="link-id11334c50">Dr. Anant Jingran</a>, CTO, IBM <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information" id="link-id150c7970">Information</a> Management Systems, commenting on the <a href="http://db.cs.berkeley.edu/claremont/" id="link-id11c3b408">2007 RDBMS technology retreat</a> attended by a number of key DBMS technology pioneers and researchers.</p> </cite> </blockquote> <blockquote> <cite> <p> "<a href="http://www.databasecolumn.com/2007/09/one-size-fits-all.html" id="link-id15c14f08">One size fits all: A concept whose time has come and gone</a> </p> <p> </p> <ol> <li> They are direct descendants of System R and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Ingres" id="link-id146da780">Ingres</a> and were architected more than 25 years ago</li> <li> They are advocating "one size fits all"; i.e. a single engine that solves all DBMS needs. </li> </ol> <p>-- Prof. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Stonebraker" id="link-id145c4e28">Michael Stonebreaker</a>, one of the founding fathers of the RDBMS industry.</p> </cite> </blockquote> <p>Until this point in time, the requisite confluence of "circumstantial pain" and "open standards" based technology required to enable an objective "compare and contrast" of RDBMS engine virtues and viable alternatives hasn't occurred. Thus, the RDBMS has endured it position of primacy albeit on a "one size fits all basis". </p> <h4>Circumstantial Pain</h4> <p> As mentioned earlier, we are in the midst of an economic crisis that is ultimately about a consistent inability to connect dots across a substrate of interlinked data sources that transcend traditional data access boundaries with high doses of schematic heterogeneity. Ironically, in a era of the dot-com, we haven't been able to make meaningful connections between relevant "real-world things" that extend beyond primitive data hosted database tables and content management style document containers; we've struggled to achieve this in the most basic sense, let alone evolve our ability to connect inline with the <a href="http://www.vldb2007.org/program/slides/s1161-brodie.pdf" id="link-id11a0dcf0">exponential rate at which the Internet & Web are spawning "universes of discourse" (data spaces) that emanate from user activity</a> (within the enterprise and across the Internet & Web). In a nutshell, we haven't been able to upgrade our interaction with data such that "conceptual models" and resulting "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Context_%28language_use%29" id="link-id12da4b00">context</a> lenses" (or facets) become concrete; by this I mean: real-world <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id146a48a8">entity</a> interaction making its way into the computer realm as opposed to the impedance we all suffer today when we transition from conceptual model interaction (real-world) to logical model interaction (when dealing with RDBMS based data access and data management). </p> <p>Here are some simple examples of what I can only best describe as: "critical dots unconnected", resulting from an inability to interact with data conceptually:</p> <strong>Government (Globally) -</strong> <p> Financial regulatory bodies couldn't effectively discern that a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Credit_default_swap" id="link-id115ba0e0">Credit Default Swap</a> is an Insurance policy in all but literal name. And in not doing so the cost of an unregulated <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Insurance" id="link-id158d4960">insurance policy</a> laid the foundation for exacerbating the toxicity of fatally flawed mortgage backed securities. Put simply: a flawed insurance policy was the fallback on a toxic security that financiers found exotic based on superficial packaging.</p> <strong>Enterprises - </strong> <p> Banks still don't understand that capital really does exists in tangible and intangible forms; with the intangible being the variant that is inherently dynamic. For example, a tech companies intellectual capital far exceeds the value of fixture, fittings, and buildings, but you be amazed to find that in most cases this vital asset has not significant value when banks get down to the nitty gritty of debt collateral; instead, a buffer of flawed securitization has occurred atop a borderline static asset class covering the aforementioned buildings, fixtures, and fittings. </p> <p> In the general enterprise arena, IT executives continued to "rip and replace" existing technology without ever effectively addressing the timeless inability to connect data across disparate data silos generated by internal enterprise applications, let alone the broader need to mesh data from the inside with external data sources. No correlations made between the growth of buzzwords and the compounding nature of data integration challenges. It's 2009 and only a miniscule number of executives dare fantasize about being anywhere within distance of the: relevant information at your fingertips vision. </p> <p> Looking more holistically at data interaction in general, whether you interact with data in the enterprise space (i.e., at work) or on the Internet or Web, you ultimately are delving into a mishmash of disparate computer systems, applications, service (Web or SOA), and databases (of the RDBMS variety in a majority of cases) associated with a plethora of disparate schemas. Yes, but even today "rip and replace" is still the norm pushed by most vendors; pitting one mono culture against another as exemplified by irrelevances such as: FOSS/LAMP vs Commercial or Web vs. Enterprise, when none of this matters if the data access and integration issues are recognized let alone addressed (see: <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1497?sid=0df0294caee8b37925c6a888bbbca136&realm=wa" id="link-id15c27300">Applications are Like Fish and Data Like Wine</a>). </p> <p> Like the current credit-crunch, exponential growth of data originating from disparate application databases and associated schemas, within shrinking processing time frames, has triggered a rethinking of what defines data access and data management value today en route to an inevitable RDBMS downgrade within the value pyramid.</p> <h3>Technology</h3> <p>There have been many attempts to address real-world modeling requirements across the broader DBMS community from Object Databases to Object-Relational Databases, and more recently the emergence of simple <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity-attribute-value_model" id="link-id1128dad0">Entity</a>-Attribute-Value model DBMS engines. In all cases failure has come down to the existence of one or more of the following deficiencies, across each potential alternative:</p> <ol> <li>Query language standardization - nothing close to <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SQL" id="link-id16002d60">SQL</a> standardization</li> <li>Data Access API standardization - nothing close to ODBC, JDBC, OLE-DB, or ADO.NET</li> <li>Wire protocol standardization - nothing close to HTTP</li> <li>Distributed Identity infrastructure - nothing close to the non-repudiatable digital Identity that <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Friend_of_a_friend" id="link-id14926b18">foaf</a>+ssl accords</li> <li>Use of Identifiers as network based pointers to data sources - nothing close to RDF based <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id16180a28">Linked Data</a> </li> <li>Negotiable data representation - nothing close to Mime and HTTP based Content Negotiation</li> <li>Scalability especially in the era of Internet & Web scale.</li> </ol> <h4>Entity-Attribute-Value with Classes & Relationships (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity-attribute-value_model" id="link-id13e741b8">EAV</a>/CR) data models</h4> <p>A common characteristic shared by all post-relational DBMS management systems (from Object Relational to pure Object) is an orientation towards variations of EAV/CR based data models. Unfortunately, all efforts in the EAV/CR realm have typically suffered from at least one of the deficiencies listed above. In addition, the same "one DBMS model fits all" approach that lies at the heart of the RDBMS downgrade also exists in the EAV/CR realm.</p> <h3>What Comes Next?</h3> <p>The RDBMS is not going away (ever), but its era of primacy -- by virtue of its placement at the apex of the data access and data management value pyramid -- is over! I make this bold claim for the following reasons: </p> <ol> <li> The Internet aided "Global Village" has brought "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_World_Assumption" id="link-id1148e560">Open World</a>" vs "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_World_Assumption" id="link-id11967cd0">Closed World</a>" assumption issues to the fore e.g., the current global economic crisis remains centered on the inability to connect dots across "Open World" and "Closed World" data frontiers </li> <li> Entity-Attribute-Value with Classes & Relationships (EAV/CR) based DBMS models are more effective when dealing with disparate data associated with disparate schemas, across disparate DBMS engines, host operating systems, and networks. </li> </ol> <p>Based on the above, it is crystal clear that a different kind of DBMS -- one with higher AVF relative to the RDBMS -- needs to sit atop today's data access and data management value pyramid. The characteristics of this DBMS must include the following:</p> <ol> <li> Every item of data (Datum/Entity/Object/Resource) has Identity</li> <li> Identity is achieved via Identifiers that aren't locked at the DBMS, OS, Network, or Application levels</li> <li> Object Identifiers and Object values are independent (extricably linked by association)</li> <li> Object values should be de-referencable via Object Identifier</li> <li> Representation of de-referenced value graph (entity, attributes, and values mesh) must be negotiable (i.e. content negotiation)</li> <li>Structured query language must provide mechanism for Creation, Deletion, Updates, and Querying of data objects</li> <li> Performance & Scalability across "Closed World" (enterprise) and "Open World" (Internet & Web) realms.</li> </ol> <p>Quick recap, I am not saying that RDBMS engine technology is dead or obsolete. I am simply stating that the era of RDBMS primacy within the data access and data management value pyramid is over. </p> <p>The problem domain (conceptual model views over heterogeneous data sources) at the apex of the aforementioned pyramid has simply evolved beyond the natural capabilities of the RDBMS which is rooted in "Closed World" assumptions re., data definition, access, and management. The need to maintain domain based conceptual interaction with data is now palpable at every echelon within our "Global Village" - Internet, Web, Enterprise, Government etc.</p> <p>It is my personal view that an EAV/CR model based DBMS, with support for the seven items enumerated above, can trigger the long anticipated RDBMS downgrade. Such a DBMS would be inherently multi-model because you would need to the best of RDBMS and EAV/CR model engines in a single product, with in-built support for HTTP and other Internet protocols in order to effectively address data representation and serialization issues.</p> <h4>EAV/CR Oriented Data Access & Management Technology</h4> <p>Examples of contemporary EAV/CR frameworks that provide concrete conceptual layers for data access and data management currently include:</p> <ul> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Resource_Description_Framework" id="link-id115d1cb0"> Resource Description Framework</a> (RDF) - an EAV/CR based framework</li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id116cf810">RDF Linked Data </a>- EAV/CR based framework that mandates de-referencable HTTP based Identifiers</li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/ADO.NET_Entity_Framework" id="link-id13daa160">ADO.NET Entity Frameworks</a> - Microsoft .NET based EAV/CR framework</li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/page/Core_Data" id="link-id11111838">Core Data Services </a>- Mac OS X based EAV/CR framework that evolved from NeXT's <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Enterprise_Objects_Framework" id="link-id15c27df0">Enterprise Object Frameworks</a> (EOF).</li> </ul> <p>The frameworks above provide the basis for a revised AVF pyramid, as depicted below, that reflects today's data access and management realities i.e., an Internet & Web driven global village comprised of interlinked distributed data objects, compatible with "Open World" assumptions.</p> <div> <image src="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/images/New_EAV_RDBMS_Pyramid.png"></image> </div> <h3>Related</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="http://allanslibrary.blogspot.com/2009/06/semantic-way.html" id="link-id0xb8c5e498">The Semantic Way</a> - Alan Cho's Summary of <a href="http://www.pwc.com/extweb/home.nsf/docid/1308AF8EA7929CCA852575BA00720F26" id="link-id0xb80f5e10">PwC 2009 tech forecast report on the Semantic Web</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/is_the_relational_database_doomed.php" id="link-id0xb8c20658">Is the RDBMS Doomed</a> - <a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com">ReadWriteWeb</a> Article</li> <li> <a href="http://www.metabrew.com/article/anti-rdbms-a-list-of-distributed-key-value-stores/" id="link-id0x1ab4778">Anti-RDBMS: a list of Distributed Key-Value Stores</a> - by <a href="http://www.last.fm/user/RJ" id="link-id0x5a968060">Richard Jones</a> (CTO Last.FM)</li> <li> <a href="http://dynamicorange.com/2009/01/22/blueblog-how-and-why-glue-is-using-amazon-simpledb-instead-of-a-relational-database/" id="link-id15e07c10">How & Why Glue is Using Amazon SimpleDB</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/clamen/OODBMS/Manifesto/htManifesto/node4.html#SECTION00022000000000000000" id="link-id116cf450">Object Database Manifesto (Identity excerpt)</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.unixspace.com/context/databases.html" id="link-id150b2c20">Database Models Overview</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEj9vqVvHPc&feature=related" id="link-id0x66b0850">Ted Nelson Explaining Irregularity and Idiosyncrasy of Data Structures</a> - ZigZag Demo </li> </ul>
The Time for RDBMS Primacy Downgrade is Nigh!
2009-06-03T22:09:58Z
2009-06-03T18:09:58.000001-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1514
<p>I am pleased to announce the immediate availability of the <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VirtAdoNet35Provider" id="link-id142e7390">Virtuoso ADO.NET 3.5 data provider</a> for Microsoft's .NET platform.</p> <h3>What is it?</h3> <p>A data access driver/provider that provides conceptual <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id11c36c00">entity</a> oriented access to <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Relational_database_management_system" id="link-id12fb8618">RDBMS</a> data managed by Virtuoso. Naturally, it also uses Virtuoso's in-built virtual / <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/federated_database_system" id="link-id115bedc8">federated database</a> layer to provide access to <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Open_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id15153c08">ODBC</a> and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Java_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id13418908">JDBC</a> accessible RDBMS engines such as: <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Oracle_Database" id="link-id134d72f0">Oracle</a> (7.x to latest), <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SQL" id="link-id15757b88">SQL</a> Server (4.2 to latest), <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Sybase" id="link-id15ef8d48">Sybase</a>, IBM <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/IBM_Informix" id="link-id12f56aa0">Informix</a> (5.x to latest), IBM <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/IBM_DB2" id="link-id119feb38">DB2</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Ingres" id="link-id14e3d6c8">Ingres</a> (6.x to latest), Progress (7.x to OpenEdge), <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/MySQL" id="link-id11295630">MySQL</a>, PostgreSQL, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Firebird_database_server" id="link-id12f40448">Firebird</a>, and others using our ODBC or JDBC bridge drivers.</p> <h3>Benefits?</h3> <h4>Technical:</h4> <p>It delivers an <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity-attribute-value_model" id="link-id14012040">Entity-Attribute-Value + Classes & Relationships model</a> over disparate data sources that are materialized as .NET Entity Framework Objects, which are then consumable via ADO.NET Data Object Services, LINQ for Entities, and other ADO.NET data consumers.</p> <p>The provider is fully integrated into Visual Studio 2008 and delivers the same "ease of use" offered by Microsoft's own SQL Server provider, but across Virtuoso, Oracle, Sybase, DB2, Informix, Ingres, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Progress_4GL" id="link-id158d1fe8">Progress (OpenEdge</a>), MySQL, PostgreSQL, Firebird, and others. The same benefits also apply uniformly to Entity Frameworks compatibility.</p> <p> Bearing in mind that Virtuoso is a multi-model (hybrid) data manager, this also implies that you can use .NET Entity Frameworks against all data managed by Virtuoso. Remember, Virtuoso's SQL channel is a conduit to Virtuoso's core; thus, RDF (courtesy of <a href="http://esw.w3.org/topic/SPASQL" id="link-id133c9b70">SPASQL</a> as already implemented re. <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VirtJenaProvider" id="link-id11380b80">Jena</a>/<a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VirtSesame2Provider" id="link-id10fc0c88">Sesame</a>/<a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VirtRDFDriverRedland" id="link-id1390f730">Redland</a> providers), XML, and other data forms stored in Virtuoso also become accessible via .NET's Entity Frameworks.</p> <br /> <h4>Strategic:</h4> <p>You can choose which entity oriented data access model works best for you: RDF <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id151354f0">Linked Data</a> & <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id15dc5eb0">SPARQL</a> or .NET Entity Frameworks & <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADO.NET_Entity_Framework#Entity_SQL" id="link-id14404e80">Entity SQL</a>. Either way, Virtuoso delivers a commercial grade, high-performance, secure, and scalable solution.</p> <br /> <h3>How do I use it?</h3> Simply follow one of guides below: <ul> <li> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VirtEntityFrameworkSchoolDbWinFormApp" id="link-id15e5c580">Using Visual Studio 2008 & Virtuoso to build an Entity Frameworks based Windows forms application</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VirtUsingMsAdoNetDataServicesWithVirtuoso" id="link-id157912b0">Using Visual Studio 2008 & Virtuoso to build an ADO.NET Data Services based application</a> </li> </ul> <p> <b>Note:</b> When working with external or 3rd party databases, simply use the Virtuoso Conductor to link the external data source into Virtuoso. Once linked, the remote tables will simply be treated as though they are native Virtuoso tables leaving the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Virtual_Database" id="link-id15b04b18">virtual database</a> engine to handle the rest. This is similar to the role the Microsoft JET engine played in the early days of ODBC, so if you've ever linked an ODBC data source into Microsoft Access, you are ready to do the same using Virtuoso.</p> <h3>Related</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1420" id="link-id160afdd0">Entity Oriented Data Access</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1474" id="link-id113eeb50">Yoda & the Data FORCE.</a> </li> </ul>
New ADO.NET 3.x Provider for Virtuoso Released (Update 2)
2009-01-08T14:12:50Z
2009-01-08T09:12:50.000006-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1497
<p>I've just read <a href="http://www.redmonk.com/jgovernor/about/" id="link-id152d07f0">James Governor</a>'s insightful post titled: <a href="http://www.redmonk.com/jgovernor/2007/04/05/why-applications-are-like-fish-and-data-is-like-wine/" id="link-id14e9a200">Why Applications Are Like Fish and Data is Like Wine</a>, where he sums up the comparative value of applications (code containers) and data as follows:</p> <blockquote>"<cite>Only one improves with age. With apologies to the originator of the phrase - “Hardware is like fish, operating systems are like wine.</cite>”</blockquote> <p>Yes! Applications are like Fish and Data like Wine, which is basically what <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id115defd0">Linked Data</a> is fundamentally about, especially when you inject memes such as "<a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/cooluris/" id="link-id1438f878">Cool URIs</a>" into the mix. Remember, the essence of Linked Data is all about a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a> of Linked Data Objects endowed with <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Identity_(object-oriented_programming)" id="link-id114df410">Identifiers</a> that don't change i.e., they occupy one place in public (e.g. <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web" id="link-id1195e010">World Wide Web</a>) or private (your corporate <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Intranet" id="link-id1149f1b0">Intranet</a> or <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Extranet" id="link-id11927c80">Extranet</a>) networks, keeping the data that they expose relevant (as in fresh), accessible, and usable in many forms courtesy of the data access & representation dexterity that HTTP facilitates, when incorporated into object identifiers.</p> <p> Here is another excerpt from his post that rings true (amongst many others): </p> <blockquote> <cite>What am I talking about? Processes change, and need to change. Baking data into the application is a bad idea because the data can’t then be extended in useful, and “unexpected ways”. But not expecting corporate data to be used in new ways is kind of like not expecting the Spanish Inquisition. But… “NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition! Amongst our weaponry are such diverse elements as: fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.” (sounds like Enterprise Architecture ...).</cite> </blockquote> <h3>Related</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1482" id="link-id111b6618">Master Data Management & RDF based Linked Data</a> </li> </ul>
Cool URIs, Fish, and Wine
2009-01-23T22:22:00Z
2009-01-23T17:22:00.000005-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1489
<h3>What is it?</h3> <p>A pre-installed edition of <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com" id="link-id14bea838">Virtuoso</a> for Amazon's EC2 Cloud platform.</p> <h3>What does it offer?</h3> From a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a> Entrepreneur perspective it offers: <ol> <li> Low cost entry point to a game-changing Web 3.0+ (and beyond) platform that combines <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SQL" id="link-id11309b38">SQL</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Resource_Description_Framework" id="link-id135f7988">RDF</a>, XML, and Web Services functionality</li> <li> Flexible variable cost model (courtesy of <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/devpay/" id="link-id17941018">EC2 DevPay</a>) tightly bound to revenue generated by your services</li> <li> Delivers federated and/or centralized model flexibility for you SaaS based solutions</li> <li> Simple entry point for developing and deploying sophisticated database driven applications (SQL or RDF <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id14ea6b10">Linked Data Web</a> oriented)</li> <li> Complete framework for exploiting OpenID, OAuth (including Role enhancements) that simplifies exploitation of these vital Identity and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">Data</a> Access technologies</li> <li>Easily implement RDF Linked Data based Mail, Blogging, Wikis, Bookmarks, Calendaring, Discussion Forums, Tagging, Social-Networking as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Spaces" id="link-id11519928">Data Space</a> (data containers) features of your application or service offering</li> <li>Instant alleviation of challenges (e.g. service costs and agility) associated with <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/DataPortability" id="link-id111cb610">Data Portability</a> and Open Data Access across Web 2.0 data silos</li> <li> LDAP integration for <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Intranet" id="link-id114a8270">Intranet</a> / <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Extranet" id="link-id10fe4f08">Extranet</a> style applications.</li> </ol> <p>From the DBMS engine perspective it provides you with one or more pre-configured instances of Virtuoso that enable immediate exploitation of the following services:</p> <ol> <li> RDF Database (a Quad Store with <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id11911bf8">SPARQL</a> & SPARUL Language & Protocol support)</li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SQL" id="link-id110544c8">SQL</a> Database (with <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Open_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id1524c7d0">ODBC</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Java_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id14cfb658">JDBC</a>, OLE-DB, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/ADO.NET" id="link-id110ec6c8">ADO</a>.NET, and XMLA driver access)</li> <li>XML Database (XML Schema, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/XQuery" id="link-id10ebf218">XQuery</a>/<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/XPath" id="link-id142a7898">Xpath</a>, XSLT, Full Text Indexing)</li> <li>Full Text Indexing.</li> </ol> <p>From a Middleware perspective it provides:</p> <ol> <li> RDF Views (Wrappers / Semantic Covers) over SQL, XML, and other data sources accessible via SOAP or REST style Web Services</li> <li> Sponger Service for converting non RDF <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information" id="link-id11931c60">information</a> resources into RDF <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id118f7168">Linked Data</a> "on the fly" via a large collection of pre-installed RDFizer Cartridges.</li> </ol> <p>From the Web Server Platform perspective it provides an alternative to LAMP stack components such as <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/MySQL" id="link-id10f7b780">MySQL</a> and Apace by offering</p> <ol> <li> HTTP Web Server</li> <li> WebDAV Server</li> <li> Web <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Application_server" id="link-id1268daa8">Application Server</a> (includes <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/PHP" id="link-id1585d238">PHP</a> runtime hosting)</li> <li> SOAP or REST style Web Services Deployment</li> <li> RDF Linked Data Deployment</li> <li> SPARQL (SPARQL Query Language) and SPARUL (SPARQL Update Language) endpoints</li> <li>Virtuoso Hosted PHP packages for <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/MediaWiki" id="link-id15568818">MediaWiki</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Drupal" id="link-id110bd7a8">Drupal</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/WordPress" id="link-id10f66918">Wordpress</a>, and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/PhpBB" id="link-id13fda4d0">phpBB3</a> (just install the relevant Virtuoso Distro. Package). </li> </ol> <p>From the general System Administrator's perspective it provides:</p> <ol> <li> Online Backups (Backup Set dispatched to S3 buckets, FTP, or HTTP/WebDAV server locations)</li> <li>Synchronized Incremental Backups to Backup Set locations</li> <li>Backup Restore from Backup Set location (without exiting to EC2 shell).</li> </ol> <p>Higher level user oriented offerings include:</p> <ol> <li>OpenLink Data Explorer front-end for exploring the burgeoning Linked Data <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Giant_Global_Graph" id="link-id11646dc8">Web</a> </li> <li> Ajax based SPARQL Query Builder (iSPARQL) that enables SPARQL Query construction by Example</li> <li>Ajax based SQL Query Builder (QBE) that enables SQL Query construction by Example.</li> </ol> <p>For Web 2.0 / 3.0 users, developers, and entrepreneurs it offers it includes Distributed Collaboration Tools & Social Media realm functionality courtesy of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/OpenLink_Data_Spaces" id="link-id11009930">ODS</a> that includes:</p> <ol> <li> Point of presence on the Linked Data Web that meshes your Identity and your Data via URIs</li> <li> System generated Social Network Profile & Contact Data via <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Friend_of_a_friend" id="link-id1185a1c0">FOAF</a>?</li> <li> System generated <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SIOC" id="link-id14791890">SIOC</a> (Semantically Interconnected Online Community) <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Spaces" id="link-id1577cad8">Data Space</a> (that includes a Social Graph) exposing all your Web data in RDF Linked Data form</li> <li> System generated OpenID and automatic integration with FOAF</li> <li> Transparent Data Integration across Facebook, Digg, LinkedIn, FriendFeed, Twitter, and any other Web 2.0 data space equipped with RSS / Atom support and/or REST style Web Services</li> <li> In-built support for SyncML which enables data synchronization with Mobile Phones.</li> </ol> <h3>How Do I Get Going with It?</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/ODSInstallationEC2" id="link-id114e1600">Standard Installation Guide</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VirtEC2AMIDBpediaInstall" id="link-id110a98e8">Personal or Service Specific DBpedia Installation Guide</a> </li> </ul>
Introducing Virtuoso Universal Server (Cloud Edition) for Amazon EC2
2008-11-28T21:06:02Z
2008-11-28T16:06:02.000006-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1474
<p> The original <a href="http://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html" id="link-id13b25ba8">design document</a> (by <a href="http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/card#i" id="link-id181e4c70">TimBL</a>) that lead to the WWW (*an important read*) was very clear about the need to create an "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information" id="link-id10f23918">information</a> space" that connects heterogeneous <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">data</a> sources. Unfortunately, in trying to create a moniker to distinguish one aspect of the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a> (the Linked Document Web) from the part that was overlooked (the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id11096818">Linked Data</a> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Giant_Global_Graph" id="link-id1b9c6b98">Web</a>), we ended up with a project code name that's fundamentally a misnomer in the form of: "The <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id10ffe228">Semantic Web</a>".</p> <p> If we could just take "The Semantic Web" moniker for what it was -- a code name for an aspect of the Web -- and move on, things will get much clearer, fast!</p> <p> Basically, what is/was the "Semantic Web" should really have been code named: ("You" Oriented Data Access) as a play on: Yoda's appreciation of the FORCE (Fact ORiented Connected Entities) -- the power of inter galactic, interlinked, structured data, fashioned by the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web" id="link-id191b22e0">World Wide Web</a> courtesy of the HTTP protocol.</p> <div> <img src="http://motivationalspeaker1.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/yoda.jpg" /> </div> <p> As stated in a earlier post, the next phase of the Web is all about the magic of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id1a7395f0">entity</a> "You". The single most important item of reference to every Web user would be the Person Entity <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Identity_%28object-oriented_programming%29" id="link-id16ab9308">ID</a> (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-id1d403c88">URI</a>). Just by remembering your Entity ID, you will have intelligent pathways across, and into, the FORCE that the Linked Data Web delivers. The quality of the pathways and increased density of the FORCE are the keys to high <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1442" id="link-id1c549b28">SDQ</a> (tomorrows SEO). Thus, the SDQ of URIs will ultimately be the unit determinant of value to Web Users, along the following personal lines, hence the critical platform questions:</p> <ul> <li> Does your platform give <a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/person/kidehen#this" id="link-id175afe00">me</a> Identity (a URI) with high SDQ?</li> <li> Do the Data Source Names (URIs) in your Data Spaces deliver high SDQ?</li> </ul> <p> While most industry commentators continue to ponder and pontificate about what "The Semantic Web" is (unfortunately), the real thing (the "FORCE") is already here, and self-enhancing rapidly.</p> <p> Assuming we now accept the FORCE is simply an RDF based Linked Data moniker, and that RDF Linked Data is all about the Web as a structured database, we should start to move our attention over to practical exploitation of this burgeoning global database, and in doing so we should not discard <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Knowledge" id="link-id19e2c6e0">knowledge</a> from the past such as the many great examples available gratis from the Relational Database realm. For instance, we should start paying attention to the discovery, development, and deployment of high level tools such as query builders, report writers, and intelligence oriented analytic tools, none of which should -- at first point of interaction -- expose raw RDF or the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id117921f0">SPARQL</a> query language. Along similar lines of thinking, we also need development environments and frameworks that are counterparts to Visual Studio, ACCESS, File Maker, and the like.</p> <h3> Related</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1458" id="link-id1cec1a40">Numerati & The Magic of You!</a> </li> </ul>
YODA & the Data FORCE
2010-07-20T17:53:06Z
2010-07-20T13:53:06-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1457
<p>I just stumbled across an post from <a href="http://www.itbusinessedge.com" id="link-id10f82f50">ITBusines Edge</a> titled: <a href="http://www.itbusinessedge.com/item/?ci=48119" id="link-id10f37b90">How Semantic Technology Can Help Companies with Integration</a>. While reading the post I encountered the term: <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Master_Data_Management" id="link-id11055eb8">Master Data Manager (MDM)</a>, and wondered to myself, "what's that?" only to realize it's the very same thing I described as a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Federated_database_system" id="link-id13985af0">Data Virtualization</a> or <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Virtual_Database" id="link-id1167c720">Virtual Database technology</a> (circa. 1998).</p> <p>Now, if re-labeling can confuse <a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/person/kidehen#this" id="link-id14aaaaf0">me</a> when applied to a realm I've been intimately involved with for eons (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Internet" id="link-id112042f0">internet</a> time). I don't want to imagine what it does for others who aren't that intimately involved with the important data access and data integration realms. </p> <p>On the more refreshing side, the article does shed some light on the potency of RDF and OWL when applied to the construction of conceptual views of heterogeneous data sources.</p> <blockquote> <cite>"How do you know that data coming from one place calculates net revenue the same way that data coming from another place does? You’ve got people using the same term for different things and different terms for the same things. How do you reconcile all of that? That’s really what semantic integration is about." </cite> </blockquote> <p>BTW - I discovered this article via another titled: <a href="http://www.itbusinessedge.com/blogs/mia/?p=485" id="link-id11134098">Understanding Integration And How It Can Help with SOA</a>, that covers SOA and Integration matters. Again, in this piece I feel the gradual realization of the virtues that RDF, OWL, and RDF <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id11048740">Linked Data</a> bring to bear in the vital realm of data integration across heterogeneous data silos.</p> <h3>Conclusion</h3> <p>A number of events, at the micro and macro economic levels, are forcing attention back to the issue of productive use of existing IT resources. The trouble with the aforementioned quest is that it ultimately unveils the global IT affliction known as: heterogeneous data silos, and the challenges of pain alleviation, that have been ignored forever or approached inadequately as clearly shown by the rapid build up of SOA horror stories in the data integration realm.</p> <p>Data Integration via conceptualization of heterogenous data sources, that result in concrete conceptual layer data access and management, remains the greatest and most potent application of technologies associated with the "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id10fa5050">Semantic Web</a>" and/or "Linked Data" monikers.</p> <h3>Related</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/05/23/21FEinnovidehen_1.html" id="link-id118c9c00">InforWorld 2003 Innovator article</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2006/04/28.html" id="link-id11057298">2006 Podcast Interview with Jon Udell</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Enterprise_Information_Integration" id="link-id13f89030">Enterprise Information Integration</a> </li> <li>One of <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=data%20integration&type=text&output=html" id="link-id11048b98">several posts</a> about our <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com" id="link-id10fef0e0">Virtuoso</a> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Virtuoso_Universal_Server" id="link-id10e5a068">Universal Server</a> and <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1406" id="link-id111d5aa8">Conceptual Model based data integration</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/VOSHistory" id="link-id11020108">History of Virtuoso</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.mkbergman.com/me/" id="link-id1101e7b0">Mike Bergman</a>'s post titled: <a href="http://www.mkbergman.com/?p=459" id="link-id10fdb640">WOA: A New Enterprise Partner for Linked Data</a> </li> </ul>
The Trouble with Labels (Contd.): Data Integration & SOA
2008-10-12T22:54:22Z
2008-10-12T18:54:22-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1455
<p> The evolution of the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a> into a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/federated_database_system" id="link-id13d825f8">federated database</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information" id="link-id11821e18">information</a> space, and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Knowledge" id="link-id147f5d20">knowledge</a>-base hybrid continues at frenetic pace.</p> <p> As more <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id14a805a8">Linked Data</a> is injected into the Web from the <a href="http://community.linkeddata.org/dataspace/organization/lod#this" id="link-id114ebeb8">Linking Open Data community</a> and other initiatives, it's important to note that "Linked Data" is available in a variety of forms such as:</p> <ul> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">Data</a> Model Definition oriented Linked Data (aka. Data Dictionary)</li> <li> Data Model Instance Data (aka. Instance Data)</li> <li> Linked Data oriented solutions that leverage the smart data substrate that Models and Instance Data meshes deliver.</li> </ul> <p> Note: The common glue across the different types of Linked Data remains the commitment to data object (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id1103afe8">entity</a>) identification and access via de-referencable URIs (aka. record / entity level data source names).</p> <p> As stated in my recent post titled: <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id11743278">Semantic Web</a>: <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1444" id="link-id10f44ce0">Travails to Harmony Illustrated</a>. Harmonious intersections of instance data, data dictionaries (schemas, ontologies, rules etc.) provide a powerful substrate (smart data) for the development and deployment of "People" and/or "Machine" oriented solutions. Of course, others have commented on these matters and expressed similar views (see related section below).</p> <p> The clickable venn diagram below, provides a simple exploration path that exposes the linkage that already exists, across the different Linked Data types, within the burgeoning <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Giant_Global_Graph" id="link-id1132fe60">Linked Data Web</a>.</p> <div> <map name="LiveCloud"> <area coords="356,136,120" href="http://umbel.org/images/lod_constellation.html" shape="circle" /> <area coords="140,136,120" href="http://www4.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/bizer/pub/lod-datasets_2008-09-18.html" shape="circle" /> <area coords="248,280,120" href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/ClickableVirtSpongerCloud" shape="circle" /> </map> <img border="0" src="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/ldp_presentation/images/linked_data_people_schems_venn.png" usemap="#LiveCloud" /> </div> <h3> Related</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="http://jhingran.typepad.com/" id="link-id14aeb438">Anant Jingran</a>'s insightful <a href="http://intranet.usnet.private:8893/anant_jhingrans_musings/2008/08/future-of-database-research-is-excellent-but-what-is-the-future-of-data.html" id="link-id1158ca98">LDP Conference Trip report</a> </li> <li> Anant's recent post about the <a href="http://jhingran.typepad.com/anant_jhingrans_musings/2008/08/future-of-database-research-is-excellent-but-what-is-the-future-of-data.html" id="link-id1128fd78">future of Data</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.mkbergman.com/me/" id="link-id1114d330">Mike Bergman</a> - <a href="http://www.mkbergman.com/457/a-new-constellation-in-the-linking-open-data-lod-sky/" id="link-id114780f8">A New Constellation in the Linking Open Data (LOD) Sky</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://fgiasson.com/me/" id="link-id14aedaf0">Frederick Giasson</a> - <a href="http://fgiasson.com/blog/index.php/2008/09/04/exploding-dbpedias-domain-using-umbel" id="link-id12daa6d0">Exploding DBpedia Domain using UMBEL</a> </li> </ul>
State of the Linked Data Web
2010-03-28T22:25:19Z
2010-03-28T18:25:19-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1447
<p> In response to the "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id15971040">Semantic Web</a> Technology" application classification scheme espoused by <a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com" id="link-id16391540">ReadWriteWeb</a> (RWW), emphasized in the post titled: <a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/rdf_semantic_web_apps.php" id="link-id1157eaa0">Where are all the RDF-based Semantic Web Apps?</a>, here is my attempt to clarify and reintroduce what <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/organization/openlink#this" id="link-id15a43758">OpenLink Software</a> offers (today) in relation to Semantic Web technology. </p> <p> From the RWW Top-Down category, which I interpret as: technologies that produce RDF from non RDF <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">data</a> sources. Our product portfolio is comprised of the following; <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com" id="link-id14f05818">Virtuoso Universal Server</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/OpenLink_Data_Spaces" id="link-id162c8630">OpenLink Data Spaces</a>, <a href="http://oat.openlinksw.com" id="link-id134e1a00">OpenLink Ajax Toolkit</a>, and <a href="http://ode.openlinksw.com" id="link-id160b3bf8">OpenLink Data Explorer</a> (which includes ubiquity commands).</p> <h3>Virtuoso Universal Server functionality summary:</h3> <ol> <li>Generation of RDF <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id161d5f50">Linked Data</a> Views of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SQL" id="link-id161d5978">SQL</a>, XML, and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a> Services in general </li> <li>Deployment of RDF Linked Data </li> <li>"On the Fly" generation of RDF Linked Data from Document Web <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/webarch/" id="link-id178bbc08">information resources</a> (i.e. distillation of entities from their containers e.g. Web pages) via Cartridges / Drivers</li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id162c2118">SPARQL</a> query language support </li> <li>SPARQL extensions that bring SPARQL closer to SQL e.g Aggregates, Update, Insert, Delete Named Graph support (i.e. use of logical names to partition RDF data within Virtuoso's multi-model dbms engine) </li> <li>Inference Engine (currently in use re. <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/DBpedia" id="link-id14f563c0">DBpedia</a> via Yago and <a href="http://umbel.org/about/" id="link-id113273b8">UMBEL</a>)</li> <li>Host and exposes data from <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Drupal" id="link-id123d3bd8">Drupal</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/WordPress" id="link-id141adf40">Wordpress</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/MediaWiki" id="link-id1604b450">MediaWiki</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/PhpBB" id="link-id141013a8">phpBB3</a> as RDF Linked Data via in-built support for <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/PHP" id="link-id14661e58">PHP</a> runtime</li> <li> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/ODSInstallationEC2" id="link-id146c84d0">Available as an EC2 AMI</a> </li> <li>etc..</li> </ol> <h3>OpenLink Data Spaces functionality summary:</h3> <ol> <li>Simple mechanism for Linked Data <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Giant_Global_Graph" id="link-id15473770">Web</a> enabling yourself by giving you an <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/GetAPersonalURIIn5MinutesOrLess" id="link-id15f6d278">HTTP based User ID</a> (a de-referencable <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-id15aaeb68">URI</a>) that is linked to a <a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/person/kidehen" id="link-id15a7a840">FOAF based Profile page</a> and OpenID</li> <li>Binds all your data sources (blogs, wikis, bookmarks, photos, calendar items etc. ) to your URI so can "Find" things by only remembering your URI</li> <li>Makes your profile page and personal URI the focal point of Linked Data Web presence</li> <li>Delivers Data Portability (using data access by value or <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Reference_(computer_science)" id="link-id16212838">data access by reference</a>) across data silos (e.g. Web 2.0 style social networks)</li> <li>Allows you make annotations about anything in your own <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Spaces" id="link-id14668010">Data Space</a>(s) on the Web without exposure to RDF markup</li> <li>A Briefcase feature that provides a WebDAV driven RDF Linked Data variant of functionality seen in Mac OS X Spotlight and WinFS with the addition of SPARQL compliance</li> <li>Automatically generates <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/RDFa" id="link-id14691440">RDFa</a> in its (X)HTML pages</li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Blog" id="link-id14fae7b8">Blog</a>, Wiki, WebDAV File Server, Shared Bookmarks, Calendar, and other applications that look and feel like Web 2.0 counterparts but emitt RDF Linked Data amongst a plethora of data exchange formats</li> <li>Available as an EC2 AMI</li> <li>etc..</li> </ol> <h3>OpenLink Ajax Toolkit functionality summary:</h3> <ol> <li>Provides binding to SQL, RDF, XML, and Web Services via Ajax Database Connectivity Layer (you only need an <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Open_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id11550548">ODBC</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Java_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id13ae5f68">JDBC</a>, OLE-DB, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/ADO.NET" id="link-id162803e8">ADO</a>.NET, XMLA Driver, or Web Service on the backend for dynamic data access from Javascript)</li> <li>All controls are Ajax Database Connectivity bound (widgets get their data from Ajax Database Connectivity data sources)</li> <li>Bundled with Virtuoso and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/OpenLink_Data_Spaces" id="link-id161dfe90">ODS</a> installations.</li> <li>etc.</li> </ol> <h3>OpenLink Data Explorer functionality summary</h3> <ol> <li>Distills entities associated with information resource style containers (e.g. Web Pages or files) as RDF Linked Data</li> <li>Exposes the RDF based <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Resource_Description_Framework" id="link-id12a42ed8">Linked Data graph</a> associated with information resources (see the Linked Data behind Web pages)</li> <li>Ubiquity commands for invoking the above</li> <li>Available as a <a href="http://linkeddata.uriburner.com/ode" id="link-id15a0d2b0">Hosted Service</a> or <a href="http://ode.openlinksw.com" id="link-id138b9fa8">Firefox Extension</a> </li> <li>Bundled with Virtuoso and ODS installations</li> <li>etc.</li> </ol> <h3>Note:</h3> <p>Of course you could have simply looked up <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/organization/openlink" id="link-id14ef2c10">OpenLink Software's FOAF based Profile page</a> (*note the Linked Data Explorer tab*), or simply passed the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Friend_of_a_friend" id="link-id14cbf5c8">FOAF</a> profile page <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Locator" id="link-id16453e28">URL</a> to a Linked Data aware client application such as: <a href="http://linkeddata.uriburner.com/ode" id="link-id15a80500">OpenLink Data Explorer</a>, <a href="http://zitgist.com/about/" id="link-id1586a360">Zitgist</a> <a href="http://dataviewer.zitgist.com" id="link-id16249f60">Data Viewer</a>, <a href="http://beckr.org/marbles" id="link-id15993fb0">Marbles</a>, and <a href="http://dig.csail.mit.edu/2005/ajar/release/tabulator/0.8/tab.html" id="link-id14d63048">Tabulator</a>, and obtained information. Remember, <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/organization/openlink#this" id="link-id138ba838">OpenLink Software</a> is an <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id1173e120">Entity</a> of Type: <a href="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/Organization" id="link-id138b87b8">foaf:Organization</a>, on the burgeoning Linked Data Web :-)</p> <h3>Related</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/presentations/Creating_Deploying_Exploiting_Linked_Data2/Creating_Deploying_Exploiting_Linked_Data2_TimBL_v3.html" id="link-id163a0c88">Linked Data Planet Keynote</a> (RDFa based remix edition)</li> <li> <a href="http://semanticbusiness.blogspot.com/2008/09/report-on-cusp-global-review-of.html" id="link-id11471a40">On The Cusp: A Global Review of the Semantic Web Industry.</a> </li> </ul>
Where Are All the RDF-based Semantic Web Applications?
2008-10-02T19:27:41Z
2008-10-02T15:27:41-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1426
<p>Here is another "Linked Discourse" effort via a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Blog" id="link-id13edcda8">blog</a> post that attempts to add perspective to a developing <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a> based conversation. In this case, the conversation originates from <a href="http://geekaustin.org" id="link-id15a33728">Juan Sequeda</a>'s recent interview with <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/luxzia" id="link-id182a4a80">Jana Thompson</a> titled: <a href="http://geekaustin.org/2008/08/21/juan-sequeda-jana-thompson-necessity-semantic-web/" id="link-id146e1f40">Is the Semantic Web necessary (and feasible)?</a> </p> <blockquote> <cite>Jana: What are the benefits you see to the business community in adopting semantic technology? </cite> </blockquote> <p> <a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/person/kidehen#this" id="link-id1941e3b0">Me</a>: Exposure, exploitation, of untapped treasure trove of interlinked <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">data</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information" id="link-id13593fc0">information</a>, and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Knowledge" id="link-id1290c318">knowledge</a> across disparate IT infrastructure via conceptual entry points (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id107bad60">Entity</a> IDs / URIs / Data Source Names) that refer to as "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Context_%28language_use%29" id="link-id15fab9f8">Context</a> Lenses".</p> <br /> <blockquote> <cite> Jana: Do you think these benefits are great enough for businesses to adopt the changes?</cite> </blockquote> <p> <a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/person/kidehen#this" id="link-id0x584ffe0">Me</a>: Yes, infrastructural heterogeneity is a fact of corporate life (growth, mergers, acquisitions etc). Any technology that addresses these challenges is extremely important and valuable. Put differently, the opportunity costs associated with IT infrastructural heterogeneity remains high!</p> <br /> <blockquote> <cite>Jana: How large do you think this impact will actually be?</cite> </blockquote> <p>Me: Huge, enterprise have been aware of their data, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information" id="link-id0x1b8057b0">information</a>, and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Knowledge" id="link-id0x1b3e3760">knowledge</a> treasure troves etc. for eons. Tapping into these via a materialization of the "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information">information</a> at your fingertips" vision is something they've simply been waiting to pursue without any platform lock-in, for as long as I've been in this industry.</p> <br /> <blockquote> <cite>Jana: I’ve heard, from contacts in the Bay Area, that they are skeptical of how large this impact of semantic technology will actually be on the web itself, but that the best uses of the technology are for fields such as medical information, or as you mentioned, geo-spatial data.</cite> </blockquote> <p>Me: Unfortunately, those people aren't connecting the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id10a337d8">Semantic Web</a> and open access to heterogeneous data sources, or the intrinsic value of holistic exploration location of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id0xaa58c520">entity</a> based data networks (aka <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id188a1910">Linked Data</a>).</p> <br /> <blockquote> <cite> Jana: Are semantic technologies going to be part of the web because of people championing the cause or because it is actually a necessary step?</cite> </blockquote> <p>Me: <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id0x9eb9aca0">Linked Data</a> technology on the Web is a vital extension of the current Web. Semantic Technology without the "Web" component, or what I refer to as "Semantics Inside only" solutions, simply offer little or no value as Web enhancements based on their incongruence with the essence of the Web i.e., "Open Linkage" and no Silos! A nice looking Silo is still a Silo.</p> <br /> <blockquote> <cite>Jana: In the early days of the web, there was an explosion of new websites, due to the ease of learning HTML, from a business to a person to some crackpot talking about aliens. Even today, CSS and XHTML are not so difficult to learn that a determined person can’t learn them from W3C or other tutorials easily. If OWL becomes the norm for websites, what do you think the effects will be on the web? Do you think it is easy enough to learn that it will be readily adopted as part of the standard toolkit for web developers for businesses?</cite> </blockquote> <p>Me: Correction, learning HTML had nothing to do with the Web's success. The value proposition of the Web simply reached critical mass and you simply couldn't afford to not be part of it. The easiest route to joining the Web juggernaut was a Web Page hosted on a Web Site. The question right now is: what's the equivalent driver for the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data">Linked Data</a> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Giant_Global_Graph" id="link-id12e25c98">Web</a> bearing in mind the initial Web bootstrap. My answer is simply this: Open Data Access i.e., getting beyond the data silos that have inadvertently emerged from Web 2.0.</p> <br /> <blockquote> <cite> Jana: Following the same theme, do you think this will lead to an <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Internet" id="link-id17041398">internet</a> full of corporate-controlled websites, with sites only written by developers rather than individuals?</cite> </blockquote> <p> Me: Not at all, we will have an <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Internet" id="link-id0x16a4abe0">Internet</a> owned by it's participants i.e., You and the agents that work on your behalf.</p> <br /> <blockquote> <cite>Jana: So, you are imagining technologies such as <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Drupal" id="link-id107d1d70">Drupal</a> or <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/WordPress" id="link-id13f48db8">Wordpress</a>, that allow users to manage sites without a great deal of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Knowledge">knowledge</a> of the nuts and bolts of current web technologies?</cite> </blockquote> <p>Me: Not at all! I envisage simple forms that provide conduits to powerful meshes of interlinked data spaces associated with Web users.</p> <br /> <blockquote> <cite>Jana: Given all of the buzz, and my own familiarity with ontology, I am just very curious if the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id0x1955d360">semantic web</a> is truly necessary? </cite> </blockquote> <p>Me:This question is no different than saying: I hear the Web is becoming a Database, and I wonder if a Data Dictionary is necessary, or even if access to structured data is necessary. It's also akin to saying: I accept "Search" as my only mechanism for Web interaction even though in reality, I really want to be able to "Find" and "Process" relevant things at a quicker rate than I do today, relative to the amount of information, and information processing time, at my disposal.</p> <br /> <blockquote> <cite>Jana: Will it be worth it to most people to go away from the web in its current form, with keyword searches on sites like Google, to a richer and more interconnected internet with potentially better search technology?</cite> </blockquote> <p>Me: As stated above, we need to add "Find" to the portfolio of functions we seek to perform against the Web. "Finding" and "Searching" are mutually inclusive pursuits at different ends of an activity spectrum.</p> <br /> <blockquote> <cite>Jana: For our more technical readers, I have a few additional questions: If no standardization comes about for mapping relational databases to domain ontologies, how do you see that as influencing the decisions about adoption of semantic technology by businesses? After all, the success of technology often lives or dies on its ease of adoption.</cite> </blockquote> <p>Me: Standardization of<a href="http://esw.w3.org/topic/Rdb2RdfXG/StateOfTheArt" id="link-id10abbc30"> RDBMS to RDF Mapping</a> is not the critical success factor here (of course it would be nice). As stated earlier, the issue of data integration that arises from IT infrastructural heterogeneity has been with decision makers in the enterprise for ever. The problem is now seeping into the broader consumer realm via Web ubiquity. The mistakes made in the enterprise realm are now playing out in the consumer Web realm. In both realms the critical success factors are:</p> <ol> <li> Scalable productivity relative to exponential growth of data generated across Intranets, Extranets, and the Internet</li> <li>Concept based <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Context_%28language_use%29" id="link-id0x114e6888">Context</a> Lenses that transcend logical and physical data heterogeneity by putting dereferencable URIs in front of the Line of Business Application Data and/or Web Data Spaces such as Blogs, Wikis, Discussion Forums etc.).</li> </ol>
Is the Semantic Web necessary (and feasible)?
2008-08-29T15:08:12Z
2008-08-29T11:08:12.000002-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1424
<p>After reading <a href="http://blog.crunchbase.com/2008/08/26/building-a-semantic-web-interview-with-benjamin-nowack/" id="link-id16b8e0e0">Bengee's interview with CrunchBase</a>, I decided to knock up a quick interview remix as part of my usual attempt to add to the developing discourse.</p> <blockquote> <cite><a href="http://www.crunchbase.com/" id="link-id17c8e7b8">CrunchBase</a>: When we released the <a href="http://www.crunchbase.com/help/api" id="link-id16681f68">CrunchBase API</a>, you were one of the first developers to step up and quickly released a <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com's%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1395" id="link-id1016d5f0">CrunchBase Sponger Cartridge</a>. Can you explain what a CrunchBase Sponger Cartridge is?</cite> </blockquote> <blockquote> <a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/person/kidehen#this" id="link-id13243300">Me</a>: A Sponger Cartridge is a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">data</a> access driver for <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a> Resources that plugs into our <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com" id="link-id17042f08">Virtuoso</a> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Virtuoso_Universal_Server" id="link-id1399b588">Universal Server</a> (DBMS and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id137fd188">Linked Data</a> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Giant_Global_Graph" id="link-id100b23d8">Web</a> Server combo amongst other things). It uses the internal structure of a resource and/or a web service associated with a resource, to materialize an RDF based <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Resource_Description_Framework" id="link-id10418750">Linked Data graph</a> that essentially describes the resource via its properties (Attributes & Relationships). </blockquote> <br /> <img src="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/presentations/Creating_Deploying_Exploiting_Linked_Data2/images/ldp4.png" /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <blockquote> <cite>CrunchBase: And what inspired you to create it?</cite> </blockquote> <blockquote> <a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/person/kidehen#this" id="link-id12fa60c0">Me</a>: Bengee built a new space with your data, and we've built a space on the fly from your data which still resides in your domain. Either solution extols the virtues of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id101a8d28">Linked Data</a> i.e. the ability to explore relationships across data items with high degrees of serendipity (also colloquially known as: following-your-nose pattern in <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id14a3ff30">Semantic Web</a> circles).</blockquote> <blockquote> <a href="http://cb.semsol.org/" id="link-id182a0170">Bengee</a> posted a notice to the <a href="http://esw.w3.org/topic/SweoIG/TaskForces/CommunityProjects/LinkingOpenData" id="link-id131e8d10">Linking Open Data Community</a>'s public <a href="http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-lod/2008Jul/0110.html" id="link-id11dd0720">mailing list announcing his effort</a>. Bearing in mind the fact that we've been using <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen/?id=1144" id="link-id117cf6e8">middleware to mesh the realms of Web 2.0 and the Linked Data Web</a> for a while, it was a no-brainer to knock something up based on the conceptual similarities between <a href="http://wikicompany.org/wiki/Main_Page" id="link-id13b87a68">Wikicompany</a> and CrunchBase. In a sense, a quadrant of orthogonality is what immediately came to mind re. Wikicompany, CrunchBase, Bengee's RDFization efforts, and ours.</blockquote> <blockquote>Bengee created an RDF based <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id133c8fc8">Linked Data</a> warehouse based on the data exposed by your API, which is exposed via the <a href="http://cb.semsol.org/" id="link-id1826f928">Semantic CrunchBase</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Spaces" id="link-id102d8890">data space</a>. In our case we've taken the "RDFization on the fly" approach which produces a transient <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id16a0b8d0">Linked Data</a> View of the CrunchBase data exposed by your APIs. Our approach is in line with our world view: all resources on the Web are data sources, and the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id1668e6c8">Linked Data</a> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Giant_Global_Graph" id="link-id188e7da0">Web</a> is about incorporating HTTP into the naming scheme of these data sources so that the conventional <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Locator" id="link-id13490710">URL</a> based hyperlinking mechanism can be used to access a structured description of a resource, which is then transmitted using a range negotiable representation formats. In addition, based on the fact that we house and publish a lot of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id169aa568">Linked Data</a> on the Web (e.g. <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/DBpedia" id="link-id10af10e8">DBpedia</a>, <a href="http://www.pingthesemanticweb.com/about/" id="link-id10a2b710">PingTheSemanticWeb</a>, and others), we've also automatically meshed Crunchbase data with related data in <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/DBpedia" id="link-id1403cd40">DBpedia</a> and Wikicompany data.</blockquote> <br /> <blockquote> <cite>CrunchBase: Do you know of any apps that are using CrunchBase Cartridge to enhance their functionality?</cite> </blockquote> <blockquote> <a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/person/kidehen#this" id="link-id177d24c8">Me</a>: Yes, the <a href="http://ode.openlinksw.com" id="link-id10725ca0">OpenLink Data Explorer</a> which provides CrunchBase site visitors with the option to explore the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id17dedea8">Linked Data</a> in the CrunchBase <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Spaces" id="link-id13f02a00">data space</a>. It also allows them to "Mesh" (rather than "Mash") CrunchBase data with other <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id11fb3ba0">Linked Data</a> sources on the Web without writing a single line of code. </blockquote> <br /> <blockquote> <cite>CrunchBase: You have been immersed in the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id12e18a00">Semantic Web</a> movement for a while now. How did you first get interested in the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id15132110">Semantic Web</a>?</cite> </blockquote> <blockquote> <a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/person/kidehen#this" id="link-id0xddaa9c8">Me</a>: We saw the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id188b3330">Semantic Web</a> as a vehicle for standardizing conceptual views of heterogeneous data sources via <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Context_%28language_use%29" id="link-id10350978">context</a> lenses (URIs). In 1998 as part of our strategy to expand our business beyond the development and deployment of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Open_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id171d6798">ODBC</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Java_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id138120a0">JDBC</a>, and OLE-DB data providers, we decided to build a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Virtual_Database" id="link-id13ea6618">Virtual Database</a> Engine (see: <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VOSHistory" id="link-id11a4fa30">Virtuoso History</a>), and in doing so we sought a standards based mechanism for the conceptual output of the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Federated_database_system" id="link-id101a1248">data virtualization</a> effort. As of the time of the <a href="http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/Semantic.html" id="link-id18882cf8">seminal unveiling of the Semantic Web in 1998</a> we were clear about two things, in relation to the effects of the Web and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Internet" id="link-id12fa2c58">Internet</a> data management infrastructure inflections: 1) Existing DBMS technology had reached it limits 2) Web Servers would ultimately hit their functional limits. These fundamental realities compelled us to develop <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com" id="link-id102b09a0">Virtuoso</a> with an eye to leveraging the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id11984d98">Semantic Web</a> as a vehicle from completing its technical roadmap.</blockquote> <br /> <blockquote> <cite>CrunchBase: Can you put into layman’s terms exactly what RDF and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id1066dcf0">SPARQL</a> are and why they are important? Do they only matter for developers or will they extend past developers at some point and be used by website visitors as well?</cite> </blockquote> <blockquote>Me: RDF (Resource Description Framework) is a Graph based Data Model that facilitates resource description using the <a href="http://www.eslincanada.com/englishlesson2.html" id="link-id178b94a8">Subject, Predicate, and Object principle</a>. Associated with the core data model, as part of the overall framework, are a number of markup languages for expressing your descriptions (just as you express presentation markup semantics in HTML or document structure semantics in XML) that include: <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/RDFa" id="link-id188db0a8">RDFa</a> (simple extension of HTML markup for embedding descriptions of things in a page), N3 (a human friendly markup for describing resources), RDF/XML (a machine friendly markup for describing resources).</blockquote> <blockquote> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id188c2030">SPARQL</a> is the query language associated with the RDF Data Model, just as <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SQL" id="link-id13f0ffe0">SQL</a> is a query language associated with the Relational Database Model. Thus, when you have RDF based structured and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id166874d0">linked data</a> on the Web, you can query against Web using <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id1016cc98">SPARQL</a> just as you would against an <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Oracle_Database" id="link-id101c9708">Oracle</a>/<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SQL" id="link-id11cb0b18">SQL</a> Server/<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/IBM_DB2" id="link-id10760ec0">DB2</a>/<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/IBM_Informix" id="link-id1066c8c0">Informix</a>/<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Ingres" id="link-id18894f40">Ingres</a>/<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/MySQL" id="link-iddc9ebb0">MySQL</a>/etc.. DBMS using <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SQL" id="link-id1030d120">SQL</a>. That's it in a nutshell.</blockquote> <br /> <blockquote> <cite>CrunchBase: On your website you wrote that “RDF and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id168e9ad0">SPARQL</a> as productivity boosters in everyday web development”. Can you elaborate on why you believe that to be true?</cite> </blockquote> <blockquote>Me: I think the ability to discern a formal description of anything via its discrete properties is of immense value re. productivity, especially when the capability in question results in a graph of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id0x179f6328">Linked Data</a> that isn't confined to a specific host operating system, database engine, application or service, programming language, or development framework. RDF <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data">Linked Data</a> is about infrastructure for the true materialization of the "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information" id="link-id13e475b8">Information</a> at Your Fingertips" vision of yore. Even though it's taken the emergence of RDF Linked Data to make the aforementioned vision tractable, the comprehension of the vision's intrinsic value have been clear for a very long time. Most organizations and/or individuals are quite familiar with the adage: <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Knowledge" id="link-id13e38a30">Knowledge</a> is Power, well there isn't any <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Knowledge" id="link-id188b7348">knowledge</a> without accessible <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information" id="link-id140415d0">Information</a>, and there isn't any accessible <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information" id="link-id11a976e8">Information</a> without accessible Data. The Web has always be grounded in accessibility to data (albeit via compound container documents called Web Pages).</blockquote> <blockquote>Bottom line, RDF based Linked Data is about Open <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Reference_(computer_science)" id="link-id1206bfb8">Data access by reference</a> using URIs (HTTP based <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-idfaa6ce0">Entity</a> IDs / Data Object IDs / Data Source Names), and as I said earlier, the intrinsic value is pretty obvious bearing in mind the costs associated with integrating disparate and heterogeneous data sources -- across intranets, extranets, and the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Internet" id="link-id188ecc68">Internet</a>.</blockquote> <br /> <blockquote> <cite>CrunchBase: In his definition of Web 3.0, Nova Spivack proposes that the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id12e2d968">Semantic Web</a>, or Semanti<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/C_(programming_language)" id="link-id105744c0">c</a> Web technologies, will be force behind much of the innovation that will occur during Web 3.0. Do you agree with Nova Spivack? What role, if any, do you feel the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id13fa4218">Semantic Web</a> will play in Web 3.0?</cite> </blockquote> <blockquote>Me: I agree with Nova. But I see Web 3.0 as a phase within the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id188c9000">Semantic Web</a> innovation continuum. Web 3.0 exists because Web 2.0 exists. Both of these Web versions express usage and technology focus patterns. Web 2.0 is about the use of Open Source technologies to fashion Web Services that are ultimately used to drive proprietary Software as Service (SaaS) style solutions. Web 3.0 is about the use of "Smart Data Access" to fashion a new generation of Linked Data aware Web Services and solutions that exploit the federated nature of the Web to maximum effect; proprietary branding will simply be conveyed via quality of data (cleanliness, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Context_%28language_use%29" id="link-id188d2ef8">context</a> fidelity, and comprehension of privacy) exposed by URIs.</blockquote> <p>Here are some examples of the CrunchBase Linked Data <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Spaces" id="link-id122756f8">Space</a>, as projected via our CruncBase Sponger Cartridge:</p> <ol> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/rdfbrowser2/?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.crunchbase.com%2Fcompany%2Famazon" id="link-id13e0fd18">Amazon.com</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/rdfbrowser2/?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.crunchbase.com%2Fcompany%2Fmicrosoft" id="link-id13eef9e0">Microsoft</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/rdfbrowser2/?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.crunchbase.com%2Fcompany%2Fgoogle" id="link-id13fe47a0">Google</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/rdfbrowser2/?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.crunchbase.com%2Fcompany%2Fapple" id="link-id170c73b8">Apple</a> </li> </ol>
Crunchbase & Semantic Web Interview (Remix - Update 1)
2008-08-28T00:35:15Z
2008-08-27T20:35:15-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1415
<p> <a href="http://www.jasonkolb.com/" id="link-id13ba6d90">Jason Kolb</a> (who <a href="http://www.jasonkolb.com/weblog/2008/08/the-future-of-t.html" id="link-id1524e210">initially</a> nudged me to chime in), and then <a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/future_of_the_desktop.php" id="link-id13a182c0">ReadWriteWeb</a>, and of course <a href="http://www.twine.com/item/11bshgkbr-1k5/the-future-of-the-desktop" id="link-id13f1e1f0">Nova's Twine about the topic</a>, have collectively started an interesting discussion about <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a>.vNext (3.0 and beyond) under the heading: The Future of the Desktop.</p> <p>My contribution to the developing discourse takes the form of a Q&A session. I've taken the questions posed and provided answers that express my particular points of view: </p> <blockquote> <cite>Q: Is the desktop of the future going to just be a web-hosted version of the same old-fashioned desktop metaphors we have today?</cite> </blockquote> <blockquote>A: No, it's going to be a more <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/webarch/" id="link-id1524d4a0">Web Architecture</a> aware and compliant variant exposed by appropriate metaphors.</blockquote> <br /> <blockquote> <cite>Q: The desktop of the future is going to be a hosted web service</cite> </blockquote> <blockquote>A: A vessel for exploiting the virtues of the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id10827ad0">Linked Data</a> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Giant_Global_Graph" id="link-id155bc698">Web</a>.</blockquote> <br /> <blockquote> <cite>Q: The Browser is Going to Swallow Up the Desktop</cite> </blockquote> <blockquote>A: Literally, of course not! Metaphorically, of course! And then the Browser metaphor will decomposes into function specific bits of Web interaction amenable to orchestration by its users.</blockquote> <br /> <blockquote> <cite>Q: The focus of the desktop will shift from <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information" id="link-id1667e2e0">information</a> to attention</cite> </blockquote> <blockquote>A: No! <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Knowledge" id="link-id104bb9c8">Knowledge</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information" id="link-id1524dd48">Information</a>, and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">Data</a> sharing courtesy of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id10723640">Hyperdata</a> & Hypertext Linking.</blockquote> <br /> <blockquote> <cite>Q: Users are going to shift from acting as librarians to acting as daytraders</cite> </blockquote> <blockquote>A: They were Librarians at Web 1.0, Journalist at Web 2.0, and Analysts in Web 3.0 (i.e, analyze structured and interlinked data), and CEOs in Web 4.0 (i.e. get Agents to do stuff intelligently en route to making decisions).</blockquote> <blockquote> <br /> <cite>Q: The Webtop will be more social and will leverage and integrate collective intelligence</cite> </blockquote> <blockquote>A: The <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id13a01ed0">Linked Data</a> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Giant_Global_Graph" id="link-id106343a8">Web</a> vessel will only require you to fill in your profile (once) and then serendipitous discovery and meshing of relevant data will simply happen (the serendipity quotient will grow in line with <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id10560050">Linked Data</a> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Giant_Global_Graph" id="link-id100f4940">Web</a> density).</blockquote> <br /> <blockquote> <cite>Q: The desktop of the future is going to have powerful semantic search and social search capabilities built-in</cite> </blockquote> <blockquote>A: It is going to be able to "Find" rather than "Search" for stuff courtesy of the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id10a18a70">Linked Data</a> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Giant_Global_Graph" id="link-id10a976f0">Web</a>.</blockquote> <br /> <blockquote> <cite> Q: Interactive shared spaces will replace folders</cite> </blockquote> <blockquote>A: Data Spaces and their URIs (Data Source Names) replace everything. You simply choose the exploration metaphor that best suits you space interaction needs.</blockquote> <br /> <blockquote> <cite>Q: The Portable Desktop</cite> </blockquote> <blockquote>A: Ubiquitous Desktop i.e. do the same thing (all answers above) on any device connected to the Web.</blockquote> <br /> <blockquote> <cite>Q: The Smart Desktop</cite> </blockquote> <blockquote>A: Vessels with access to Smart Data (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id1666e4e8">Linked Data</a> + Action driven <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Context_%28language_use%29" id="link-id171d1ff0">Context</a> sprinklings).</blockquote> <br /> <blockquote> <cite>Q: Federated, open policies and permissions</cite> </blockquote> <blockquote>A: More federation for sure, XMPP will become a lot more important, and OAuth will enable resurgence of the federated aspects of the Web and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Internet" id="link-id100a66a8">Internet</a>.</blockquote> <br /> <blockquote> <cite>Q: The personal cloud</cite> </blockquote> <blockquote>A: <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/OpenLink_Data_Spaces" id="link-id104ba580">Personal Data Spaces</a> plugged into Clouds (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Intranet" id="link-id15bbb970">Intranet</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Extranet" id="link-id1026d6b0">Extranet</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Internet" id="link-id140508c8">Internet</a>).</blockquote> <br /> <blockquote> <cite>Q: The WebOS</cite> </blockquote> <blockquote>A: An operating system endowed with traditional Database and Host Operating system functionality such as: RDF Data Model, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-idd86f48">SPARQL</a> Query Language, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-id13f47268">URI</a> based <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointer" id="link-id1055bc78">Pointer mechanism</a>, and HTTP based message Bus.</blockquote> <br /> <blockquote> <cite>Q: Who is most likely to own the future desktop?</cite> </blockquote> <blockquote>A: You! And all you need is a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-id106b79e8">URI</a> (an ID or Data Source Name for "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id133c88a0">Entity</a> You") and a Profile Page (a place where "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id15fa8060">Entity</a> You" is Describe by You).</blockquote> <h3>One Last Thing</h3> <p>You can get a feel for the future desktop by <a href="http://ode.openlinksw.com/#Download" id="link-id165ec048">downloading</a> and then installing the <a href="http://ode.openlinksw.com/" id="link-id13baba38">OpenLink Data Explorer</a> plugin for Firefox, which allows you to switch viewing modes between Web Page and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id13f12410">Linked Data</a> behind the page. :-)</p> <h3>Related</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenLink_Data_Spaces" id="link-id12496e48">OpenLink Data Spaces</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/GetAPersonalURIIn5MinutesOrLess" id="link-id1027f060">Get Yourself a URI in 5 Minutes or Less</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/presentations/DataPortability_and_DataSpaces/DataPortability_and_DataSpaces.html" id="link-id10890f70">Linked Data Spaces & Data Portability</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/presentations/Creating_Deploying_Exploiting_Linked_Data2/Creating_Deploying_Exploiting_Linked_Data2_TimBL_v3.html" id="link-id137efdf8">Linked Data Conference Keynote</a> (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/RDFa" id="link-id1239d300">RDFa</a> based remix edition that includes vital bits from <a href="http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/card#i" id="link-id1317a048">TimBL</a>'s <a href="http://www.linkeddataplanet.com/" id="link-id165f57c8">Linked Data Planet presentation</a>).</li> </ul>
The Future of the Desktop
2008-08-21T19:59:25Z
2008-08-21T15:59:25.000001-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1413
<p>This post is in response to <a href="http://www.furia.com" id="link-id107907b8">Glenn McDonald</a>'s post titled: <a href="http://www.furia.com/page.cgi?type=log&id=308" id="link-id13dcf2d0">Whole Data</a>, where he highlights a number of issues relating to "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id1016c1f0">Semantic Web</a>" marketing communications and overall messaging, from his perspective.</p> <p> By coincidence, Glenn and I presented at this month's Cambridge <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-idd526f48">Semantic Web</a> Gathering.</p> <p>I've provided a dump of Glenn's issues and my responses below:</p> <h3>Issue - RDF</h3> <ul> <li>Ingenious <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">data</a> decomposition idea, but: </li> <li>too low-level; the assembly language of data, where we need Java or <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Ruby_programming_language" id="link-id103f3dd0">Ruby</a> </li> <li>"resource" is not the issue; there's no such thing as "metadata", it's all data; "meta" is a perspective </li> <li>lists need to be effortless, not painful and obscure </li> <li>nodes need to be represented, not just implied; they need types and literals in a more pervasive, integrated way. </li> </ul> <h4>Response:</h4> <p>RDF is a Graph based Data Model it stands for Resource Description Framework. The Metadata data angle comes from it's <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Meta_Content_Framework" id="link-id1690df60">Meta Content Framework (MCF)</a> origins. You can express and serialize data based on the RDF Data Model using: Turtle, N3, TriX, N-Triples, and RDF/XML.</p> <h3>Issue - <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id10234b38">SPARQL</a> (and Freebase's MQL)</h3> <p>These are just appeasement: <br />- old query paradigm: fishing in dark water with superstitiously tied lures; only works well in carefully stocked lakes <br />- we don't ask questions by defining answer shapes and then hoping they're dredged up whole.</p> <h4>Response:</h4> <p> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id16e45e50">SPARQL</a>, <a href="http://www.freebase.com/view/freebase/api" id="link-id13e7d468">MQL</a>, and <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb387145.aspx" id="link-id1516fbd8">Entity-SQL</a> are Graph Model oriented Query Languages. Query Languages always accompany Database Engines. <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SQL" id="link-id13f8c100">SQL</a> is the Relational Model equivalent. </p> <h3>Issue - <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id171dee68">Linked Data</a> </h3> <p>Noble attempt to ground the abstract, but: <br />- <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-id1576d5f8">URI</a> dereferencing/namespace/<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Open_world_assumption" id="link-id15f50180">open-world</a> issues focus too much technical attention on cross-source cases where the human issues dwarf the technical ones anyway <br />- <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Friend_of_a_friend" id="link-id105df458">FOAF</a> query over the people in this room? forget it. <br />- link asymmetry doesn't scale <br />- identity doesn't scale <br />- generating RDF from non-graph sources: more appeasement, right where the win from actually converting could be biggest! </p> <h4>Response:</h4> <p>Innovative use of HTTP to deliver "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Reference_%28computer_science%29" id="link-id13eeab20">Data Access by Reference</a>" to the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id13492610">Linked Data</a> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Giant_Global_Graph" id="link-id105dfc10">Web</a>.</p> <p>When you have a Data Model, Database Engine, and Query Language, the next thing you need is a Data Access mechanism that provides "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Reference_(computer_science)" id="link-id100ef2c0">Data Access by Reference</a>". <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Open_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id16692e88">ODBC</a> and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Java_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id1699b970">JDBC</a> (amongst others) provide "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Reference_(computer_science)" id="link-id16034b48">Data Access by Reference</a>" via Data Source Names. <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id16690118">Linked Data</a> is about the same thing (URIs are Data Source Names) with the following differences:</p> <ul> <li>Naming is scoped to the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id1195dc48">entity</a> level rather than container level</li> <li>HTTP's use within the data source naming scheme expands the referencability of the Named <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id10485760">Entity</a> Descriptions beyond traditional confines such as applications, operating systems, and database engines. </li> </ul> <h3> Issue - <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Giant_Global_Graph" id="link-id104684d0">Giant Global Graph</a> </h3> <p>Hugely motivating and powerful idea, worthy of a superhero (Graphius!), but: <br />- giant and global parts are too hard, and starting global makes every problem harder <br />- local projects become unmanageable in global <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Context_%28language_use%29" id="link-id12497088">context</a> (Cyc, Freebase data-modeling lists...). And my thus my plea, again. Forget "semantic" and "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">web</a>", let's fix the database tech first: <br />- node/arc data-model, path-based exploratory query-model <br />- data-graph applications built easily on top of this common model; building them has to be easy, because if it's hard, they'll be bad <br />- given good database tech, good web data-publishing tech will be trivial! <br />- given good tools for graphs, the problems of uniting them will be only as hard as they have to be.</p> <h4>Response:</h4> <p> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Giant_Global_Graph" id="link-id144466d8">Giant Global Graph</a> is just another moniker for a "Web of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id15c2c738">Linked Data</a>" or "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id14e73520">Linked Data</a> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Giant_Global_Graph" id="link-id10aef200">Web</a>".</p> <p>Multi-Model Database technology that meshes the best of the Graph & Relational Models exist. In a nutshell, this is what <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com" id="link-id13492e10">Virtuoso</a> is all about and it's existed for a very long time :-)</p> <p> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com" id="link-id105a4f58">Virtuoso</a> is also a Virtual DBMS engine (so you can see Heterogeneous Relational Data via Graph Model <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Context_%28language_use%29" id="link-id15845110">Context</a> Lenses). Naturally, it is also a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id109e2c78">Linked Data</a> Deployment platform (or <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id1086d650">Linked Data</a> Sever). </p> <p>The issue isn't the "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id107f1ba8">Semantic Web</a>" moniker per se., it's about how <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id0xba72818">Linked Data</a> (foundation layer of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id101dbf50">Semantic Web</a>) gets introduced to users. As I said during the MIT Gathering: "The Web is experienced via Web Browsers primarily, so any enhancement to the Web must be exposed via traditional Web Browsers", which is why we've opted to simply add "View <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data">Linked Data</a> Sources" to the existing set of common Browser options that includes:</p> <ol> <li>View page in rendered form (default)</li> <li>View page source (i.e., how you see the markup behind the page)</li> </ol> <p>By exposing the Linked Data <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Giant_Global_Graph" id="link-id15a04b70">Web</a> option as described above, you enable the Web user to knowingly transition from the traditional Rendered (X)HTML page view to the Linked Data View (i.e., structured data behind the page). This simple "User Interaction" tweak makes the notion of exploiting a Structured Web becomes somewhat clearer.</p> <p>The Linked Data <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Giant_Global_Graph" id="link-id10a187d0">Web</a> isn't a panacea. It's just an addition to the existing Web that enrichens the things you can do with the Web. It's predominance, like any application feature, will be subject to the degrees to which it delivers tangible value or matrializes internal and external opportunity costs.</p> <p>Note: The Web isn't ubiquitous today becuase all it's users groked HTML Markup. It's ubquitity is a function of opportunity costs: there simply came a point in the Web boostrap when nobody could afford the opportunity costs associated with being off the Web. The same thing will play out with Linked Data and the broader <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id10a97330">Semantic Web</a> vision.</p> <b>Links:</b> <ol> <li> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/presentations/Creating_Deploying_Exploiting_Linked_Data2/Creating_Deploying_Exploiting_Linked_Data2_TimBL_v3.html(15)" id="link-id137fc560">Linked Data Journey part of my Linked Data Planet Presentation Remix</a>(from slides 15 to 22 - which include bits from <a href="http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/card#i" id="link-id1048a968">TimBL</a>'s presentation)</li> <li> <a href="http://ode.openlinksw.com" id="link-id1667df98">OpenLink Data Explorer</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://ode.openlinksw.com/example.html" id="link-id137ee860">OpenLink Data Explorer Screenshots and examples</a>.</li> </ol>
Response to: Whole Data Post (Update 3)
2008-08-15T22:31:48Z
2008-08-15T18:31:48-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1408
<p>At OpenLink, we've been investigating <a href="http://code.google.com/p/linqtordf/" id="link-id1296eb18">LinqToRdf</a>, an exciting project from <a href="http://aabs.wordpress.com/" id="link-id13e860a8">Andrew Matthews</a> that seeks to expose the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id105d84f8">Semantic Web</a> technology space to the large community of .NET developers. </p> <p>The LinqToRdf project is about binding LINQ to RDF. It sits atop <a href="http://razor.occams.info/" id="link-id102e3b10">Joshua Tauberer</a>'s <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/C_(programming_language)" id="link-id1471b0d0">C</a># based <a href="http://razor.occams.info/code/semweb/" id="link-id14cb9030">Semantic Web/RDF library</a> which has been out there for a while and works across Microsoft .NET and it's open source variant "Mono".</p> <p>Historically, the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id13ee9f40">Semantic Web</a> realm has been dominated by RDF frameworks such as <a href="http://www.openrdf.org/" id="link-id109f8a68">Sesame</a>, <a href="http://jena.sourceforge.net/" id="link-id144c3210">Jena</a> and <a href="http://librdf.org/" id="link-id10600228">Redland</a>; which by their Open Source orientation, predominantly favor non-Windows platforms (Java and Linux). Conversely, Microsoft's .NET frameworks have sought to offer Conceptualization technology for heterogeneous Logical <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">Data</a> Sources via .NET's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADO.NET_Entity_Framework" id="link-id10726628">Entity Frameworks</a> and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/ADO.NET" id="link-id13e7edd8">ADO.NET</a>, but without any actual bindings to RDF. </p> <p>Interestingly, believe it or not, .NET already has a data query language that shares a number of similarities with <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id1042f480">SPARQL</a>, called <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id105a46b0">Entity</a>-<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SQL" id="link-id1041d2e8">SQL</a>, and a very innovative programming language called LINQ; that offers a blend of constructs for natural data access and manipulation across relational (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SQL" id="link-id139f5848">SQL</a>), hierarchical (XML), and graph (Object) models without the traditional object language->database impedance tensions of the past.</p> <p>With regards to all of the above, we've just released a mini white paper that covers the exploitation of <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/Whitepapers/html/linqtordf/linqtordf1.htm" id="link-id14b2f138">RDF-based Linked Data using .NET via LINQ</a>. The paper offers a an overview of LinqToRdf, plus enhancements we've contributed to the project (available in <a href="http://aabs.wordpress.com/2008/08/01/announcing-linqtordf-v08/" id="link-id101defa8">LinqToRdf v0.8</a>.). The paper includes real-world examples that tap into a MusicBrainz powered <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id101ffd18">Linked Data</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Spaces" id="link-id105cb858">Space</a>, the Music Ontology, the <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com" id="link-id13f55860">Virtuoso</a> RDF Quad Store, <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com" id="link-id12826718">Virtuoso</a> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/Whitepapers/html/VirtSpongerWhitePaper.html" id="link-id1030cb60">Sponger</a> Middleware, and our RDfization Cartridges for Musicbrainz. </p> Enjoy!
.NET, LINQ, and RDF based Linked Data (Update 2)
2008-08-08T12:54:01Z
2008-08-08T08:54:01.000002-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1387
<p>I've finally found a second to drop a note about my keynote.</p> <p>The keynote: <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/presentations/Creating_Deploying_Exploiting_Linked_Data2/Creating_Deploying_Exploiting_Linked_Data2.html" id="link-id103acfb8">Creating, Deploying, and Exploiting Linked Data</a>, sought to achieve the fundamental goal of: Demystify the concept of "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id107134e8">Linked Data</a>" using anecdotal material that resonates with enterprise decision makers.</p> <p>To my pleasure, 90% of the audience members confirmed familiarization with the "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">Data</a> Source Name" concept of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Open_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id106d97a8">Open Database Connectivity</a> (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Open_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id10956268">ODBC</a>). Thus, all I had to do was map "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id10a55728">Linked Data</a>" to <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Open_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id10e77210">ODBC</a>, and then unveil the fundamental add-ons that "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id10d1d290">Linked Data</a>" delivers:</p> <ul> <li>The ability to give database records names (Identifiers)</li> <li>The use of HTTP in the database record naming mechanism - which expands a named database record's reference scope via the expanse of the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a> (i.e HTTP based Identifiers called URIs).</li> </ul> <p>I believe a majority of attendees came to realize that the combination above injects a new Web interaction dynamic: access to "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Topic" id="link-id110978d0">Subject matter Concepts</a>" and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Named_entity_recognition" id="link-id10ea5160">Named Entities</a> contained within a page via HTTP base Data Source Names (URIs).</p> <p>BTW - My presentation is a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id109e5e30">Linked Data Space</a> in it's own right courtesy of the <a href="http://bibliontology.com/" id="link-id10e76d90">Bibliographic Ontology</a> (which provides slide show modeling) and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/RDFa" id="link-id10d48e40">RDFa</a> that allows me to embed annotations into my <a href="http://www.w3.org/Talks/Tools/Slidy/" id="link-id104be488">Slidy</a> based presentation :-)</p> <h3>Related</h3> <ul> <li> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/presentations/Creating_Deploying_Exploiting_Linked_Data2/Linked_Data_2008_keynote.ppt" id="link-id10a63640">PowerPoint</a> version of Presentation</li> <li> <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/rumito/linked-data-planet-key-note/" id="link-id103aaff8">Slideshare hosted </a>version</li> <li> <a href="http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/rumito-72460-linked-data-planet-key-note-2008-keynote-science-technology-ppt-powerpoint/" id="link-id10b97c68">Authorstream hosted </a>version</li> <li> <a href="http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=dc7jvc6m_1061gz888hdb" id="link-id10e01640">Google Docs hosted </a>version</li> </ul>
My Linked Data Planet Keynote (Updated with missing link)
2008-06-19T13:48:14Z
2008-06-19T09:48:14-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1386
<p>Yikes! I've just discovered that the final part of the semanticweb.com's interview with <a href="http://www.cs.umd.edu/~hendler/2003/foaf.rdf#jhendler" id="link-id10483c28">Jim Hendler</a> and I, includes critical paragraphs that omit my example links :-( As you can imagine, this is a quite excruciating, bearing in mind that "Literals" are of marginal value in a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id1418a578">Linked Data</a> world.</p> <p>Anyway, thanks to the Blogosphere, I can attempt to fix this problem myself -- via this post :-)</p> <p> <strong>Q. If you wanted to provide a bewildered but still curious novice a public example of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id107e67d0">Linked Data</a> at work in their everyday life, what would it be?</strong> </p> <p> <strong><a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/person/kidehen#this" id="link-id13851f80">Kingsley Idehen</a>:</strong> Any one of the following:</p> <p> <a href="http://community.linkeddata.org/dataspace/person/kidehen2" id="link-id144c84b0">My Linking Open Data community Profile Page</a> - the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id10339910">Linked Data</a> integration is exposed via the "Explore <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">Data</a>" Tab <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/rdfbrowser2/?uri%5B%5D=http%3A%2F%2Fmyopenlink.net%2Fdataspace%2Fkidehen&" id="link-id12116d10">My Linked Data Space</a> - viewed via OpenLink's AJAR (Asynchronous Javascript and RDF) based <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id10728ed0">Linked Data</a> Brower <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/rdfbrowser2/?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fmyopenlink.net%2Fdataspace%2Fkidehen%2Fcalendar%2FKingsley%2527s%2520Calendar" id="link-id144ef138">My Events Calendar Tag Cloud</a> - a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id0xb8fdf10">Linked Data</a> view of my Calendar Space using an RDF-aware browser In all cases, you have the ability to explore my data spaces by simply clicking on the links, which on the surface appear to be standard hypertext links, although in reality you are dealing with <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id142827a8">hyperdata</a> links (i.e., links to entities that result in the generation of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id144c8438">entity</a> description pages that expose <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id149c9cf8">entity</a> properties via <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id10551628">hyperdata</a> links). Thus, you have a single page that describes me in a very rich way since it encompasses all data associated with me, covering: personal profile, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Blog" id="link-id10ac5148">blog</a> posts, bookmarks, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Tag" id="link-id122ff4b0">tag</a> clouds, social networks etc.</p> <p> <strong>Q. What would you show the CEO or CTO of a company outside the tech industry?</strong> </p> <p> <strong><a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/person/kidehen#this" id="link-id106143a8">Kingsley Idehen</a>:</strong> A link to the <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/Northwind/Customer/ALFKI#this" id="link-id106144e0">Entity ALFKI</a>, from the popular Northwind Database associated with Microsoft Access and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SQL" id="link-id10ca6f68">SQL</a> Server database installations. This particular link exposes a typical enterprise <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Spaces" id="link-id14202348">data space</a> (orders, customers, employees, suppliers ...) in a single page. The <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id144e9070">hyperdata</a> links represent intricate data relationships common to most business systems that will ultimately seek to repurpose existing legacy data sources and SOA services as <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data">Linked Data</a>. Alternatively, I would show the same links via the <a href="http://dataviewer.zitgist.com/?uri=http%3A//demo.openlinksw.com/Northwind/Customer/ALFKI" id="link-id10e2e1d0">Zitgist Data Viewer</a> (another Linked Data-aware browser). In both cases, I am exploiting direct access to entities via HTTP due to the protocols incorporation into the Data Source Naming scheme.</p>
Missing Bits from semanticweb.com Interview
2008-06-13T13:01:40Z
2008-06-13T09:01:40.000003-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1384
<p>As I start my countdown to the upcoming <a href="http://www.linkeddataplanet.com" id="link-id106a81b8">Linked Data Planet conference</a>, here is the first of a series of posts geared towards showcasing practical use of the burgeoning <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Giant_Global_Graph" id="link-id109470d0">Linked Data Web</a>.</p> <p>First up, the Library of Congress, take a look at the following pages which are "Human" and machine based "User Agent" friendly:</p> <ul> <li> <a href="http://lcsh.info/sh85118553#concept" id="link-id102927f8">Science</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://lcsh.info/sh85062913#concept" id="link-id10f13820">Humanities</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://lcsh.info/sh85082139#concept" id="link-id10ca5c58">Mathematics</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://lcsh.info/sh85020816#concept" id="link-id1230aef8">Cataloging</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://lcsh.info/sh95000541#concept" id="link-id1110e140">World Wide Web</a> </li> </ul> <p>Key point: The pages above are served up in line with <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id102f96a8">Linked Data</a> deployment and publishing tenets espoused by the <a href="http://community.linkeddata.org/dataspace/organization/lod#this" id="link-id10685ed8">Linking Open Data Community</a> (<a href="http://community.linkeddata.org/dataspace/organization/lod#this" id="link-id103915b0">LOD</a>) which include (in my preferred terminology):</p> <ul> <li>Giving "Names" to things you observe (aka <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">Data</a> Source Names or "DSNs" for short)</li> <li>Use HTTP URLs in your data source naming scheme so that "access by reference" to your data sources exploits the expanse of the HTTP driven <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a> i.e make your DSNs "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id1071cb88">Linked Data Source Names</a>" (LDNS)</li> <li>Remember that Documents / Pages are compound in nature, and they aren't the only data sources we would want to name; a document's LDSN must be distinct from the LDSNs used for the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Topic" id="link-id10c020d0">subject matter concepts</a> and/or <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Named_entity_recognition" id="link-ide7a0a58">named entities</a> associated with a document </li> <li> Use the RDF Data Model to express structure within your data source(s)</li> <li>Use LDSNs when constructing statements/claims/assertions/records (triples) inside your structured data sources</li> <li> When publishing Web Pages related to your data sources; use at least one of the following to methods to guide user agents to data sources associated with your published page; the HTML <a href="http://blogs.usnet.private:8893/RPC2" id="link-id12326c48">LINK tag</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/RDFa" id="link-id10751788">RDFa</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/GRDDL" id="link-id1050e290">GRDDL</a>, or <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Content_negotiation" id="link-id12e930b0">Content Negotiation</a>. </li> </ul> <p>The items above are features that users and decision makers should start to hone into when seeking, and evaluating, platforms that facilitate cost-effective exploitation of the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id0x9dde928">Linked Data</a> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Giant_Global_Graph" id="link-id0x18c3b1c0">Web</a>.</p>
Linked Data in Action: Library of Congress
2008-06-11T17:16:31Z
2008-06-11T13:16:31.000010-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1364
<p> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Open_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id100eb550">ODBC</a> delivers open <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data" id="link-idffd2338">data</a> access (by reference) to a broad range of enterprise databases via a '<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/C_(programming_language)" id="link-id104fd1d8">C</a>' based API. Thanks to the <a href="http://www.iodbc.org" id="link-id104721b0">iODBC</a> and <a href="http://www.unixodbc.org" id="link-id10954990">unixODBC</a> projects, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Open_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id10494670">ODBC</a> is available across broad range of platforms beyond Windows.</p> <p> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Open_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id0xc900928">ODBC</a> identifies <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data" id="link-id10f82200">data</a> sources using <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data" id="link-id0xcaad080">Data</a> Source Names (DSNs). </p> <p> WODBC (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a> Open Database Connectivity) delivers open <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">data</a> access to Web Databases / Data Spaces. The Data Source Naming scheme: <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-id1009ce40">URI</a> or IRI, is <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Hypertext_Transfer_Protocol" id="link-id101fc1b0">HTTP</a> based thereby enabling data access by reference via the Web. </p> <p><a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Open_Database_Connectivity">ODBC</a> DSNs bind ODBC client applications to Tables, Views, Stored Procedures. </p> <p>WODBC DSNs bind you to a Data <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Spaces" id="link-id10182a88">Space</a> (e.g. my <a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/person/kidehen" id="link-id105a7858">FOAF based Profile Page</a> where you can use the "Explore Data Tab" to look around if you are a human visitor) or a specific <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id10bd8578">Entity</a> within a Data <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Spaces" id="link-id10780dc0">Space</a> (i.e <a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/person/kidehen#this" id="link-id10848e08">Person Entity Me</a>).</p> <p>ODBC Drivers are built using APIs (DBMS Call Level Interfaces) provided by DBMS vendors. Thus, a DBMS vendor can chose not to release an API, or do so selectivity, for competitive advantage or market disruption purposes (it's happened!).</p> <p>WODBC Drivers are also built using APIs (Web Services associated with a Web Data <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Spaces" id="link-id0xcbe6348">Space</a>). These drivers are also referred to as <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=rdf%20middleware&type=text&output=html" id="link-id16564058">RDF Middleware</a> or RDFizers. The "Web" component of WODBC ensures openness, you publish Data with URIs from your <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id1064a768">Linked Data</a> Server and that's it; your data <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Spaces">space</a> or specific data entities are live and accessible (by reference) over the Web!</p> <p>So we have come full circle (or cycle), the Web is becoming more of a structured database everyday! What's new is old, and what's old is new! </p> <p>Data Access is everything, without "Data" there is no <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information" id="link-id100a9de8">information</a> or <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Knowledge" id="link-id10bb67e8">knowledge</a>. Without "Data" there's not notion of vitality, purpose, or value.</p> <p>URIs make or break everything in the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id10a71638">Linked Data</a> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Giant_Global_Graph" id="link-id10494400">Web</a> just as ODBC DSNs do within the enterprise. </p> <p>I've deliberately left <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Java_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id10a05280">JDBC</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/ADO.NET" id="link-id104e4a70">ADO</a>.<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/ADO.NET" id="link-id10215668">NET</a>, and OLE-DB out of this piece due to their respective programming languages and frameworks specificity. None of these mechanisms match the platform availability breadth of ODBC.</p> <p>The Web as a true <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Model-view-controller" id="link-id108ee598">M</a>-<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Model-view-controller" id="link-id0xcda5e90">V</a>-C pattern is now crystalizing. The "M" (Model) component of M-V-C is finally rising to the realm of broad attention courtesy of the "<a href="http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html" id="link-id1024ff08">Linked Data" meme</a> and "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id1831b418">Semantic Web</a>" vision.</p> <p>By the way, M-V-C lines up nicely with Web 1.0 (Web Forms / Pages), Web 2.0 (Web Services based APIs), and Web 3.0 (Data Web, Web of Data, or <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id0xb6d0e90">Linked Data</a> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Giant_Global_Graph" id="link-id0xb22a158">Web</a>) :-)</p>
ODBC & WODBC Comparison
2008-05-20T19:46:11Z
2008-05-20T15:46:11-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1361
<p> <a href="http://blogs.talis.com/nodalities/2008/05/kingsley-idehen-talks-about-openlink-software-linked-data-and-the-semantic-web.php" id="link-id1036b118">My podcast interview</a> with <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/pau1mi11er" id="link-id1026ed10">Paul Miller</a> of <a href="http://www.talis.com" id="link-id12d210d8">Talis</a> is out. As I listened to the podcast (naturally awkward affair) I got a first hand sense of Paul's mastery of the art of interviewing, even when dealing with a fast talking <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data" id="link-id180e1208">data</a> blitzers like me. Personally, I think I still talk a little too fast (the Nigerian in me), especially when the subject matter hones right into the epicenter of my professional passions: Open <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data" id="link-id1737a258">Data</a> Access and Heterogeneous <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data" id="link-id180f0668">Data</a> Integration (aka. <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Virtual_Database" id="link-id10c62348">Virtual Database</a> Technology) -- so you may need to rewind every now and then during the interview :-)</p> <p>During this particular podcast interview, I deliberately wanted to have an conversation about the practical value of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id180c9f88">Linked Data</a>, rather than the technical innards. The fundamental utility of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id17387618">Linked Data</a> remains somewhat mercurial, and I am certainly hoping to do my bit at the upcoming <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id183ec288">Linked Data</a> Planet conference re. demonstrating and articulating <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id1401f250">linked data</a> value across the blurring realms of "the individual" and "the enterprise".</p> <p> <strong>Note to my old schoolmates on Facebook</strong>: when you listen to this podcast you will at least reconcile "Uyi Idehen" with "<a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/person/kidehen#this" id="link-id180a7060">Kingsley Idehen</a>". Unfortunately, Facebook refuses to let me Identify myself in the manner I choose. Ideally, I would like to have the name: "Kingsley (Uyi) Idehen" associated with my Facebook ID since this is the Identifier known to my personal network of friends, family, and old schoolmates. This Identity predicament is a long running Identity case study in the making.</p>
My Talis Podcast re. Semantic Web, Linked Data, and OpenLink Software
2008-05-16T16:53:49Z
2008-05-16T12:53:49.000002-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1334
<p> <a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/person/danieljohnlewis#this" id="link-id10820610">Daniel lewis</a> has penned a variation of post about <a href="http://vanirsystems.com/danielsblog/2008/04/10/simplified-adding-wordpress-blogs-into-the-linked-data-web-using-virtuoso/" id="link-id10827948">Linked Data enabling PHP applications</a> such as: <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/WordPress" id="link-id10426278">Wordpress</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/PhpBB" id="link-id13f431c0">phpBB3</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/MediaWiki" id="link-id10dd8760">MediaWiki</a> etc.</p> <p>Daniel simplifies my post by using diagrams to depict the different paths for <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/PHP" id="link-id10adcc08">PHP</a> based applications exposing <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id107b4e60">Linked Data</a> - especially those that already provide a significant amount of the content that drives <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web" id="link-id13b0ab48">Web</a> 2.0.</p> <p>If all the content in <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web" id="link-id0x1d499470">Web</a> 2.0 <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information" id="link-id12bd3b10">information</a> resources are distillable into discrete <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data" id="link-id10962060">data</a> objects endowed with <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Hypertext_Transfer_Protocol" id="link-id176a30e8">HTTP</a> based IDs (URIs), with zero "<a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=rdf%20tax&type=text&output=html" id="link-id1098bcd8">RDF handcrafting Tax</a>", what do we end up with? A <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Giant_Global_Graph" id="link-id1372ce88">Giant Global Graph</a> of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id0xa29f0658">Linked Data</a>; the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a> as a Database.</p> <p>So, what used to apply exclusively, within enterprise settings re. <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Oracle_Database" id="link-id12d91448">Oracle</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/IBM_DB2" id="link-id13dd27d8">DB2</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/IBM_Informix" id="link-id108e6b98">Informix</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Ingres" id="link-id13383708">Ingres</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Sybase" id="link-idfed8aa8">Sybase</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Microsoft_SQL_Server" id="link-id10b8b190">Microsoft SQL Server</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/MySQL" id="link-id13066ea8">MySQL</a>, PostrgeSQL, Progress Open Edge, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Firebird_database_server" id="link-id104f0a78">Firebird</a>, and others, now applies to the Web. The Web becomes the "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/federated_database_system" id="link-id105a5340">Distributed Database</a> Bus" that connects database records across disparate databases (or <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data" id="link-id0xc706c68">Data</a> Spaces). These databases manage and expose records that are remotely accessible "by reference" via <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Hypertext_Transfer_Protocol" id="link-id0x1c8f7fe0">HTTP</a>.</p> <p>As I've stated at every opportunity in the past, Web 2.0 is the greatest thing that every happened to the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id13d65278">Semantic Web</a> vision :-) Without the "<a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=Web%202.0%20%20conundrum&type=text&output=html" id="link-id100d16d0">Web 2.0 Data Silo Conundrum</a>" we wouldn't have the cry for "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">Data</a> Portability" that brings a lot of clarity to some fundamental Web 2.0 limitations that end-users ultimately find unacceptable.</p> <p> In the late '80s, the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SQL" id="link-idff4f0d0">SQL</a> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SQL_Access_Group" id="link-id138fbd40">Access Group</a> (now part of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/X/Open" id="link-id104ee010">X</a>/<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/X/Open" id="link-id0xac9eab8">Open</a>) addressed a similar problem with <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Relational_database_management_system" id="link-id106d2008">RDBMS</a> silos within the enterprise that lead to the SAG <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Call_Level_Interface" id="link-id105d45d0">CLI</a> which is exists today as Open Database Connectivity.</p> <p>In a sense we now have WODBC (Web Open Database Connectivity), comprised of Web Services based CLIs and/or traditional back-end DBMS CLIs (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Open_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id13f58708">ODBC</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Java_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id10aa81e0">JDBC</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/ADO.NET" id="link-id5fddb68">ADO</a>.<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/ADO.NET" id="link-id0x9f085a10">NET</a>, OLE-DB, or Native), Query Language (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id10adb5c8">SPARQL</a> Query Language), and a Wire Protocol (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Hypertext_Transfer_Protocol">HTTP</a> based <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-sparql-protocol/" id="link-id126fa068">SPARQL Protocol</a>) delivering Web infrastructure equivalents of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SQL" id="link-id0x1d0a5fc8">SQL</a> and RDA, but much better, and with much broader scope for delivering profound value due to the Web's inherent openness. Today's <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/PHP" id="link-id0xc88ed68">PHP</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Python_programming_language" id="link-id10a70530">Python</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Ruby_programming_language" id="link-id13d9da18">Ruby</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Tcl" id="link-id10a3c2a8">Tcl</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Perl" id="link-id13e1b6f0">Perl</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/ASP.NET" id="link-id10810388">ASP</a>.<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/ASP.NET" id="link-id0xa22ce378">NET</a> developer is the enterprise <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/4GL" id="link-id1396a500">4GL</a> developer of yore, without enterprise confinement. We could even be talking about <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/5GL" id="link-id1077f250">5GL</a> development once the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data">Linked Data</a> interaction is meshed with dynamic languages (delivering higher levels of abstraction at the language and data interaction levels). Even the underlying schemas and basic design will evolve from <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Closed_world_assumption" id="link-id10b280c8">Closed World</a> (solely) to a mesh of Closed & <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Open_world_assumption" id="link-id104b9978">Open World</a> view schemas.</p>
Linked Data enabling PHP Applications
2008-04-10T18:12:47Z
2008-04-10T14:12:47-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1333
<p> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/WordPress" id="link-id101103b0">Wordpress</a> is a Weblog platform comprised of the following: </p> <ol> <li>User Interface - <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/PHP" id="link-id107ba368">PHP</a> </li> <li>Application Logic - <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/PHP" id="link-id107066b8">PHP</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data" id="link-id13968340">Data</a> Storage (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SQL" id="link-id104c5350">SQL</a> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Relational_database_management_system" id="link-id1076d790">RDBMS</a>) - <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/MySQL" id="link-id109c4ea0">MySQL</a> via <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/PHP" id="link-id133af570">PHP</a>-<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/MySQL" id="link-idf0b03b0">MySQL</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Application_server" id="link-id13217630">Application Server</a> - <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Apache" id="link-id108219d8">Apache</a> </li> </ol> <p>In the form above (the norm), <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/WordPress" id="link-id105c6d88">Wordpress</a> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data" id="link-id104938f8">data</a> can be injected into the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id107a5f18">Linked Data</a> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web" id="link-id177329c0">Web</a> via RDFization middleware such as the<a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/Whitepapers/html/VirtSpongerWhitePaper.html" id="link-id10531b50">Virtuoso Sponger</a> (built into all <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com" id="link-id10d7e710">Virtuoso</a> instances) and <a href="http://triplr.org/" id="link-id107dcab8">Triplr</a>. The downside of this approach is that the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Blog" id="link-id1055ab68">blog</a> owner doesn't necessary possess full control over their contributions to the emerging <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Giant_Global_Graph" id="link-idfed0358">Giant Global Graph</a> or <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id10d70668">Linked Data</a>.</p> <p>Another route to <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id104c7f68">Linked Data</a> exposure is via <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com" id="link-id0xa255fb50">Virtuoso</a>'s Metaschema Language for producing <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Resource_Description_Framework" id="link-id10968388">RDF</a> Views over <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Open_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id13f594c8">ODBC</a>/<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Java_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id138f69a8">JDBC</a> accessible <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data" id="link-id1393c068">Data</a> Sources, that enables the following setup:</p> <ol> <li>User Interface - <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/PHP" id="link-id0x9fb9c478">PHP</a> </li> <li>Application Logic - PHP </li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data" id="link-id0xc605960">Data</a> Storage (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SQL" id="link-id0xc2be608">SQL</a> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Relational_database_management_system" id="link-id0xc7a28a8">RDBMS</a>) - <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/MySQL" id="link-id0xc7228f0">MySQL</a> via the PHP-MySQL <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">data</a> access interface </li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Virtual_Database" id="link-id134b1ee8">Virtual Database</a> linkage of MySQL Tables into Virtuoso </li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Resource_Description_Framework" id="link-idfe31548">RDF</a> View generated over the Virtual SQL Tables </li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Application_server" id="link-id0xb8dfa68">Application Server</a> - Virtuoso which provides <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id0xc149518">Linked Data</a> Deployment such that <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Resource_Description_Framework" id="link-id10ad9ca0">RDF</a> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data">Linked Data</a> is exposed when requested by <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web" id="link-idfd352e0">Web</a> User Agents.</li> </ol> <p>Alternatively, you can also exploit Virtuoso as the SQL DBMS, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Resource_Description_Framework" id="link-id0x9ec4f440">RDF</a> DBMS, Application Server, and Linked Data Deployment platform:</p> <ol> <li>User Interface - PHP </li> <li> Application Logic - PHP </li> <li>Data Storage (SQL RDBMS) - Virtuoso via PHP-<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Open_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id14197218">ODBC</a> data access interface (* <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Open_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id103d1a80">ODBC</a> is Virtuoso's native SQL CLI/API *) </li> <li><a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Resource_Description_Framework">RDF</a> View generated over the Native SQL Tables </li> <li>Application Server - Virtuoso which provides Linked Data Deployment such that RDF Linked Data is exposed when requested by <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web" id="link-id13918d68">Web</a> User Agents (e.g. <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/rdfbrowser" id="link-idff835f0">OpenLink RDF Browser</a>, <a href="http://zitgist.com/about/" id="link-id1372e510">Zitgist</a> <a href="http://dataviewer.zitgist.com" id="link-id109c3048">Data Viewer</a>, <a href="http://www4.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/rdf_browser" id="link-id105d97f0">DISCO Hyperdata Browser</a>, and <a href="http://dig.csail.mit.edu/2005/ajar/release/tabulator/0.8/tab.html" id="link-id10cc20d8">Tabulator</a>). </li> </ol> <h2 align="left">Benefits?</h2> <ul> <li>Each user account gets a proper Linked Data <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-id108c92b0">URI</a> (ID) that can me meshed/smushed with other IDs (so you add data from this new <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Blog" id="link-idfd39648">blog</a> space to other linked data sources associated with you other URIs/IDs) </li> <li>Each post gets a proper <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-id10add540">URI</a> All data is now query-able via <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id101b98f0">SPARQL</a> Discoverability increases exponentially (without drop in relevance in either direction i.e. discovering or being discovered)</li> </ul> <p>How Do I map the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/WordPress" id="link-id12e448c0">WordPress</a> SQL Schema to RDF using Virtuoso? </p> <ul> <li>Determine the RDF Schema or Ontologies that define the Classes for which you will be producing instance data (e.g. SIOC and FOAF) </li> <li>Declare <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-idfaf5c80">URI</a>/IRI generator functions (*special Virtuoso functions*) </li> <li>Use <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id100436b8">SPARQL</a> Graph patterns to apply <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-id0x9de74950">URI</a>/IRI generator functions to Tables, Views, Table Values mode Stored Procedures, Query Resultsets as part of RDBMS to RDF mapping </li> </ul> <p> Read the <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/dav/wiki/Main/VOSSQL2RDF" id="link-idfaf5d58">Meta Schema Language guide</a> or simply apply our "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/WordPress" id="link-id0x9ef73c78">WordPress</a> SQL Schema to RDF" script to your Virtuoso hosted instance. Of course, there are other mappings that cover other PHP applications deployed via Virtuoso:</p> <ul> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/PhpBB" id="link-id179f4870">phpBB3</a> SQL Schema to RDF </li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Drupal" id="link-id10b263d8">Drupal</a> SQL Schema to RDF </li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/MediaWiki" id="link-id10263a40">MediaWiki</a> SQL Schema to RDF </li> </ul> <h2>Live Demos?</h2> <ul> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/phpBB3" id="link-id17761e88">Virtuoso Hosting phpBB3</a> (<a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/phpBB3/user/demo#this" id="link-id10087e68">example User URI</a>)</li> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/drupal" id="link-id1091f1d8">Virtuoso Hosting Drupal</a> (<a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/drupal/user/demo#this" id="link-id13e3d468">example User URI</a>)</li> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/mediawiki" id="link-id10531be0">Virtuoso Hosting MediaWiki</a> (<a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/mediawiki/user/KingsleyIdehen#this" id="link-id109c5d40">example User URI</a>)</li> </ul>
Adding Wordpress Blogs into the Linked Data Web using Virtuoso
2008-04-10T16:33:05Z
2008-04-10T12:33:05.000003-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1329
<p>For all the one-way feed consumers and aggregators, and readers of the original post, here is a variant equipped hyperlinked phrases as opposed to words. As I stated in the prior post, the post (like most of my posts) was part experiment / dog-fodding of automatic tagging and hyper-linking functionality in <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/OpenLink_Data_Spaces" id="link-id0x194f56f0">OpenLink Data Spaces</a>. </p> <p> <a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com" id="link-id0x1bddde00">ReadWriteWeb</a> via <a href="http://alexiskold.wordpress.com/" id="link-id154ae848">Alex Iskold's post</a> have delivered another iteration of their "Guide to Semantic Technologies". </p> <p>If you look at the title of this post (and <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/%7Er/readwriteweb/%7E3/257943334/semantic_web_patterns.php" id="link-id10a9a900">their article</a>) they seem to be accurately providing a guide to Semantic Technologies, so no qualms there. If on the other hand, this is supposed to he a guide to the "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id0x15ccef28">Semantic Web</a>" as prescribed by <a href="http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/card#i" id="link-id0xb94a2d40">TimBL</a> then they are completely missing the essence of the whole subject, and demonstrably so I may add, since the entities: "<a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com">ReadWriteWeb</a>" and "<a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/iskold" id="link-id0x19960308">Alex Iskold</a>" are only describable today via the attributes of the documents they publish i.e their respective blogs and hosted <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Blog" id="link-id0x1a719968">blog</a> posts.</p> <blockquote> <p>Preoccupation with Literal objects as describe above, implies we can only take what "ReadWriteWeb" and "<a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/iskold">Alex Iskold</a>" say "Literally" (<a href="http://dbpedia/resource/Grep" id="link-id0xbc8568f8">grep</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/regular_expression" id="link-id0x1d915e70">regex</a>, and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/XPath" id="link-id0xbc617820">XPath</a>/<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/XQuery" id="link-id0x150e1c50">Xquery</a> are the only tools for searching deeper in this Literal realm), we have no sense of what makes them tick or where they come from, no history (bar "About Page" blurb), no <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">data</a> connections beyond anchored text (more pointers to opaque data sources) in post and blogrolls. The only connection between this post and them is the my deliberate use of the same literal text in the Title of this post.</p> </blockquote> <p><a href="http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/card#i">TimBL</a>'s vision as espoused via the "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web">Semantic Web</a>" vision is about the production, consumption, and sharing of Data Objects via HTTP based Identifiers called URIs/IRIs (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id0xb867ced0">Hyperdata</a> Links / <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id0x3c8f438">Linked Data</a>). It's how we use the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a> as a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/federated_database_system" id="link-id0xbcb04f20">Distributed Database</a> where (as <a href="http://www.cs.umd.edu/~hendler/2003/foaf.rdf#jhendler" id="link-id0xb8595f18">Jim Hendler</a> once stated with immense clarity): I can point to records (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id0xbc9c8ab8">entity</a> instances) in your database (aka <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Spaces" id="link-id0x3b911c0">Data Space</a>) from mine. Which is to say that if we can all point to data entities/objects (not just data entities of type "Document") using these Location, Value, and Structure independent Object Identifiers (courtesy of HTTP) we end up with a much more powerful Web, and one that is closer to the "Federated and Open" nature of the Web.</p> <p>As I stated in a prior post, if you or your platform of choice aren't producing de-referencable URIs for your data objects, you may be Semantic (this data model predates the Web), but there is no "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web" id="link-id0xbcb968b0">World Wide Web</a>" in what you are doing.</p> <h2>What are the Benefits of the Semantic Web?</h2> <ul> <strong>Consumer</strong> - "Discovery of relevant things" and be being "Discovered by relevant things" (people, places, events, and other things)</ul> <ul> <strong>Enterprise</strong> - ditto plus the addition of enterprise domain specific things such as market opportunities, product portfolios, human resources, partners, customers, competitors, co-opetitors, acquisition targets, new regulation etc..)</ul> <h2>Simple demo:</h2> <blockquote> <p>I am a <a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/person/kidehen#this" id="link-id0x150661b0">Kingsley Idehen</a>, a Person who authors <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen" id="link-id0x3b956d0">this weblog</a>. I also share bookmarks gathered over the years across an array of subjects via <a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/kidehen/bookmark/KingsleyBookmarks" id="link-id0x164fecb0">my bookmark data space</a>. I also subscribe to a number of RSS/Atom/RDF feeds, which I share via my feeds subscription data <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Spaces">space</a>. Of course, all of these data sources have Tags which are collectively exposed via my <a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/kidehen/weblog/MyBlogDataSpace/tagcloud" id="link-id0x15188c50">weblog tag-cloud</a>, feeds subscriptions <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Tag" id="link-id0x5f38b98">tag</a>-cloud, and <a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/kidehen/bookmark/KingsleyBookmarks/tagcloud" id="link-id0xb93c2a50">bookmarks tag-cloud</a> data spaces.</p> <p>As I don't like repeating myself, and I hate wasting my time or the time of others, I simply share <a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/kidehen" id="link-id0x3aeba98">my Data Space</a> (a collection of all of my purpose specific data spaces) via the Web so that others (friends, family, employees, partners, customers, project collaborators, competitors, co-opetitors etc.) can can intentionally or serendipitously discover relevant data en route to creating new <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information" id="link-id0x14e35d78">information</a> (perspectives) that is hopefully exposed others via the Web.</p> </blockquote> <p>Bottom-line, the Semantic Web is about adding the missing "Open Data Access & Connectivity" feature to the current Document Web (we have to beyond <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/regular_expression">regex</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia/resource/Grep">grep</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/XPath">xpath</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/XQuery">xquery</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Full_text_search" id="link-id0x1c1bf9c8">full text search</a>, and other literal scrapping approaches). The <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data">Linked Data</a> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Giant_Global_Graph" id="link-id0x14c9e0e8">Web</a> of de-referencable data object URIs is the critical foundation layer that makes this feasible.</p> <p> Remember, It's not about "Applications" it's about Data and actually freeing Data from the "tyranny of Applications". Unfortunately, application inadvertently always create silos (esp. on the Web) since <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity">entity</a> data modeling, open data access, and other database technology realm matters, remain of secondary interest to many application developers.</p> <p>Final comment, RDF facilitates Linked Data on the Web, but all RDF isn't endowed with de-referencable URIs (a major source of confusion and misunderstanding). Thus, you can have RDF Data Source Providers that simply project RDF data silos via Web Services APIs if RDF output emanating from a Web Service doesn't provide out-bound pathways to other data via de-referencable URIs. Of course the same also applies to Widgets that present you with all the things they've discovered without exposing de-referencable URIs for each item.</p> <p>BTW - my final comments above aren't in anyway incongruent with devising successful business models for the Web. As you may or may not know, OpenLink is not only a major platform provider for the Semantic Web (expressed in our UDA, <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com" id="link-id0xb919b098">Virtuoso</a>, OpenLink Data Spaces, and OAT products), we are also actively seeding Semantic Web (tribe: Linked Data of course) startups. For instance, <a href="http://zitgist.com/about/" id="link-id0x1481b218">Zitgist</a>, which now has <a href="http://community.linkeddata.org/dataspace/person/mkbergman#this" id="link-id0xb869bb18">Mike Bergman</a> as it's CEO alongside <a href="http://fgiasson.com/me/" id="link-id0x1d18fe50">Frederick Giasson</a> as CTO. Of course, I cannot do <a href="http://zitgist.com/about/">Zitgist</a> justice via a footnote in a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Blog">blog</a> post, so I will expand further in a separate post.</p> <h2>Additional <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information">information</a> about this blog post: </h2> <ol> <li> I didn't spent hours looking for URIs used in my hyperlinks</li> <li> The post is best viewed via an RDF Linked Data aware user agents (<a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/rdfbrowser" id="link-id0x19af3468">OpenLink RDF Browser</a>, Zitgist <a href="http://dataviewer.zitgist.com" id="link-id0x13b17138">Data Viewer</a>, <a href="http://www4.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/rdf_browser" id="link-id0xbc8579e0">DISCO Hyperdata Browser</a>, <a href="http://dig.csail.mit.edu/2005/ajar/release/tabulator/0.8/tab.html" id="link-id0x18ad0ec8">Tabulator</a>).</li> </ol>
Semantic Web Patterns: A Guide to Semantic Technologies (Update 2)
2008-07-17T01:43:36Z
2008-07-16T21:43:36-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1328
<p> <a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com" id="link-id11846528">ReadWriteWeb</a> via <a href="http://alexiskold.wordpress.com/" id="link-id154ae848">Alex Iskold</a> have delivered another iteration of their "Guide to Semantic Technologies". </p> <p>If you look at the title of this post (and <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/%7Er/readwriteweb/%7E3/257943334/semantic_web_patterns.php" id="link-id10a9a900">their article</a>) they seem to be accurately providing a guide to Semantic Technologies, so no qualms there. If on the other hand, this is supposed to he a guide to the "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id0xbcb19320">Semantic Web</a>" as prescribed by <a href="http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/card#i" id="link-id0xb8725878">TimBL</a> then they are completely missing the essence of the whole subject, and demonstrably so I may add, since the entities: "<a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com" id="link-id0x16804040">ReadWriteWeb</a>" and "<a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/iskold" id="link-id0x13f08538">Alex Iskold</a>" are only describable today via the attributes of the documents they publish i.e their respective blogs and hosted <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Blog" id="link-id0x1850ca98">blog</a> posts. </p> <blockquote> <p>Preoccupation with Literal objects as describe above, implies we can only take what "<a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com">ReadWriteWeb</a>" and "<a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/iskold">Alex Iskold</a>" say "Literally" (<a href="http://dbpedia/resource/Grep" id="link-id0xb95a6a40">grep</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/regular_expression" id="link-id0x1a719968">regex</a>, and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/XPath" id="link-id0xb89d78b8">XPath</a>/<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/XQuery" id="link-id0x1bddde00">Xquery</a> are the only tools for searching deeper in this Literal realm), we have no sense of what makes them tick or where they come from, no history (bar "About Page" blurb), no <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">data</a> connections beyond anchored text (more pointers to opaque data sources) in post and blogrolls. The only connection between this post and them is the my deliberate use of the same literal text in the Title of this post.</p> </blockquote> <p><a href="http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/card#i">TimBL</a>'s vision as espoused via the "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web">Semantic Web</a>" vision is about the production, consumption, and sharing of Data Objects via HTTP based Identifiers called URIs/IRIs (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id0x150e7be0">Hyperdata</a> Links / <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id0x18e50818">Linked Data</a>). It's how we use the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a> as a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/federated_database_system" id="link-id0x194f56f0">Distributed Database</a> where (as <a href="http://www.cs.umd.edu/~hendler/2003/foaf.rdf#jhendler" id="link-id0x17043b38">Jim Hendler</a> once stated with immense clarity): I can point to records (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity" id="link-id0x1476f788">entity</a> instances) in your database (aka <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Spaces" id="link-id0x2621140">Data Space</a>) from mine. Which is to say that if we can all point to data entities/objects (not just data entities of type "Document") using these Location, Value, and Structure independent Object Identifiers (courtesy of HTTP) we end up with a much more powerful Web, and one that is closer to the "Federated and Open" nature of the Web.</p> <p>As I stated in a prior post, if you or your platform of choice aren't producing de-referencable URIs for your data objects, you may be Semantic (this data model predates the Web), but there is no "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web" id="link-id0xb860eec8">World Wide Web</a>" in what you are doing.</p> <h2>What are the Benefits of the Semantic Web?</h2> <ul> <strong>Consumer</strong> - "Discovery of relevant things" and be being "Discovered by relevant things" (people, places, events, and other things)</ul> <ul> <strong>Enterprise</strong> - ditto plus the addition of enterprise domain specific things such as market opportunities, product portfolios, human resources, partners, customers, competitors, co-opetitors, acquisition targets, new regulation etc..)</ul> <h2>Simple demo:</h2> <blockquote> <p>I am a <a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/person/kidehen#this" id="link-id0x15394798">Kingsley Idehen</a>, a Person who authors <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen" id="link-id0x2556670">this weblog</a>. I also share bookmarks gathered over the years across an array of subjects via <a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/kidehen/bookmark/KingsleyBookmarks" id="link-id0x142eaa10">my bookmark data space</a>. I also subscribe to a number of RSS/Atom/RDF feeds, which I share via my feeds subscription data <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Spaces">space</a>. Of course, all of these data sources have Tags which are collectively exposed via my <a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/kidehen/weblog/MyBlogDataSpace/tagcloud" id="link-id0x140b8050">weblog tag-cloud</a>, feeds subscriptions <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Tag" id="link-id0x15158d60">tag</a>-cloud, and <a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/kidehen/bookmark/KingsleyBookmarks/tagcloud" id="link-id0xb8652490">bookmarks tag-cloud</a> data spaces.</p> <p>As I don't like repeating myself, and I hate wasting my time or the time of others, I simply share <a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/kidehen" id="link-id0x13b63208">my Data Space</a> (a collection of all of my purpose specific data spaces) via the Web so that others (friends, family, employees, partners, customers, project collaborators, competitors, co-opetitors etc.) can can intentionally or serendipitously discover relevant data en route to creating new <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information" id="link-id0x14365150">information</a> (perspectives) that is hopefully exposed others via the Web.</p> </blockquote> <p>Bottom-line, the Semantic Web is about adding the missing "Open Data Access & Connectivity" feature to the current Document Web (we have to beyond <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/regular_expression">regex</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia/resource/Grep">grep</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/XPath">xpath</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/XQuery">xquery</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Full_text_search" id="link-id0x15ccef28">full text search</a>, and other literal scrapping approaches). The <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data">Linked Data</a> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Giant_Global_Graph" id="link-id0x1a2810b8">Web</a> of de-referencable data object URIs is the critical foundation layer that makes this feasible.</p> <p> Remember, It's not about "Applications" it's about Data and actually freeing Data from the "tyranny of Applications". Unfortunately, application inadvertently always create silos (esp. on the Web) since <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Entity">entity</a> data modeling, open data access, and other database technology realm matters, remain of secondary interest to many application developers.</p> <p>Final comment, RDF facilitates Linked Data on the Web, but all RDF isn't endowed with de-referencable URIs (a major source of confusion and misunderstanding). Thus, you can have RDF Data Source Providers that simply project RDF data silos via Web Services APIs if RDF output emanating from a Web Service doesn't provide out-bound pathways to other data via de-referencable URIs. Of course the same also applies to Widgets that present you with all the things they've discovered without exposing de-referencable URIs for each item.</p> <p>BTW - my final comments above aren't in anyway incongruent with devising successful business models for the Web. As you may or may not know, OpenLink is not only a major platform provider for the Semantic Web (expressed in our UDA, <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com" id="link-id0x19e44e80">Virtuoso</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/OpenLink_Data_Spaces" id="link-id0xb8637720">OpenLink Data Spaces</a>, and OAT products), we are also actively seeding Semantic Web (tribe: Linked Data of course) startups. For instance, <a href="http://zitgist.com/about/" id="link-id0x397b940">Zitgist</a>, which now has <a href="http://community.linkeddata.org/dataspace/person/mkbergman#this" id="link-id0x5fabcf0">Mike Bergman</a> as it's CEO alongside <a href="http://fgiasson.com/me/" id="link-id0xb84720f8">Frederick Giasson</a> as CTO. Of course, I cannot do <a href="http://zitgist.com/about/">Zitgist</a> justice via a footnote in a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Blog">blog</a> post, so I will expand further in a separate post.</p> <h2>Additional <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information">information</a> about this blog post:</h2> <ol> <li> I didn't spent hours looking for URIs used in my hyperlinks </li> <li> The post is best viewed via an RDF Linked Data aware user agents (<a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/rdfbrowser" id="link-id0x3ac1b68">OpenLink RDF Browser</a>, Zitgist <a href="http://dataviewer.zitgist.com" id="link-id0x1d8e7ec0">Data Viewer</a>, <a href="http://www4.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/rdf_browser" id="link-id0x19af3468">DISCO Hyperdata Browser</a>, <a href="http://dig.csail.mit.edu/2005/ajar/release/tabulator/0.8/tab.html" id="link-id0x1532e630">Tabulator</a>).</li> </ol>
Semantic Web Patterns: A Guide to Semantic Technologies (Update 1)
2008-07-17T01:43:04Z
2008-07-16T21:43:04-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1325
<p> <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/0/207/489" id="link-id10914030">John Schmidt</a>, from Informatica, penned an interesting post titled: <a href="http://blogs.informatica.com/enterprise_data_management/2008/03/it_doesnt_matter_integration_d.html" id="link-idd6d76d8">IT Doesn't Matter - Integration Does</a>. </p> <p>Yes, integration is hard, but I do profoundly believe that what's been happening on the Web over the last 10 or so years also applies to the Enterprise, and by this I absolutely do not mean "Enterprise 2.0" since "2.0" and productive agility do not compute in my realm of discourse. </p> <blockquote>large collections of RSS feeds, Wikiwords, Shared Bookmarks, Discussion Forums etc.. when disconnected at the data level (i.e. hosted in pages with no access to the "data behind") simply offer information deluge and inertia (there are only so many hours for processing opaque information sources in a given day).</blockquote> <p>Enterprises fundamentally need to process information efficiently as part of a perpetual assessment of their relative competitive Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SWOT_analysis" id="link-id10776fe8">SWOT</a>), in existing and/or future markets. Historically, IT acquisitions have run counter intuitively to the aforementioned quest for "Ability" due to the predominance of "rip and replace" approach technology acquisition that repeatedly creates and perpetuates information silos across Application, Database, Operating System, Development Environment boundaries. The sequence of events typically occurs as follows:</p> <ol> <li> applications are acquired on a problem by problem basis</li> <li>back-end application databases are discovered once ad-hoc information views are sought by <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information_worker" id="link-id10a111c8">information workers</a> </li> <li>back-end database disparity across applications is discovered once holistic views are sought by <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Knowledge_worker" id="link-id107997d8">knowledge workers</a> (typically <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Domain_expert" id="link-id102ddf08">domain experts</a>).</li> </ol> <p>In the early to mid 90's (pre ubiquitous Web), operating system, programming language, operating system, and development framework independence inside the enterprise was technically achievable via ODBC (due to it's platform independence). That said, DBMS specific <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Open_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id10889d20">ODBC</a> channels alone couldn't address the holistic requirements associated with Conceptual Views of disparate data sources, hence the need for Data Access Virtualization via <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Federated_database_system" id="link-id10884490">Virtual Database</a> Engine technology.</p> <p>Just as is the case on the Web today, with the emergence of the "Linked Data" meme, enterprises now have a powerful mechanism for exploiting the Data Integration benefits associated with generating Data Objects from disparate data sources, endowed with HTTP based IDs (URIs).</p> <p>Conceptualizing access to data exposed Databases APIs, SOA based Web Services (SOAP style Web Services), Web 2.0 APIs (REST style Web Services), XML Views of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SQL" id="link-id117f8a00">SQL</a> Data (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SQL/XML" id="link-id104bb730">SQLX</a>), pure XML etc.. is problem area addressed by RDF aware middleware (<a href="http://esw.w3.org/topic/ConverterToRdf" id="link-id10a9deb8">RDFizers</a> e.g <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/presentations/Virtuoso_Sponger_1/Virtuoso_Sponger_1.html" id="link-id10256fb0">Virtuoso Sponger</a>).</p> <img src="http://myopenlink.net:8890/%7Ekidehen/Public/images/URI_Data_Source_Pyra_Enterp.png" /> <p>Here are examples of what <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/presentations/RDF_Mapping_Presentation_W3C_workshop3/RDF_Mapping_Presentation_W3C_workshop3.html" id="link-id129a6a30">SQL Rows exposed as RDF Data Objects </a>(identified using HTTP based URIs) would look like outside or behind a corporate firewall:</p> <ul> Customer - <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/Northwind/Customer/ALFKI#this" id="link-id1183acd8">Alfreds Futterkiste</a> </ul> <ul>Customer Contact - <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/Northwind/CustomerContact/ALFKI#this" id="link-id11746bb0">Maria Anders</a> </ul> <ul>Salesrep - <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/Northwind/Employee/NancyDavolio1#this" id="link-idff76ed8">Nancy Davolio</a> </ul> <ul>Customer Orders Numbers - <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/Northwind/Order/11084#this" id="link-id10ca2648">11084</a>, <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/Northwind/Order/11011#this" id="link-id11736160">11011</a>, <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/Northwind/Order/11078#this" id="link-id108156e0">11078</a>, <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/Northwind/Order/11088#this" id="link-id10747f30">11085</a> </ul> <p>What's Good for the Web Goose (<a href="http://kidehen.idehen.net/dataspace/person/kidehen%23this%3E" id="link-id10a33c50">Personal Data Space URIs</a>) is good for the Enterprise Gander (<a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/organization/openlink#this" id="link-id109fbbe0">Enterprise Data Space URIs</a>).</p> <h2>Related</h2> <ul> <a href="http://blogs.informatica.com/enterprise_data_management/2008/02/data_access_a_cultural_or_tech.html" id="link-idffe8168">Data Access - A Cultural or Technical Challenge?</a> </ul>
Linked Data is vital to Enterprise Integration driven Agility
2008-03-22T18:13:41Z
2008-03-22T14:13:41.000002-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1317
<p>At <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com" id="link-id14a37688">OpenLink Software</a>, we've had an immense problem explaining the depth and breadth of our product porfolio via traditional Document Web pages. Thanks to <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id101bc330">SPARQL</a> and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id105d2d28">Linked Data</a>, we are now able to use <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Identity_%2528object-oriented_programming%2529" id="link-id1341fbd0">Web Data Object IDs</a> (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Hypertext_Transfer_Protocol" id="link-idf101908">HTTP</a> based <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-id135cd8a0">URI</a>s) to produce super SKUs for every item in our product portfolio. Even better, we are able to handle the additional challenge of exposing features and benefits which by their very nature are mercurial across an array of fronts (products releases, product formats, and supported platforms etc). </p> <p> Now I can simply state the following using Linked Data (hyperdata) links:</p> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/OpenLink_Software" id="link-idfafc070">OpenLink Software</a>'s product porfolio is comprised of the following product families: <ol> <li> <a href="http://data.openlinksw.com/oplweb/product_family/uda#this" id="link-idf856aa8">Universal Data Access Drivers Suite (UDA)</a> for <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Open_Database_Connectivity" id="link-idfc5f498">ODBC</a>, JDBC, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/ADO.NET" id="link-idfc20120">ADO.NET</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/OLE_DB" id="link-id11579a08">OLE-DB</a>, and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/XML_for_Analysis" id="link-id1067d098">XMLA</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://data.openlinksw.com/oplweb/product_family/dca#this" id="link-id1318b3f8">OpenLink Data Spaces</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://data.openlinksw.com/oplweb/product_family/virtuoso#this" id="link-idf8d7ea0">Virtuoso</a> </li> </ol> <p> We no longer have to explain (repeatedly) why our drivers exist in <a href="http://data.openlinksw.com/oplweb/product_format/express#this" id="link-idf76e1f0">Express</a>, <a href="http://data.openlinksw.com/oplweb/product_format/st#this" id="link-idf861be8">Lite</a>, and <a href="http://data.openlinksw.com/oplweb/product_format/mt#this" id="link-id128da1e0">Multi-Tier</a> Edition formats, or why you ultimately need Multi-Tier Drivers over Single Tier Drivers (Express or Lite Editions) since you ultimately heed <a href="http://data.openlinksw.com/oplweb/product_format_feature/RulesEngineBasedSecurity#this" id="link-idf8d70b0">high-performance, data encryption, and policy based security</a> across each of the data access driver formats.</p>
Linked Data Solution for Exposing OpenLink Product Portfolio
2008-02-25T20:08:04Z
2008-02-25T15:08:04-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1316
<p>Increasingly, I am encountering commentary from the <a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com" id="link-id166f5440">ReadWriteWeb</a> data space that highlights critical problems solved by a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linked_Data" id="link-id1698f0e0">Linked Data</a> Web. Unfortunately, most of the time, there is a disconnect between the problem and the solution. By this I mean: technology in the Semantic Web realm isn't seen as the solution.</p> <p>A while back, I wrote a post titled:<a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1267" id="link-id1676b440">Why we need Linked Data</a>. The aim of the post was to bring attention to the implications of <a href="http://www.johnbreslin.com/blog/2008/01/23/an-interesting-talk-by-mike-brodie/" id="link-id16f14740">exponential growth of User Generated Content</a> (typically, semi-structured and unstructured data) on the Web. The growth in question is occurring within a fixed data & information processing timeframe (i.e. there will always be 24hrs in a day), which sets the stage for Information Overload as expressed in a recent post from ReadWriteWeb titled: <a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/visualizing_social_media_fatigue.php" id="link-id164a6278">Visualizing Social Media Fatigue</a>.</p> <p>The emerging "Web of Linked Data" augments the current "Web of Linked Documents", by providing a structured data corpus partitioned by containers I prefer to call: Data Spaces. These spaces enable Linked Data aware solutions to deliver immense value such as, complex data graph traversal, starting from document beachheads, that expose relevant data within a faction of the time it would take to achieve the same thing using traditional document web methods such as full text search patterns, scraping, and mashing etc.</p> <p>Remember, our DNA based data & information system far exceeds that of any inorganic system when it comes to reasoning, but it remains immensely incapable of accurately and efficiently processing huge volumes of data & information -- irrespective of data model.</p> <p>The Idea behind the Semantic Web has always been about an evolution of the Web into a structured data collective comprised of interlinked Data items and Data Containers (Data Spaces). Of course we can argue forever about the Semantics of the solution (ironically), but we can't shirk away from the impending challenges that "Information Overload" is about to unleash on our limited processing time and capabilities.</p> <p>For those looking for a so called "killer application" for the Semantic Web, I would urge you to align this quest with the "Killer Problem" of our times, because when you do so you will that all routes lead to: Linked Data that leverages existing Web Architecture. </p> <p>Once you understand the problem, you will hopefully understand that we all need some kind of "Data Junction Box" that provides a "Data Access Focal Point" for all of the data we splatter across the net as we sign up for the next greatest and latest Web X.X hosted service, or as we work on a daily basis with a variety of tools within enterprise Intranets.</p> <p>BTW - these "Data Junction Boxes" will also need to be unobtrusively bound to our individual Identities. </p>
Contd: Why we need Linked Data
2008-02-26T13:16:43Z
2008-02-26T08:16:43.000005-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1295
<p>The W3C officially unveiled the SPARQL Query Language today via a press release titled: <a href="http://www.w3.org/2007/12/sparql-pressrelease" id="link-id10074ca8">W3C Opens Data on the Web with SPARQL</a>.</p> <h2>What is <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id10183f60">SPARQL</a>?</h2> <p>A query language for the burgeoning Structured & <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id10426b18">Linked Data</a> Web (aka <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-idffde090">Semantic Web</a> / <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Global_Graph" id="link-id103e3688">Giant Global Graph</a>). Like <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SQL" id="link-id103365f8">SQL</a>, for the Relational Data Model, it provides a query language for the Graph based <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/RDF" id="link-id103e33e8">RDF</a> Data Model.</p> <p>It's also a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Representational_State_Transfer" id="link-id1036a3d0">REST</a> or <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SOAP" id="link-id103b36d8">SOAP</a> based Web Service that exposes SPARQL access to RDF Data via an endpoint. </p> <p>In addition, it's also a Query Results Serialization format that includes <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/XML" id="link-id1023bc60">XML</a> and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/JSON" id="link-id102c3f88">JSON</a> support.</p> <h2>Why is it Important?</h2> <p>It brings important clarity to the notion of the "Web as a Database" by transforming existing Web Sites, Portals, and Web Services into bona fide corpus of Mesh-able (rather than Mash-able) Data Sources. For instance, you can perform queries that join one or more of the aforementioned data sources in exactly the same manner (albeit different syntax) as you would one or more SQL Tables. </p> <h3>Example:</h3> <p>-- SPARQL equivalent of SQL SELECT * against my personal data space hosted FOAF file</p> <b><pre> SELECT DISTINCT ?s ?p ?o FROM <http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/person/kidehen> WHERE {?s ?p ?o}</pre></b> <p>-- SPARQL against my social network -- Note: My SPARQL will be beamed across all of contacts in the social networks of my contacts as long as they are all HTTP URI based within each data space</p> <b><pre>PREFIX foaf: <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/> SELECT DISTINCT ?Person FROM <http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/person/kidehen> WHERE {?s a foaf:Person; foaf:knows ?Person}</pre></b> <p>Note: you can use the basic <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/sparql" id="link-id1007d9b8">SPARQL Endpoint</a>, <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/isparql" id="link-id102c3e08">SPARQL Query By Example</a>, or <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/sparql_demo" id="link-id10201f98">SPARQL Query Builder Demo tool</a> to experiment with the demonstration queries above.</p> <h2>How Do I use It?</h2> <p>SPARQL is implemented by RDF Data Management Systems (Triple or Quad Stores) just as SQL is implemented by Relational Database Management Systems. The aforementioned data management systems will typically expose SPARQL access via a SPARQL endpoint.</p> <h2>Where are it's implementations?</h2> <p>A SPARQL implementors Testimonial page accompanies the SPARQL press release. In addition the is a growing collection of implementations on the<a href="http://esw.w3.org/topic/SparqlImplementations" id="link-id10066ca8"> ESW Wiki Page for SPARQL compliant RDF Triple & Quad Stores</a>.</p> <h2>Is this really a big deal?</h2> <p>Yes! SPARQL facilitates an<a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/presentations/Virtuoso_Sponger_1/Virtuoso_Sponger_1.html" id="link-id101ee5b0"> unobtrusive manifestation of a Linked Data Web</a> by way of natural extension of the existing Document Web i.e these Web enclaves co-exist in symbiotic fashion. </p> <p>As <a href="http://dbpedia.org" id="link-id1037edc0">DBpedia</a> very clearly demonstrates, Linked Data makes the Semantic Web demonstrable and much easier to comprehend. Without SPARQL there would be no mechanism for <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/presentations/Virtuoso_Deploying_Linked_Data/Virtuoso_Deploying_Linked_Data.html" id="link-id10455da8">Linked Data deployment</a>, and without Linked Data there is no mechanism for Beaming Queries (directly or indirectly) across the Giant Global Graph of data hosted by Social Networks, Shard Bookmarks Services, Weblogs, Wikis, RSS/Atom/OPML feeds, Photo Galleries and other Web accessible Data Sources (Data Spaces).</p> <h2>Related items</h2> <ul> <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/cooluris/" id="link-id102021d8">Cool URIs</a> </ul> <ul> <a href="http://sites.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/suhl/bizer/pub/LinkedDataTutorial/" id="link-id1020d5c0">Publishing Linked Data Tutorial</a> </ul> <ul a="a" href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/ODSSIOCRef"> Detailed SPARQL Query Examples using SIOC Data Spaces</ul> <ul> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/ODSFOAFRef" id="link-id102c4608">Detailed SPARQL Query Examples using FOAF Data Spaces</a> </ul>
W3C's SPARQLing Data Access Ingenuity
2008-01-17T20:41:04Z
2008-01-17T15:41:04.000006-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1267
<blockquote> <p>"The phrase Open Social implies portability of personal and social data. That would be exciting but there are entirely different protocols underway to deal with those ideas. As some people have told me tonight, it may have been more accurate to call this "OpenWidget" - though the press wouldn't have been as good. We've been waiting for data and identity portability - is this all we get?" <br /> [Source: <a href="http://blogs.usnet.private:8893/[Excerpted from: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/readwriteweb/~3/178622741/opensocial_three_big_concerns.php]" id="link-id1143a428">Read/Write Web's Commentary & Analysis of Google's OpenSocial API</a>]</p> </blockquote> <blockquote> <p>..Perhaps the world will read the terms of use of the API, and realize this is not an open API; this is a free API, owned and controlled by one company only: Google. Hopefully, the world will remember another time when Google offered a free API and then pulled it. Maybe the world will also take a deeper look and realize that the functionality is dependent on Google hosted technology, which has its own terms of service (including adding ads at the discretion of Google), and that building an OpenSocial application ties Google into your application, and Google into every social networking site that buys into the Dream. Hopefully the world will remember. Unlikely, though, as such memories are typically filtered in the Great Noise....</p>[Source: <a href="http://burningbird.net/technology/terms/" id="link-id116f8c98">Poignant commentary excerpt from <a href="http://burningbird.net" id="link-id11216e98">Shelly Power's Blog</a></a> (as always)]</blockquote> <p>The "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id1102bc20">Semantic Data Web</a>" vision has always been about "Data & Identity" portability across the Web. Its been that and more from day one.</p> <p>In a nutshell, we continue to exhibit varying degrees of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Cognitive_dissonance" id="link-id121bb728">Cognitive Dissonance</a> re the following realities:</p> <ol> <li>The <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Network" id="link-id114567b0">Network</a> is the Computer (Internet/Intranet/Extranet depending on your TCP/IP usage scenarios)</li> <li>The Web is the OS (ditto) and it provides a communications subsystem (<a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s+BLOG+%5B127%5D/1231" id="link-id1212b390">Information BUS</a>) comprised of</li> <ul>- <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Hypertext_Transfer_Protocol" id="link-id11b1b760">HTTP</a> Protocol</ul> <ul>- <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-id11043020">URI</a>s (pointer system for identifying, accessing, and manipulating data)</ul> <li>HTTP based Interprocess (i.e Web Apps are processes when you discard the HTML UI and interact with the application logic containers called "Web Services" behind the pages) ultimately hit data</li> <li>Web Data is best Modeled as a Graph (RDF, Containers/Items/Item Types, Property & Value Pairs associated with something, and other labels)</li> <li>Network are Graphs and vice versa</li> <li>Social Networks are graphs where nodes are connected via social connectors ( [x]--knows-->[y] ) </li> <li>The Web is a Graph that exposes a People and Data Network (to the degree we allude to humans not being data containers i.e. just nodes in a network, otherwise we are talking about a Data Network)</li> <li>Data access and manipulation depends inherently on canonical Data Access mechanisms such as Data Source Identifiers / Names (time-tested practice in various DBMS realms)</li> <li>Data is forever, it is the basis of Information, and it is increasing exponentially due to proliferation of Web Services induced user activities (User Generated Content)</li> <li>Survival, Vitality, Longevity, Efficiency, Productivity etc.. are all depend on our ability to process data effectively in a shrinking time continuum where Data and/or Information overload is the alternative.</li> </ol> <p> The Data Web is about Presence over Eyeballs due to the following realities:</p> <ol> <li>Eyeballs are input devices for a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/DNA" id="link-id118b29a0">DNA</a> based processing system (Humans). The aforementioned processing system can reason very well, but simply cannot effectively process masses of data or information</li> <li>Widgets offer little value long term re. the imminent data and information overload dilemma, ditto Web pages (however pretty), and any other Eyeballs-only centric Web Apps</li> <li>Computers (machines) are equipped with inorganic (non DNA) based processing power, they are equipped to process huge volumes of data and/or information, but they cannot reason</li> <li>To be effective in the emerging frontier comprised of a Network Computer and a Web OS, we need an effective mechanism that makes best use of the capabilities possessed by humans and machines, by shifting the focus to creation and interaction with points of "Data Web Presence" that openly expose "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data_structure" id="link-id10e56458">Structured Linked Data</a>". </li> </ol> <p>This is why we need to inject a mesh of Linked Data into the existing Web. This is what the often misunderstood vision of the "Semantic Data Web" or "Web of Data" or "Web or Structured Data" is all about. </p> <p>As stated earlier (point 10 above), "Data is forever" and there is only more of it to come! Sociality and associated Social Networking oriented solutions are at best a spec in the Web's ocean of data once you comprehend this reality.</p> <p>Note: I am writing this post as an early implementor of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/GData" id="link-id11349808">GData</a> and an implementor of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id120f3a68">RDF Linked Data</a> technology and a "Web Purist". </p> <blockquote> <p>OpenSocial implementation and support across our relevant product families: <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Virtuoso_Universal_Server" id="link-id1217bf20">Virtuoso</a> (i.e the <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/Whitepapers/html/VirtSpongerWhitePaper.html" id="link-id12154258">Sponger Middleware</a> for RDF component), <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/Ods" id="link-id11369930">OpenLink Data Spaces</a> (Data Space Controller / Services), and the <a href="http://oat.openlinksw.com/" id="link-id113e4da0">OpenLink Ajaxt Toolkit</a> (i.e OAT Widgets and Libraries), is a triviality now that the OpenSocial APIs are public. </p> </blockquote> <p>The concern I have, and the problem that remains mangled in the vast realms of Web Architecture incomprehension, is the fact that GData and GData based APIs cannot deliver Structured Linked Data in line with the essence of the Web without introducing "lock-in" that ultimately compromises the "Open Purity" of the Web. <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Facebook" id="link-id11073980">Facebook</a> and Google's <a href="http://code.google.com/apis/opensocial/docs/" id="link-id1215e020">OpenSocial</a> response to the Facebook juggernaut (i.e. open variant of the Facebook Activity Dashboard and Social Network functionality realms, primarily), are at best icebergs in the ocean we know as the "World Wide Web". The nice and predictable thing about icebergs is that they ultimately melt into the larger ocean :-)</p> On a related note, I had the pleasure of attending the <a href="http://www.w3.org/2007/03/RdfRDB/" id="link-id1106f678">W3C's RDF and DBMS Integration Workshop</a>, last week. The event was well attended by organizations with knowledge, experience, and a vested interested in addressing the issues associated with exposing none RDF data (e.g. SQL) as RDF, and the imminence of data and/or information overload covered in different ways via the following presentations: <ul>- <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/presentations/RDF_Mapping_Presentation_W3C_workshop3.ppt" id="link-id11053440">RDF Views of SQL Data</a> - <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/oerling" id="link-id1218bf70">Orri Erling </a>on behalf of OpenLink Software</ul> <ul>- <a href="http://www.michaelbrodie.com/documents/Brodie%20VLDB%202007%20V3.zip" id="link-id11eda380">Computer Science 2.0</a> (covering User Generated Content Explosion) - Michael Brodie</ul> <ul>- <a href="http://www.w3.org/2007/03/RdfRDB/talks/Finding_our_way.ppt" id="link-id113b9620">Experiences re. solving SPARQL Access to Distributed Data Sources</a> - Phil Ashworth </ul> <ul>- <a href="http://www.w3.org/2007/03/RdfRDB/program" id="link-id11265180">Other presentations</a> </ul>.
Reminder: Why We Need Linked Data!
2007-11-02T22:52:34Z
2007-11-02T18:52:34-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1261
<p>I've written extensively on the subject of <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=data%20spaces&type=text&output=html" id="link-id134c2280">Data Spaces</a> in relation to the <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=data%20web%0D%0A&type=text&output=html" id="link-id105aef90">Data Web</a> for while. I've also written sparingly about <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/OdsIndex" id="link-id105bd100">OpenLink Data Spaces</a> (a Data Web Platform that build using Virtuoso). On the other hand, I haven't shed much light on installation and deployment of OpenLink Data Spaces.</p> <p> <a href="http://blog.jonudell.net" id="link-id14347f20">Jon Udell</a> recently penned a post titled: <a href="http://blog.jonudell.net/2007/09/21/the-fourth-platform/" id="link-id1439ed48">The Fourth Platform</a>. The post arrives at a spookily coincidental time (this happens quite often between Jon and I as demonstrated last year during our <a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/gems/ju_idehen.mp3" id="link-id107d17a8">podcast</a>; the "Fourth" in his Innovators Podcast series).</p> <p>The platform that Jon describes is "Cloud Based" and comprised of Storage and Computation. I would like to add Data Access and Management (native and virtual) under the fourth platform banner with the end product called: "Cloud based Data Spaces". </p> <p>As I write, we are releasing a Virtuoso AMI (Amazon Image) labeled: virtuoso-dataspace-server. This edition of<a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com" id="link-id13543210"> Virtuoso</a> includes the OpenLink Data Spaces Layer and all of the OAT applications we've been developing for a while.</p> <h2>What Benefits Does this offer?</h2> <ol> <li>Personal Data Spaces in the Cloud - a place where you can control and consolidate data across your Blogs, Wikis, RSS/Atom Feed Subscriptions, Shared Bookmarks, Shared Calendars, Discussion Threads, Photo Galleries etc</li> <li>All the data in your Data <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Spaces">Space</a> is <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id1149a4f8">SPARQL</a> or <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/GData" id="link-id107a9f28">GData</a> accessible.</li> <li>All of the data in your Personal Data Space is <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data">Linked Data</a> from the get go. Each Item of data is <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier">URI</a> addressable</li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SIOC" id="link-id104f4160">SIOC</a> support - your Blogs, Wikis, Bookmarks etc.. are based on the SIOC ontology for Semantically Interlinking Online Communities (think: Open social-graph++) </li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Friend_of_a_friend" id="link-id105beb78">FOAF</a> support - your FOAF Profile page provides a URI that is an in-road to all Data in your Data Space.</li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/OpenID" id="link-id1144e138">OpenID</a> support - your Personal Data Space ID is usable wherever OpenID is supported. OpenID and FOAF are integrated as per latest FOAF specs</li> <li>Two Integration with Facebook - You can access your Data Space from Facebook or access Facebook from your Data Space</li> <li>Unified Storage - The WebDAV based filesystem provides Cloud Storage that's integrated with Amazon S3; It also exposes all of your Data Space data via a traditional filesystem UI (think virtual Spotlight); You can also mount this drive to your local filesystem via your native operating system's WebDAV support</li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SyncML" id="link-id11128f48">SyncML</a> - you can sync calendar and contact details with your Data Space in the cloud from your Mobile phone.</li> <li>A practical Semantic Data Web solution - based on Web Infrastructure and doesn't require you to do anything beyond exposing URIs for data in your Data Spaces.</li> </ol> <h2> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Amazon_Elastic_Compute_Cloud" id="link-id115d1920">EC2</a>-AMI Details:</h2> <ul>AMI ID: ami-e2ca2f8b</ul> <ul>Manifest file: virtuoso-images/virtuoso-dataspace-server.manifest.xml</ul> <h2>Installation Guide:</h2> <ol> <li>Get an Amazon Web Services (AWS) account</li> <li>Signup for S3 and EC2 services</li> <li>Install the EC2 plugin for Firefox</li> <li>Start the EC2 plugin</li> <li>Locate the row containing <b>ami-7c31d515 Manifest virtuoso-test/virtuoso-cloud-beta-9-i386.manifest.xml </b>(sort using the AMI ID or Manifest Columns or search on pattern: virtuoso, due to name flux)</li> <li>Start the Virtuoso Data Space Server AMI</li> <li>Wait 4-5 minutes (*take a few minutes to create the pre-configured Linux Image*)</li> <li>Connect to http://<public_dns_name_of_your_instance>http://your-ec2-instance-cname:8890/ Log in with user/password dba/dba</public_dns_name_of_your_instance> </li> <li>Go to the Admin UI (Virtuoso Conductor) and change the PWDs for the 'dba' and 'dav' accounts (*Important!*)</li> <li>Give the "SPARQL" user "SPARQL_UPDATE" privileges (required if you want to exploit the in-built Sponger Middleware)</li> <li>Click on the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/OpenLink_Data_Spaces">ODS</a> (OpenLink Data Spaces) link to start an Personal Editon of OpenLink Data Spaces (or go to: http://your-ec2-instance-cname/dataspace/ods/index.html)</li> <li>Log-in using the username and password credentials for the 'dav' account (or register a new user note: OpenID is an option here also) Create an Data Space Application Instance by clicking on a Data Space App. Tab</li> <li>Import data from your existing Web 2.0 style applications into OpenLink Data Spaces e.g. subscribe to a few RSS/Atom feeds via the "Feeds Manager" application or import some Bookmarks using the "Bookmarks" application</li> <li>Then look at the imported data in Linked Data form via your ODS generated URIs based on the patterns: http://your-ec2-instance-cname/dataspace/person/your-ods-id#this (URI for You the Person), http://your-ec2-instance-cname/dataspace/person/your-ods-id (FOAF File URI), http://your-ec2-instance-cname/dataspace/your-ods-id (SIOC File URI)<br /> </li> </ol> <h2> (OAT) from your Data Space instance</h2>Install the OAT VAD package via the Admin UI and then apply the URI patterns below within your browser:<br /> <ol> <li>http://<public_dns_name_of_your_instance>:8890/oatdemo - Entire OAT Demo Collection</public_dns_name_of_your_instance> </li> <li>http://<public_dns_name_of_your_instance>:8890/rdfbrowser - RDF Browser</public_dns_name_of_your_instance> </li> <li>http://<public_dns_name_of_your_instance>:8890/isparql - SPARQL Query Builder (iSPARQL)</public_dns_name_of_your_instance> </li> <li>http://<public_dns_name_of_your_instance>:8890/qbe - SQL Query Builder (iSQL)</public_dns_name_of_your_instance> </li> <li>http://<public_dns_name_of_your_instance>:8890/formdesigner - Forms Builder (for building Meshups based on RDF, SQL, or Web Servives Data Souces)</public_dns_name_of_your_instance> </li> <li>http://<public_dns_name_of_your_instance>:8890/dbdesigner - SQL DB Schema Designer (note a Visual SQL-RDF Mapper is also on it's way</public_dns_name_of_your_instance> </li> <li>http://<public_dns_name_of_your_instance>:8890/DAV/JS/ - To view the OAT Tree (there are some experimental demos that are missing from the main demo app etc..) </public_dns_name_of_your_instance> </li> </ol> <p>There's more to come!</p>
Fourth Platform: Data Spaces in The Cloud (Update)
2008-10-26T21:59:33Z
2008-10-26T17:59:33-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1254
<p>The motivation behind this post is a response to the <a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com">Read/WriteWeb</a> post titled: <a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/semantic_web_difficulties_with_classic_approach.php">Semantic Web: Difficulties with the Classic Approach</a>.</p> <p>First off, I am going to focus on the Semantic Data Web aspect of the overall Semantic Web vision (a continuum) as this is what we have now. I am also writing this post as a deliberate contribution to the discourse swirling around the real topic: Semantic Web Value Proposition.</p> <h2>Situation Analysis</h2> <p>We are in the early stages of the long anticipated<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Knowledge_economy"> Knowledge Economy</a>. That being the case, it would be safe to assume that information access, processing, and dissemination are of utmost importance to individuals and organizations alike. You don't produce knowledge in a vacum! Likewise, you can produce Information in a vacum, you need Data.</p> <h2>The Semantic Data Web's value to Individuals</h2> <b>Problem:</b> <p>Increasingly, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Blog">Blogs</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Wiki">Wikis</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Social_bookmarking">Shared Bookmarks</a>, Photo Galleries, Discussion Forums, Shared Calendars and the like, have become invaluable tools for individual and organizational participation in Web enabled global discourse (where a lot of knowledge is discovered). These tools, are typically associated with <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Web_2">Web 2.0</a>, implying Read-Write access via <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Web_service">Web Services</a>, centralized application hosting, and data lock-in (silos).</p> <p>The reality expressed above is a recipe for "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Information_overload">Information Overload</a>" and complete annihilation of ones effective pursuit and exploitation of knowledge due "Time Scarcity" (note: disconnecting is not an option). Information abundance is inversely related to available processing time (for humans in particular). In my case for instance, I was actively subscribed to over 500+ RSS feeds in 2003. As of today, I've simply stopped counting, and that's just my Weblog Data Space. Then add to that, all of the Discussions I track across Blogs, wikis, message boards, mailing lists, traditional usnet discussion forumns, and the like, and I think you get the picture. </p> <p>Beyond information overload, Web 2.0 data is "Semi-Structured" by way of it's dominant data containers ((X)HTML, RSS, Atom documents and data streams etc.) lacking semantics that formally expose individual data items as distinct entities, endowed with unambiguous naming / identification, descriptive attributes (a type of property/predicate), and relationships (a type of property/predicate).</p> <b>Solution:</b> <p>Devise a standard for Structured Data Semantics that is compatible with the <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1231">Web Information BUS</a>.</p> <p>Produce <a href="http://www.mkbergman.com/?p=153">structured data</a> (entities, entity types, entity relationships) from Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 resources that already exists on the Web such that individual entities, their attributes, and relationships are accessible and discernible to software agents (machines).</p> <p>Once the entities are individually exposed, the next requirement is a mechanism for selective access to these entities i.e. a query language. </p> <p> Semantic Data Web Technologies that facilitate the solution described above include:</p> <b>Structured Data Standards:</b> <ul> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/RDF">RDF</a> - Data Model for structured data</ul> <ul>RDF/XML - A serialization format for RDF based structured data</ul> <ul> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Notation_3">N3</a> / <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Turtle_%28syntax%29">Turtle</a> - more human friendly serialization formats for RDF based structured data</ul> <b>Entity Exposure & Generation:</b> <ul> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/GRDDL">GRDDL</a> - enables association between XHTML pages and XSLT stylesheets that facilitates loosely coupled "on the fly" extraction of RDF from non RDF documents</ul> <ul> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/RDFa">RDFa</a> - enables document publishers or viewers (i.e those repurposing or annotating) to embed structured data into existing XHTML documents</ul> <ul> <a href="http://research.talis.com/2005/erdf/wiki/Main/RdfInHtml">eRDF</a> - another option for embedding structured RDF data within (X)HTML documents</ul> <ul> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/%7Ekidehen/?id=1172">RDF Middleware</a> - typically incorporating GRDDL, RDFa, eRDF, and custom extraction and mapping as part of a structured data production pipeline</ul>. <b>Entity Naming & Identification:</b> <p>Use of URIs or IRIs for uniquely identifying physical (HTML Documents, Image Files, Multimedia Files etc..) and abstract (People, Places, Music, and other abstract things). </p> <b>Entity Access & Querying:</b> <ul> <p> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL">SPARQL</a> Query Language - the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SQL">SQL</a> analog of the Semantic Data Web that enables query constructs that target named entities, entity attributes, and entity relationships</p> </ul> <ul> <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-sparql-protocol/">SPARQL Protocol</a> - a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Representational_State_Transfer">REST</a> or <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SOAP">SOAP</a> style Web Service for transporting SPARQL Queries to Structured Data Sources.</ul> <ul> <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-sparql-XMLres/">SPARQL Results Serialization Formats</a> - query results serialization formats that includes XML(sparql+xml) and JSON.</ul> <h2>The Semantic Data Web's value to Organizations</h2> <b>Problem:</b> <p>Organizations are rife with a plethora of business systems that are built atop a myriad of database engines, sourced from a variety of DBMS vendors. A typical organization would have a different database engine, from a specific DBMS vendor, underlying critical business applications such as: Human Resource Management (HR), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Accounting, Supply Chain Management etc. In a nutshell, you have DBMS Engines, and DBMS Schema heterogeneity permeating the IT infrastructure of organizations on a global scale, making Data & Information Integration the biggest headache across all IT driven organizations.</p> <b>Solution:</b> <p>Alleviation of the pain (costs) associated with Data & Information Integration. </p> <b>Semantic Data Web offerings:</b> <p>A dexterous data model (RDF) that enables the construction of conceptual views of disparate data sources across an organization based on existing web architecture components such as HTTP and URIs.</p> <p>Existing middleware solutions that facilitate the exposure of SQL DBMS data as RDF based Structured Data include:</p> <ul> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/VOSSQLRDF">Virtuoso's Meta Schema Language for RDF Views of SQL Data</a> (also see the <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/Whitepapers/pdf/Virtuoso_SQL_to_RDF_Mapping.pdf">Virtuoso SQL-RDF Technical White Paper</a>)</ul> <ul> <a href="http://sites.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/suhl/bizer/D2RQ/">D2RQ</a> </ul> <ul> <a href="http://ccnt.zju.edu.cn/projects/dartgrid">DataGrid</a> </ul> <ul> <a href="http://esw.w3.org/topic/RdfAndSql">Others</a> </ul> <p> BTW - There is an upcoming <a href="http://www.w3.org/2007/03/RdfRDB/">W3C Workshop covering the integration of SQL and RDF data</a>.</p> <h2>Conclusion</h2> <p>The Semantic Data Web is here, it's value delivery vehicle is the URI. The URI is a conduit to Interlinked Structured Data (RDF based Linked Data) derived from existing data sources on the World Wide Web alongside data continuously injected into the Web by organizations world wide. Ironically, the Semantic Data Web only platform that crystallizes the: Information at Your Fingertips vision, without development environment, operating system, application, or database lock-in. You simply click on a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data">Linked Data URI</a> and the serendipitous exploration and discovery of data commences.</p> <p>The unobtrusive emergence of the Semantic Data Web is a reflection of the soundness of the underlying Semantic Web vision.</p> <p>If you are excited about <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Mashup_%28web_application_hybrid%29">Mash-ups</a> then your are a Semantic Web enthusiast and benefactor in the making, because you only "Mash" (brute force data extraction and interlinking) because you can't "Mesh" (natural data extraction and interlinking). Likewise, if you are a social-networking, open social-graph, or portable social-network enthusiast, then you are also a Semantic Data Web benefactor and enthusiasts, because your "values" (yes, the values associated with the properties that define you e.g your interests etc) are the fundamental basis for portable, open, social-networking, which is what the Semantic Data Web hands to you on a platter without compromise (i.e. data lock-in or loss of data ownership).</p> <b>Some practical examples of Semantic Data Web prowess:</b> <ul> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/JS/rdfbrowser/index.html?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.readwriteweb.com%2Farchives%2Fsemantic_web_difficulties_with_classic_approach.php">Read/WriteWeb via the OpenLink Data Web Browser</a> (click on the different viewing tabs to see what structured data exploitation in action)</ul> <ul> <a href="http://browser.zitgist.com/?uri=http%3A//www.readwriteweb.com/archives/semantic_web_difficulties_with_classic_approach.php">Read/WriteWeb via the Zitgist Data Web Browser</a> </ul> <ul> <a href="http:/dbpedia.org">DBpedia</a> (*note: I deliberately use DBpedia URIs in my posts where I would otherwise have used a Wikipedia article URI*)</ul> <ul> <a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/zitgist-browser-linker/">Zitgist zLinks</a> - <a href="http://www.mkbergman.com/?p=400">Mike Bergman's Blog Post also demonstrating zLinks</a> </ul>
Semantic Web Value Proposition
2007-09-21T12:05:07Z
2007-09-21T08:05:07.000009-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1231
<p> <a href="http://www.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/suhl/ueber_uns/team/chris_bizer.htm">Chris Bizer</a>, <a href="http://richard.cyganiak.de/">Richard Cyganiak</a>, and <a href="http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/tom/html">Tom Heath</a> have just published a <a href="http://sites.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/suhl/bizer/pub/LinkedDataTutorial/">Linked Data Publishing Tutorial</a> that provides a guide to the mechanics of Linked Data injection into the Semantic Data Web.</p> <p> On different, but related, thread, <a href="http://www.mkbergman.com">Mike Bergman</a> recently penned a post titled: <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AI3_AdaptiveInformation/~3/134989485/">What is the Structured Web?</a>. Both of these public contributions shed light on the "Information BUS" essence of the World Wide Web by describing the evolving nature of the payload shuttled by the BUS. </p> <h3>What is an Information BUS? </h3> <p>Middleware infrastructure for shuttling "Information" between endpoints using a messaging protocol.</p> <p>The Web is the dominant Information BUS within the Network Computer we know as the "Internet". It uses HTTP to shuttle information payloads between "Data Sources" and "Information Consumers" - what happens when we interact with Web via User Agents / Clients (e.g Browsers). </p> <h3>What are Web Information Payloads?</h3> <p>HTTP transported streams of contextualized data. Hence the terms: "Information Resource" and "Non Information" when reading material related to <a href="http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/httpRange-14/2007-05-31/HttpRange-14#iddiv2104118728">http-range-14 and Web Architecture</a>. For example, an (X)HTML document is a specific data context (representation) that enables us to perceive, or comprehend, a data stream originating from a Web Server as a Web Page. On the other hand, if the payload lacks contextualized data, a fundamental Web requirement, then the resource is referred to as a "Non Information" resource. Of course, there is really no such thing as a "Non Information" resource, but with regards to Web Architecture, it's the short way of saying: "the Web Transmits Information only". That said, I prefer to refer to these "Non Information" resources as "Data Sources", are term well understood in the world of Data Access Middleware (ODBC, JDBC, OLEDB, ADO.NET etc.) and Database Management Systems (Relational, Objec-Relational, Object etc).</p> <p>Examples of Information Resource and Data Source URIs:</p> <ul> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/Northwind/Customer/ALFKI">http://demo.openlinksw.com/Northwind/Customer/ALFKI</a> (Information Resource)</ul> <ul> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/sparql?query=CONSTRUCT+{+%3Chttp%3A//demo.openlinksw.com/Northwind/Customer/ALFKI%23this%3E+%3Fp+%3Fo+}+FROM+%3Chttp%3A//demo.openlinksw.com/Northwind%3E+WHERE+{+%3Chttp%3A//demo.openlinksw.com/Northwind/Customer/ALFKI%23this%3E+%3Fp+%3Fo+}&format=application/rdf%2Bxml">http://demo.openlinksw.com/Northwind/Customer/ALFKI#this</a> (Data Source)</ul> <p>Explanation: The Information Resource is a conduit to the Entity identified by Data Source (an entity in my RDF Data Space that is the Subject or Object of one of more Triple based Statements. The triples in question can that can be represented as an RDF resource when transmitted over the Web via an Information Resource that takes the form of a SPARQL REST Service URL or a Physical RDF based Information Resource URL). </p> <h3>What about Structured Data?</h3> <p>Prior to the emergence of the Semantic Data Web, the payloads shuttled across the Web Information BUS comprised primarily of the following:</p> <ol> <li>HTML - Web Resource with presentation focused structure (Web 1.0 dominant payload form)</li> <li>XML - Web Resource with structure that separates presentation and data (Web 2.0's dominant payload form).</li> </ol> <p>The Semantic Data Web simply adds <a href="http://blogs.usnet.private:8893/Resource_Description_Framework">RDF</a> to the payload formats that shuttle the Web Information BUS. RDF addresses formal data structure which XML doesn't cover since it is semi-structured (distinct data entities aren't formally discernible). In a nutshell, an RDF payload is basically a conceptual model database packaged as an Information Resource. It's comprised of granular data items called "Entities", that expose fine grained properties values, individual and/or group characteristics (attributes), and relationships (associations) with other Entities.</p> <h3>Where is this all headed? </h3> <p>The Web is in the final stages of the 3rd phase of it's evolution. A phase characterized by the shuttling of structured data payloads (RDF) alongside less data oriented payloads (HTML, XHTML, XML etc.). As you can see, <a href="http://linkeddata.org">Linked Data</a> and Structured Data are both terms used to describe the addition of more data centric payloads to the Web. Thus, you could view the process of creating a Structured Web of Linked Data as follows:</p> <ol> <li>Identify or Create Structured Data Sources</li> <li>Name these Data Sources using Data Source URIs</li> <li>Expose Structured Data Sources to the Web as Linked Data using Information Resource (conduit) URIs</li> </ol> <h3>Conclusions</h3> <p>The Semantic Data Web is an evolution of the current Web (an Information Space) that adds structured data payloads (RDF) to current, less data oriented, structured payloads (HTML, XHTML, XML, and others).</p> <p>The Semantic Data Web is increasingly seen as an inevitability because it's rapidly reaching the point of critical mass (i.e. network effect kick-in). As a result, Data Web emphasis is moving away from: "What is the Semantic Data Web?" To: "How will Semantic Data Web make our globally interconnected village an even better place?", relative to the contributions accrued from the Web thus far. Remember, the initial "Document Web" (Web 1.0) bootstrapped because of the benefits it delivered to blurb-style content publishing (remember the term electronic brochure-ware?). Likewise, in the case of the "Services Web" (Web 2.0), the bootstrap occurred because it delivered platform independence to Web Application Developers - enabling them to expose application logic behind Web Services. It is my expectation that the Data Integration prowess of the Data Web will create a value exchange realm for data architects and other practitioners from the database and data access realms.</p> <h3>Related Items</h3> <ol> <li> <a href="http://www.mkbergman.com/?p=153">Mike Bergman's post about Semi-Structured Data</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=structured%20data&type=text&output=html">My Posts covering Structured and Un-Structured Containers</a> </li> </ol>
Linked Data & The Web Information BUS
2007-08-08T22:26:55Z
2007-08-08T18:26:55-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1224
<p>Last week we <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/press/virt_501.htm">officially released Virtuoso 5.0.1</a> (in Commercial and Open Source Editions). The press release provided us with an official mechanism and timestamp for the current Virtuoso feature set.</p> <p>A vital component of the new Virtuoso release is the finalization of our SQL to RDF mapping functionality -- enabling the declarative mapping of SQL Data to RDF. Additional technical insight covering other new features (delivered and pending) is provided by <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblogs/oerling/">Orri Erling</a>, as part of a series of post-Banff posts.</p> <h2>Why is SQL to RDF Mapping a Big Deal?</h2> <p>A majority of the world's data (especially in the enterprise realm) resides in SQL Databases. In addition, Open Access to the data residing in said databases remains the biggest challenge to enterprises for the following reasons:</p> <ol> <li> SQL Data Sources are inherently heterogeneous because they are acquired with business applications that are in many cases inextricably bound to a particular DBMS engine </li> <li> Data is predictably dirty </li> <li> DBMS vendors ultimately hold the data captive and have traditionally resisted data access standards such as ODBC (*trust me they have, just look at the unprecedented bad press associated with ODBC the only truly platform independent data access API. Then look at how this bad press arose..*) </li> </ol> <p> Enterprises have known from the beginning of modern corporate times that data access, discovery, and manipulation capabilities are inextricably linked to the "Real-time Enterprise" nirvana (hence my use of 0.0 before this becomes 3.0).</p> <p>In my experience, as someone whose operated in the data access and data integration realms since the late '80s, I've painfully observed enterprises pursue, but unsuccessfully attain, full control over enterprise data (the prized asset of any organization) such that data-, information-, knowledge-workers are just a click away from commencing coherent platform and database independent data drill-downs and/or discovery that transcend intranet, internet, and extranet boundaries -- serendipitous interaction with relevant data, without compromise!</p> <p>Okay, situation analysis done, we move on.. </p> <p>At our most recent (<a href="http://esw.w3.org/topic/CambridgeSemanticWebGatherings/Meeting/2007-06-12_Gathering">12th June</a>) monthly <a href="http://esw.w3.org/topic/CambridgeSemanticWebGatherings">Semantic Web Gathering</a>, I unveiled to <a href="http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/card#i">TimBL</a> and a host of other attendees a simple, but powerful, demonstration of how <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linked_Data">Linked Data</a>, as an aspect of the <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/apr2007/tc20070409_961951.htm">Semantic Data Web</a>, can be applied to enterprise data integration challenges.</p> <h2>Actual SQL to RDF Mapping Demo / Experiment</h2> <h4>Hypothesis</h4> A SQL Schema can be effectively mapped declaratively to RDF such that SQL Rows morph into RDF Instance Data (Entity Sets) based on the Concepts & Properties defined in a Concrete Conceptual Data Model oriented Data Dictionary (<a href="http://www.w3schools.com/rdf/rdf_schema.asp">RDF Schema</a> and/or <a href="http://www.w3schools.com/rdf/rdf_owl.asp">OWL Ontology</a>). In addition, the solution must demonstrate how "Linked Data in the Web" is completely different from "Data on the Web" or "Linked Data on the Web" (btw - <a href="http://kasei.us/people/Tom_Heath/">Tom Heath</a> eloquently unleashed this point in his recent <a href="http://blogs.talis.com/nodalities/2007/06/tom_heath_talks_with_talis_abo.php">podcast interview with Talis</a>). <h4>Apparatus</h4> An Ontology - in this case we simply derived the <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/home/demo/Public/Queries/SQLRDFIntegraton/Explore_Northwind_Ontology.isparql">Northwind Ontology</a> from the XML Schema based CSDL (<a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/adonet/archive/2007/01/30/entity-data-model-part-1.aspx">Conceptual Schema Definition Language</a>) used by Microsoft's public <a href="http://astoria.mslivelabs.com/Default.aspx">Astoria demo</a> (specifically the <a href="http://astoria.mslivelabs.com/termsOfUseNorthwind.aspx?returnURL=Northwind">Northwind Data Services demo</a>). SQL Database Schema - <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/library/media/1033/technet/images/prodtechnol/sql/2000/maintain/sscpop07_big.gif">Northwind</a> (comes bundled with ACCESS, SQL Server, and Virtuoso) comprised of tables such as: <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/schemas/northwind#Customer">Customer</a>, <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/schemas/northwind#Employee">Employee</a>, <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/schemas/northwind#Product">Product</a>, <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/schemas/northwind#Category">Category</a>, <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/schemas/northwind#Supplier">Supplier</a>, <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/schemas/northwind#Shipper">Shipper</a> etc. <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/virtuoso/">OpenLink Virtuoso</a> - SQL DBMS Engine (although this could have been any <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Database_Connectivity">ODBC</a> or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_Database_Connectivity">JDBC</a> accessible Database), <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/virtuoso/Whitepapers/pdf/Virtuoso_SQL_to_RDF_Mapping.pdf">SQL-RDF Metaschema Language</a>, HTTP URL-rewriter, WebDAV Engine, and DBMS hosted XSLT processor Client Tools -<a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/isparql/"> iSPARQL Query Builder</a>, <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/JS/rdfbrowser/index.html">RDF Browser</a> (which could also have been <a href="http://www.w3.org/2005/ajar/tab">Tabulator</a> or<a href="http://sites.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/suhl/bizer/ng4j/disco/"> DISCO</a> or a standard Web Browser) <h4>Experiment / Demo</h4> <ol> <li> Declaratively map the Northwind SQL Schema to RDF using the Virtuoso Meta Schema Language (see: <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/home/demo/Public/Queries/SQLRDFIntegraton/northwind_sql_rdf.sql">Virtuoso PL based Northwind_SQL_RDF script</a>) </li> <li> Start browsing the data by clicking on the URIs that represent the RDF Data Model Entities resulting from the SQL to RDF Mapping </li> </ol> <h4>Observations</h4> <ol> <li> Via a single Data Link click I was able to obtain specific information about the Customer represented by the URI <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/Northwind/Customer/ALFKI">"ALFKI"</a> (act of URI Dereferencing as you would an Object ID in an Object or Object-Relational Database) </li> <li> Via a <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/home/demo/Public/Queries/SQLRDFIntegraton/Explore_Northwind.isparql">Dynamic Data Page </a> I was able to explore all the entity relationships or specific entity data (i.e Exploratory or Entity specific dereferencing) in the Northwind Data Space </li> <li> I was able to perform similar exploration (as per item 2) using our <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/home/demo/Public/Queries/SQLRDFIntegraton/Explore_Northwind_Customer_ALFKI.wqx">OpenLink Browser. </a> </li> </ol> <h4>Conclusions</h4> <p>The vision of data, information, or knowledge at your fingertips is nigh! Thanks to the infrastructure provided by the Semantic Data Web (URIs, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_Description_Framework">RDF Data Model</a>, variety of RDF Serialization Formats[<a href="http://www.dajobe.org/2004/01/turtle/">1</a>][<a href="http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/Notation3">2</a>][<a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-rdf-syntax-grammar-20020325/">3</a>], and Shared Data Dictionaries / Schemas / Ontologies [<a href="http://xmlns.com/foaf/spec/">1</a>][<a href="http://rdfs.org/sioc/spec/">2</a>][<a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/swbp-skos-core-guide/">3</a>][<a href="http://musicontology.com/">4</a>][<a href="http://bblfish.net/work/atom-owl/2006-06-06/AtomOwl.html">5</a>]) it's now possible to Virtualize enterprise data from the Physical Storage Level, through the Logical Data Management Levels (Relational), up to a Concrete Conceptual Model (Graph) without operating system, development environment or framework, or database engine lock-in.</p> <h2>Next Steps</h2> <p>We produce a shared ontology for the CRM and Business Reporting Domains. I hope this experiment clarifies how this is quite achievable by converting XML Schemas to RDF Data Dictionaries (RDF Schemas or Ontologies). Stay tuned :-) </p> <p>Also watch <a href="http://news.com.com/1606-2-6189377.html">TimBL amplify and articulate Linked Data value</a> in a recent interview.</p> <h2>Other Related Matters</h2> <p>To deliver a mechanism that facilitates the crystallization of this reality is a contribution of boundless magnitude (as we shall all see in due course). Thus, it is easy to understand why even "her majesty", the queen of England, simply had to get in on the act and <a href="http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page1880.asp">appoint TimBL to the "British Order of Merit</a>" :-)</p> <p>Note: All of the demos above now work with IE & Safari (a "remember what Virtuoso is epiphany") by simply putting Virtuoso's DBMS hosted XSLT engine to use :-) This also applies to my earlier collection of demos from the <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=hello%20data%20web&type=text&output=html">Hello Data Web</a> and other <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=.isparql&type=text&output=html">Data Web & Linked Data related demo style posts</a>.</p>
Enterprise 0.0, Linked Data, and Semantic Data Web
2008-02-05T04:19:26Z
2008-02-04T23:19:26.000001-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1187
<p> <a href="http://www.mkbergman.com">Mike Bergman</a> has written a very detailed <a href="http://www.mkbergman.com/?p=355">article about OpenLink Software and it's product portfolio</a> that basically answers the question: What has OpenLink been Up To?</p> <p>As the company's founder, it was quite compelling to read a third party article that accurately navigates and articulates the depth of work that we've undertaken since <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/VOSHistory">that seminal moment in 1997</a> when we decided to extend our product portfolio beyond the <a href="http://uda.openlinksw.com">Universal Data Access Drivers</a> family.</p> <p>Of course I also take this opportunity to slip in another Semantic Data Web demo :-) Thus, take a look at this mother of all blog posts from Mike via the following:</p> <ol> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/JS/rdfbrowser/index.html?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mkbergman.com%2F%3Fp%3D355">OpenLink RDF Browser Session</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.openlinksw.com:8890/DAV/home/demo/dbpedia/Dynamic_Pages/Mike_Bergman_Reviews_OpenLink_Software.isparql">Dynamic Data Web Page</a> </li> </ol> <p>Note: In both cases above, you use the "Explore" or "Dereference" options of the Data Link (typed hyperlink) to traverse the RDF data that has been materialized "on the fly" courtesy of <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen/?id=1172">Virtuoso's in-built RDF Middleware</a> (called the Sponger).</p> <p>BTW - I am assembling a collection of interesting <a href="http://dbpedia.org">DBpedia</a> based Dynamic pages that showcase the depth of knowledge available from <a href="http://wikipedia.org">Wikipedia</a>. If you're a current or future technology entrepreneur (or VC trying to grok the Semantic Web) then you certainly need to look at:</p> <ol> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.openlinksw.com:8890/DAV/home/demo/dbpedia/Dynamic_Pages/All_About_Venture_Capital.isparql">Venture Capital</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.openlinksw.com:8890/DAV/home/demo/dbpedia/Dynamic_Pages/All_About_Venture_Capital_Firms.isparql">Venture Capital Firms</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.openlinksw.com:8890/DAV/home/demo/dbpedia/Dynamic_Pages/All_About_Venture_Capitalists.isparql">Venture Capitalists</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.openlinksw.com:8890/DAV/home/demo/dbpedia/Dynamic_Pages/Entrepreneurs_By_Nationality.isparql">Entrepreneurs By Nationality</a> </li> </ol>
What's OpenLink Software been Up To?
2008-02-05T01:47:40Z
2008-02-04T20:47:40.000001-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1185
<b>Web Data Spaces</b> <p>Now that broader understanding of the Semantic Data Web is emerging, I would like to revisit the issue of "<a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q='data%20spaces'&type=text&output=html">Data Spaces</a>".</p> <p>A Data Space is a place where Data Resides. It isn't inherently bound to a specific Data Model (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_model">Concept Oriented</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relational_model">Relational</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchical_database">Hierarchical</a> etc..). Neither is it implicitly an access point to Data, Information, or Knowledge (the perception is purely determined through the experiences of the user agents interacting with the Data Space.</p> <p>A Web Data Space is a Web accessible Data Space.</p> <p>Real world example:</p> <p>Today we increasing perform one of more of the following tasks as part of our professional and personal interactions on the Web:</p> <ol> <li>Blog via many service providers or personally managed weblog platforms</li> <li>Create Event Calendars via <a href="http://upcoming.com">Upcoming.com</a> and <a href="http://eventful.com">Eventful</a> </li> <li>Maintain and participate in Social Networks (e.g. <a href="http://facebook.com">Facebook</a>, <a href="http://orkut.com">Orkut</a>, <a href="http://myspace.com">MySpace</a>)</li> <li>Create and Participate in Discussions (note: when you comment on blogs or wikis for instance, you are participating in, or creating, a conversation)</li> <li>Track news by subscribing to <a href="http://web.resource.org/rss/1.0/">RSS 1.0</a>, <a href="http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/rss/rss.html">RSS 2.0</a>, or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom_(standard)">Atom</a> Feeds</li> <li>Share Bookmarks & Tags via <a href="http://del.icio.us">Del.icio.us</a> and other Services</li> <li>Share Photos via <a href="http://flickr.com">Flickr</a> </li> <li>Buy, Review, or Search for books via <a href="http://amazon.com">Amazon</a> </li> <li>Participates in auctions via <a href="http://ebay.com">eBay</a> </li> <li>Search for data via <a href="http://google.com">Google</a> (of course!)</li> </ol> <p> <a href="http://www.johnbreslin.com/">John Breslin</a> has nice a <a href="http://www.johnbreslin.com/blog/wp-content/20051015a.gif">animation depicting the creation of Web Data Spaces</a> that drives home the point.</p> <b>Web Data Space Silos</b> <p> Unfortunately, what isn't as obvious to many netizens, is the fact that each of the activities above results in the creation of data that is put into some context by you the user. Even worse, you eventually realize that the service providers aren't particularly willing, or capable of, giving you unfettered access to your own data. Of course, this isn't always by design as the infrastructure behind the service can make this a nightmare from security and/or load balancing perspectives. Irrespective of cause, we end up creating our own "Data Spaces" all over the Web without a coherent mechanism for accessing and meshing these "Data Spaces".</p> <b>What are Semantic Web Data Spaces?</b> <p>Data Spaces on the Web that provide granular access to RDF Data.</p> <b>What's OpenLink Data Spaces (ODS) About?</b> <blockquote> <p>Short History</p> <p>In anticipation of this the "Web Data Silo" challenge (an issue that we tackled within internal enterprise networks for years) we commenced the development (circa. 2001) of a distributed collaborative application suite called OpenLink Data Spaces (ODS). The project was never released to the public since the problems associated with the deliberate or inadvertent creation of Web Data silos hadn't really materialized (silos only emerged in concreted form after the emergence of the Blogosphere and Web 2.0). In addition, there wasn't a clear standard Query Language for the RDF based Web Data Model (i.e. the SPARQL Query Language didn't exist).</p> </blockquote> <p> Today, ODS is delivered as a packaged solution (in Open Source and Commercial flavors) that alleviates the pain associated with Data Space Silos that exist on the Web and/or behind corporate firewalls. In either scenario, ODS simply allows you to create Open and Secure Data Spaces (via it's suite of applications) that expose data via SQL, RDF, XML oriented data access and data management technologies. Of course it also enables you to integrates transparently with existing 3rd party data space generators (Blogs, Wikis, Shared Bookmrks, Discussion etc. services) by supporting industry standards that cover:</p> <ol> <li> Content Publishing - Atom, <a href="http://www.sixapart.com/developers/product_documentation/movable_type/">Moveable Type</a>, <a href="http://www.xmlrpc.com/metaWeblogApi">MetaWeblog</a>, Blogger protocols </li> <li> Content Syndication Formats - RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0, Atom, OPML etc. </li> <li> Data Management - <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL">SQL</a>, <a href="http://www.w3.org/RDF/">RDF</a>, XML, Free Text </li> <li> Data Access - SQL, <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-sparql-query/">SPARQL</a>, GData, Web Services (SOAP or REST styles), WebDAV/HTTP </li> <li> Semantic Data Web Middleware - <a href="http://www.w3.org/2004/01/rdxh/spec">GRDDL</a>, <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt">XSLT</a>, SPARQL, XPath/XQuery, HTTP (Content Negotiation) for producing RDF from non RDF Data ((X)HTML, Microformats, XML, Web Services Response Data etc). </li> </ol> <p>Thus, by installing ODS on your Desktop, Workgroup, Enterprise, or public Web Server, you end up with a very powerful solution for creating Open Data access oriented presence on the "Semantic Data Web" without incurring any of the typically assumed "RDF Tax".</p> <p>Naturally, ODS is built atop <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com">Virtuoso</a> and of course it exploits Virtuoso's feature-set to the max. It's also beginning to exploit functionality offered by the OpenLink Ajax Toolkit (<a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/JS/demo/index.html">OAT</a>).</p>
Semantic Web Data Spaces
2007-04-13T22:19:29Z
2007-04-13T18:19:29.000001-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1165
<p>A defining characteristic of the Data Web (Context Oriented Web 3.0) is that it facilitates Meshups rather than Mashups.</p> <p>Quick Definitions:</p> <ul> Mashups - Brute force joining of disparate Web Data</ul> <ul> Meshups - Natural joining of disparate Web Data </ul> <p> Reasons for the distinction:</p> <ul>Mashups are Data Model oblivious.</ul> <ul>Meshups are Data Model driven.</ul> <p>Examples:</p> <ul> Mashups are based on RSS 2.0 most of the time (RSS 2.0 is at best a Tree Structure that contains untyped or meaning challenged links.</ul> <ul> Meshups are RDF based and the data is self describing since the links are typed (posses inherent meaning thereby providing context).</ul> <p>So what? You may be thinking.</p> <p>For starters, I can quite easily Mesh data from Googlebase (which emits RSS 2.0 or Atom) and other data sources with the Mapping Services from Yahoo!</p> <p>I can achieve this in minutes without writing a single line of code. I can do it because of the Data Model prowess of RDF (self-describing instance-data), the data interchange and transformation power of XML and XSLT respectively, the inherent power of XML based Web Services (REST or SOAP), and of course, having a Hybrid Server product like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtuoso_Universal_Server">Virtuoso</a> at my disposal that delivers a cross platform solution for exploiting all of these standards coherently.</p> <p>I can share the self-describing describing data source that serves my Meshup. Try reusing the data presented by a Mashup via the same URL that you used to locate Mashup to get my drift.</p> <p>Demo Links:</p> <ol> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/JS/rdfbrowser/index.html#http%3A%2F%2Fdemo.openlinksw.com%2FDAV%2Fhome%2Fdemo%2FPublic%2FQueries%2FDataWeb%2Fgoogle_base_jobs_dataspace.isparql">Googlebase Query URL as an RDF Data Source</a> </li> <li>Perform a simple Data Mesh by adding (via link copy and paste) this <a href="http://upcoming.org/search/?q=ajax&scope=allmetros&type=Events">Upcoming.org Query Services URL for Ajax Events</a> to the RDF Browsers list of Data Sources (paste into the Data Source URI input field).</li> </ol> <p>What does this all mean?</p> <p>"Context" is the catalyst of the burgeoning Data Web (Semantic Web Layer - 1). It's the <a href="http://sramanamitra.com/blog/729">emerging appreciation of "Context"</a> that is driving the growing desire to increment Web versions from 2.0 to 3.0. It also the the very same "Context" that has been a preoccupation of <a href="http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Activity">Semantic Web vision</a> since its inception.</p> <p>The journey towards a more Semantic Web is all inclusive (all "ANDs" and no "ORs" re. participation).</p> <p>The Semantic Web is <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen/?id=887">self-annotating</a>. Web 2.0 has provided a huge contribution to the self annotation effort: on the Web we now have Data Spaces for Bookmarks (e.g del.icio.us), Image Galleries ( e.g Flickr), Discussion Forums (remember those comments associated with blog posts? ditto the pingbacks and trackbacks?), People Profiles (FOAF, XFN, del.icio.us, and those crumbling walled-gardens around many Social Networks), and more..</p> <p>A Web without granular access to Data is simply not a Web worth having (think about the menace of click-fraud and spam).</p>
Data Web, Googlebase, and Yahoo!
2007-03-22T23:14:55Z
2007-03-22T19:14:55-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1161
<blockquote> <cite><p>(Via <a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/">Read/Write Web</a>.)</p> <p> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/readwriteweb/~3/102869973/web_30_when_web_sites_become_web_services.php">Web 3.0: When Web Sites Become Web Services</a>: "</p> ..... <h2>Conclusion</h2> <p>As more and more of the Web is becoming remixable, the entire system is turning into both a platform and the database. Yet, such transformations are never smooth. For one, scalability is a big issue. And of course legal aspects are never simple.'</p> <p>But it is not a question of <i>if</i> web sites become web services, but <i>when</i> and <i>how</i>. APIs are a more controlled, cleaner and altogether preferred way of becoming a web service. However, when APIs are not avaliable or sufficient, scraping is bound to continue and expand. As always, time will be best judge; but in the meanwhile we turn to you for feedback and stories about how <i>your</i> businesses are preparing for 'web 3.0'.</p> </cite> </blockquote> <p> We are hitting a little problem re. Web 3.0 and Web 2.0, naturally :-) Web 2.0 is one of several (present and future) <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen/?id=1037">Dimensions of Web Interaction</a> that turns Web Sites into Web Services Endpoints; <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=web+dimensions">a point I've made repeatedly</a> [<a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/points_of_prese.php">1</a>] [<a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen/?date=2005-10-04">2</a>] [<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Web_2.0&oldid=11544998">3</a>] [<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Web_2.0&oldid=11679210">4</a>] across the blogosphere, in addition to my early futile attempts to make the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2">Wikipedia's Web 2.0 article</a> meaningful (circa 2005), as per the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Web_2.0/Archive_1">Wikipedia Web 2.0 Talk Page </a>excerpt below:</p> <blockquote> <cite><p>Web 2.0 is a web of executable endpoints and well formed content. The executable endpoints and well formed content are accessible via URIs. Put differently, Web 2.0 is a web defined by URIs for invoking Web Services and/or consuming or syndicating well formed content.</p> <p>Hopefully, someone with more time on their hands will expand on this ( I am kinda busy)</p>. <p>BTW - Web 2.0 being a platform doesn't distinguish it in anyway from Web 1.0. They are both platforms, the difference comes down to platform focus and mode of experience.</p> </cite> </blockquote> <p> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_3.0">Web 3.0</a> is about <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen/?id=1030">Data Spaces</a>: Points of Semantic Web Presence that provide granular access to Data, Information, and Knowledge via <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conceptual_schema">Conceptual Data Model</a> oriented Query Languages and/or APIs.</p> <p>The common denominator across all the current and future Web Interaction Dimensions is HTTP. While their differences are as follows:</p> <ul> Web 1.0 - Browser (HTTP + (X)HTML) </ul> <ul> Web 2.0 - Presence (Web Service Endpoints for REST or SOAP over HTTP) </ul> <ul>Web 3.0 - Presence (Query Languages, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_model">Data Models</a>, and HTTP based Query Oriented Web Service Endpoints) </ul> <p>Examples of Web 3.0 Infrastructure:</p> <ol> <li>Query Languages: <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-sparql-query/">SPARQL</a>, <a href="http://code.google.com/apis/base/query-lang-spec.html">Googlebase Query Language</a>, <a href="http://developers.facebook.com/documentation.php?v=1.0&doc=fql">Facebook Query Language</a> (FQL), and many others to come</li> <li>Query Language aligned Web Services (Query Services): <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-sparql-protocol/">SPARQL Protocol</a>, <a href="http://code.google.com/apis/gdata/overview.html#About">GData</a>, or REST style Web services such as<a href="http://developers.facebook.com/documentation.php?v=1.0&method=fql.query"> Facebook's service for FQ</a>L.</li> <li>Data Models: Concrete Conceptual Data Model (which RDF happens to deliver for Web Data)</li> </ol> <p>Web 3.0 is not purely about Web Sites becoming Web Services endpoints. It is about the "M" (Data Model) taking it's place in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model-view-controller">MVC pattern</a> as applied to the Web Platform.</p> <p>I will repeat myself yet again: </p> <blockquote> <cite>The Devil is in the Details of the Data Model. Data Models make or break everything. You ignore data at your own peril. No amount of money in the bank will protect you from Data Ignorance! A bad Data Model will bring down any venture or enterprise, the only variable is time (where time is directly related to your increasing need to obtain, analyze, and then act on data, over repetitive operational cycles, that have ever decreasing intervals). </cite> </blockquote> <p>This applies to the Real-time enterprise of Information and/or knowledge workers and Real-time Web Users alike.</p> <p>BTW -<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/xHWTLA8WecI"> Data Makes Shifts Happen</a> (spotter: <a href="http://www.vecosys.com">Sam Sethi</a>). </p>
Web 3.0: When Web Sites Become Web Services
2007-03-20T12:27:37Z
2007-03-20T08:27:37-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1157
<p> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtuoso_Universal_Server">Virtuoso</a> joins <a href="http://wingerz.com/blog/2007/02/06/text-indexing-and-query-in-boca/">Boca</a> and <a href="http://seaborne.blogspot.com/2006/11/larq-lucene-arq.html">ARC 2.0</a> as RDF Quad or Triple Stores with Full Text Index extensions to SPARQL. Here is our example applied to <a href="http://dbpedia.org">DBpedia</a>:</p> <pre><font size="2">PREFIX dbpedia: <http://dbpedia.org/> PREFIX foaf: <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/> PREFIX xsd: <http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#> SELECT ?name ?birth ?death FROM <http://dbpedia.org> WHERE { ?person dbpedia:birthplace <http://dbpedia.org/resource/Berlin> . ?person dbpedia:birth ?birth . ?person foaf:name ?name . ?person dbpedia:death ?death FILTER (?birth < "1900-01-01"^^xsd:date and bif:contains (?name, 'otto')) . } ORDER BY ?name </font></pre> <p> You can test further using our <a href="http://demo3.openlinksw.com:8890/sparql/">SPARQL Endpoint for DBpedia</a> or via the <a href="http://demo3.openlinksw.com:8890/isparql/">DBPedia bound Interactive SPARQL Query Builder</a> or just click *<a href="http://demo3.openlinksw.com:8890/sparql/?default-graph-uri=&query=PREFIX+dbpedia%3A+%3Chttp%3A%2F%2Fdbpedia.org%2F%3E%0D%0APREFIX+foaf%3A+%3Chttp%3A%2F%2Fxmlns.com%2Ffoaf%2F0.1%2F%3E%0D%0APREFIX+xsd%3A+%3Chttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2001%2FXMLSchema%23%3E%0D%0ASELECT+%3Fname+%3Fbirth+%3Fdeath%0D%0AFROM+%3Chttp%3A%2F%2Fdbpedia.org%3E%0D%0AWHERE+%7B%0D%0A++++%3Fperson+dbpedia%3Abirthplace+%3Chttp%3A%2F%2Fdbpedia.org%2Fresource%2FBerlin%3E+.%0D%0A++++%3Fperson+dbpedia%3Abirth+%3Fbirth+.%0D%0A++++%3Fperson+foaf%3Aname+%3Fname+.%0D%0A++++%3Fperson+dbpedia%3Adeath+%3Fdeath%0D%0A++++FILTER+%28%3Fbirth+%3C+%221900-01-01%22%5E%5Exsd%3Adate+and+bif%3Acontains+%28%3Fname%2C+%27otto%27%29%29+.%0D%0A%7D%0D%0AORDER+BY+%3Fname&format=text%2Fhtml">Here</a>* for results courtesy of the <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-sparql-protocol/">SPARQL Protocol</a> (REST based Web Service). </p> <p>Note: This is in-built functionality as Virtuoso has possessed <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_text_index">Full Text Indexing</a> since 1998-99. This capability applies to physical and virtual graphs managed by Virtuoso.</p> <p>A per usual, there is more to come as we now have a nice intersection point for SPARQL and XQuery/XPath since Triple Objects (the Literal variety) can take the form of XML Schema based Complex Types :-) A point I alluded too in my <a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2006/04/28.html">podcast interview with Jon Udell </a>last year (*note: mechanical turk based transcript is bad*). The point I made went something like this: "...you use SPARQL to traverse the typed links and then use XPath/XQuery for further granular access to the data if well-formed..."</p> <p>Anyway, the podcast interview lead to this InfoWorld article titled: <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/05/03/77873_19OPstrategic_1.html">Unified Data Theory</a>.<br /> </p>
SPARQL and Full Text Indexing implementations are growing
2007-03-13T10:09:43Z
2007-03-13T06:09:43-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1143
<p>I just overheard the following dialog between my six year old son and his play date:</p> <blockquote> <pre> Play Date: What is that thing on the Wall? My Son: Security Alarm Play Date: How does it work My Son: If you click on that top button and then open the door, I will have to enter a code when we come back in or the alarm will go off Play Date: What is the code? My Son: I can't tell you that! Play Date: Why not? My Son: You might come and steal something from our house! Play Date: No I won't! My Son: Well, you might tell someone that might come and steal something from our house! or that person could tell someone who could tell someone that would steal from our house</pre></blockquote> <p>LOL!! of course! At the same time wondering, how come a majority of adults don't quite see the need for granular access to Web Data in a manner that enables computers and humans to collectively arrive at similar decisions? </p> <p>Putting Data in context en route to producing actionable knowledge is a transient endeavor that engages a myriad of human senses. We demonstrate comprehension of this fact in our daily existence as social creatures (at a very early age as depicted above). That said, we seem to forget this fact when engaging the Web: If we can't see it then it can't be valuable.</p> <blockquote> <p>BTW - I just received a ping about the "<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/route79/399029535/">Sensory Web</a>" (which is just another way of describing a Data Driven Web experience from my vantage point.)</p> </blockquote> <p>In the popular M-V-C pattern you don't see the "M", but the "M" will kill you if you get it wrong (it is the FORCE)! Coming to think about it, the pattern could have been coined: V-C-M or C-M-V, but isn't for obvious reasons :-)</p> <p>RDF is the vehicle that enables us tap into the Data aspect of the Web. We started off with pages of blurb linked via hypertext (Web 1.0) and then looked to "Keywords" for some kind of data access; we then isolated some "Verbs" and discovered another dimension of Web Interaction (Web 2.0) but looked to these "Verbs" for data access which left us with Mashups; and now we are starting to extract "Nouns" and "Adjectives" from sentences (Subject, Predicate, Object - Triples) associated with resources on the Web (Data Web / Web 3.0 / Semantic Web Layer 1) which provides a natural data access substrate for <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=meshups&type=text&output=html">Meshups</a> (natural joining of disparate data from a plethora of data sources) while providing the foundation layer for the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web">Semantic Web</a>.</p> <p>For those who need use-cases that demonstrate tangible value re. the Semantic Web, here are some projects to note courtesy of the <a href="http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/sweo/">Semantic Web Education and Outreach</a> (SWEO) interest group: </p> <ol> <li> <a href="http://esw.w3.org/topic/SweoIG/TaskForces/CommunityProjects/FOAFWhitelisting">FOAF based White-lists</a> - Attacking SPAM </li> <li> <a href="http://esw.w3.org/topic/SweoIG/TaskForces/CommunityProjects/LinkingOpenData">Open Data Access and Linking for the Data Web</a> - Data Integration and Generation effort that creates a cluster of RDF instance data from a myriad of data sources relating to every day things such as: People, Places, Events, Projects, Discussions, Music, Books, and other things </li> <li> <a href="http://esw.w3.org/topic/SweoIG/TaskForces/CommunityProjects/PowderExtension">Content Labeling</a> - Protecting our kids on the Web amongst other matters relating to knowledge about data sources </li> <li> <a href="http://esw.w3.org/topic/SweoIG/TaskForces/CommunityProjects">Others..</a> </li> </ol> Related posts: <ol> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=rdf%20data%20integration&type=text&output=html">Data Web and Global Data Integration & Generation Effort</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q='data%20web'&type=text&output=html">Previous Data Web posts</a>.</li> </ol>
Our Basic Human Instincts
2007-02-24T00:55:49Z
2007-02-23T19:55:49-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1081
<p> <a href="http://novaspivack.typepad.com/nova_spivacks_weblog/">Nova Spivack</a> provides poignant insights into the recent Web 2.0 vs Web 3.0 brouhaha which I've excerpted below: </p> <blockquote> <a href="http://novaspivack.typepad.com/nova_spivacks_weblog/2006/11/web_me20_explod.html">Web Me2.0 -- Exploding the Myth of Web 2.0</a>: <p>"Many people have told me this week that they think 'Web 2.0' has not been very impressive so far and that they really hope for a next-generation of the Web with some more significant innovation under the hood -- regardless of what it's called. A lot of people found the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco to be underwhelming -- there was a lot of self-congratulation by the top few brands and the companies they have recently bought, but not much else happening. Where was all the innovation? Where was the focus on what's next? It seemed to be a conference mainly about what happened in the last year, not about what will happen in the coming year. But what happened last year is already so 'last year.' And frankly Web 2.0 still leaves a lot to be desired. The reason Tim Berners-Lee proposed the Semantic Web in the first place is that it will finally deliver on the real potential and vision of the Web. Not that today's Web 2.0 sucks completely -- it only sort of sucks. It's definitely useful and there are some nice bells and whistles we didn't have before. But it could still suck so much less!"</p> </blockquote> <p>Web 2.0 is a (not was) a piece of the overall Web puzzle. The Data Web (so called Web 3.0) is another critical piece of this puzzle, especially as it provides the foundation layer (Layer 1) of the Semantic Web.</p> <p>Web 2.0 was never about "Open Data Access", "Flexible Data Models", or "Open World" meshing of disparate data sources built atop disparate data schemas (see: <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen/?id=1032">Web 2.0's Open Data Access Conundrum</a>). It was simply about "Execution and APIs". I already written about "Web Interaction Dimensions", but you call also look at the relationship of the currently perceived dimensions through the M-V-C programming pattern: </p> <ol> <li>Viewer (V) - Web 1.0 (Interaction, Dimension 1 - Interactive-Web)</li> <li>Controller (C) - Web 2.0 (Services, Dimension 2 - Services-Web which is about Execution & Application Logic; SOA outside/in-front-of the Firewall for Enterprise 2.0 crowd)</li> <li>Model (M) - Web 3.0 (Data, Dimension 3 - Data-Web which is about data model dexterity and open data access)</li> </ol> <p>Another point to note, Social Networking is hot, but nearly every social network that I know (and I know and use most of them) suffers from an impedance mismatch between the service(s) they provide (social networks) and their underlying data models (in many cases Relational as opposed to Graph). Networks are about Relationships (N-ary) and your cannot effectively exploit the deep potential of: "Network Effects" (Wisdom of Crowds, Viral Marketing etc..) without a complimentary data model, you simply can't.</p> <p>Finally, the Data Web is already here, I promised a long time ago (Internet Time) that the manifestation of the Semantic Web would occur unobtrusively, meaning, we will wake up one day and realize we are using critical portions of the Semantic Web (i.e. Data-Web) without even knowing it. Guess what? It's already happening. Simple case in point, you may have started to notice the emergence of <a href="http://rdfs.org/sioc/spec/">SIOC</a> gems in the same way you may have observed those RSS 2.0 gems at the dawn of Web 2.0. What I am implying here is that the real question we should be asking is: Where is the Semantic Web Data? And how easy or difficult will it be to generate? And where are the tools? My answers are presented below:</p> <p> </p> <ol> <li> <a href="http://pingthesemanticweb.com/">Pingthesemanticweb.com</a> - Semantic Web Data Source Lookup & Tracking Service</li> <li> <a href="http://swoogle.umbc.edu/">Swoogle </a>- Semantic Web Ontology Location Service</li> <li> <a href="http://esw.w3.org/topic/RdfAndSql">Semantic Web Solutions for Generating RDF Data from SQL Data</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://esw.w3.org/topic/SemanticWebTools">Semantic Web Solutions Directory</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://sioc-project.org/">SIOC Project</a> - Semantically-Interlinked Online Communities Ontology, a grassroots effort that provides a critical bridge between Web 2.0 and the Data-Web. For instance, existing Web 2.0 application profiles such as; Blogs, Wikis, Feed Aggregators, Content Managers, Discussion Forums etc.. are much closer to the Data-Web than you may think :-) </li> <li> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/">Virtuoso</a> - our <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtuoso_Universal_Server">Universal Server</a> for the Data-Web</li> <li> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/OdsIndex">OpenLink Data Spaces</a> (ODS) - our SIOC based platform for transparent incorporation of the Data-Web into Web 1.0 and Web 2.0</li> </ol> <p>Next stop, less writing, more demos, these are long overdue! At least from my side of the fence :-) I need to produce a little step-by-guide oriented screencasts that demonstrates how Web 2.0 meshes nicely with the Data-Web.</p> <p>Here are some (not so end-user friendly) examples of how you can use <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-sparql-query/">SPARQL</a> (Data-Web's Query Language) to query Web 2.0 Instance Data projected through the SIOC Ontology:</p> <p> </p> <ol> <li> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/ODSSIOCRef#Weblog%20Data%20Space">Weblog Data Query</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/ODSSIOCRef#Wiki%20Data%20Space">Wiki Data Query</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/ODSSIOCRef#Feeds%20/%20Subscriptions%20Data%20Space%20(Feed%20Aggregation)">Aggregated Feeds Data Query</a> - (RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0, Atom etc)</li> <li a="a" href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/ODSSIOCRef#Bookmarks%20Data%20Space">Shared Bookmarks Data Space</li> <li> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/ODSSIOCRef#Briefcase%20Applications%20Data%20Space">Web Filesystem Data Query</a> - (Briefcase - Virtual Spotlight of sorts)</li> <li> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/ODSSIOCRef#Photo%20Gallery%20Data%20Space">Photo Gallery Data Query</a> (this could be data from Flickr etc..)</li> <li> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/ODSSIOCRef#Discussion%20/%20Conversation%20Data%20Space">Discussion Data Query</a> (e.g. Blog posts comments)</li> <li> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/ODSSIOCRef#Generic%20Data%20Space%20Queries">Data Queries across different Data Spaces</a> - combining data from Wikis, Blogs, Feeds, Photos, Bookmarks, Discussions etc..</li> </ol> <p>Note: You can use the online SPARQL Query Interface at: http://demo.openlinksw.com/isparql.</p> <p> </p> <p> Other Data-Web Technology usage demos include:</p> <p> </p> <ol> <li> <a href="http://www.w3.org/2005/ajar/tab">TimBL's Tabulator</a> - A Data-Web Browser</li> <li> <a href="http://sites.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/suhl/bizer/ng4j/semwebclient/#examples">Semantic Web Client Library</a> - <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-concepts/">RDF</a> Data Drill Down Demos using SPARQL</li> <li> <a href="http://sioc-project.org/firefox">Semantic Radar</a> - A Firefox plug-in for auto-discovering SIOC Instance Data</li> <li> <a href="http://www.talkdigger.com/">Talk Digger</a> - SIOC based Web Conversation Tracker</li> </ol>
Web Me2.0 -- Exploding the Myth of Web 2.0
2006-11-16T21:11:46Z
2006-11-16T16:11:46-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1080
<p>It's kind of ironic to see what has emerged after <a href="http://iswc2006.semanticweb.org/" id="link-id12171fc0">ISWC 2006</a> and the <a href="http://web2con.com/" id="link-id10fff940">Web 2.0 Summit</a>. From my vantage point, it appears as though the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web">Web</a> 2.0 event inadvertently (albeit beneficially) left its attendees looking for the next big thing re. the Web Innovation Continuum as exemplified by the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/12/business/12web.html?ei=5094&en=a34a6306f48166fb&hp=&ex=1163394000&partner=homepage&pagewanted=all" id="link-id145eb180">"Web 3.0" meme from the New York Times (NYT)</a> which triggered the current "Web 2.0 vs Web 3.0 Brouhaha".</p> <p>Amongst the numerous comments about this subject, I felt most compelled to respond to the commentary from Tim O'Reilly (based on his proximity to Web 2.0 etc..) in relation to his view that the NYT's Web 3.0 = Collective Intelligence Harnessing aspect of his <a href="http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html" id="link-id10b00010">Web 2.0 meme</a>. </p> <p>My response is dumped semi-verbatim below:</p> <blockquote> <p>Tim,</p> <p>A few things:</p> <ol> <li> We are in an innovation continuum </li> <li> The Web as a medium of innovation will evolve forever </li> <li> Different commentators have different views about monikers associated with these innovations</li> <li> To say Web 3.0 (aka the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Data">Data</a> Web or <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id0xb1aeb88">Semantic Web</a> - Layer 1) is what Web 2.0's collective intelligence is all about is a little inaccurate (IMHO); Web 2.0 doesn't provide "Open Data Access" </li> <li> Web 2.0 is a "Web of Services" primarily, a dimension of "Web Interaction" defined by interaction with Services </li> <li> Web 3.0 ("Data Web" or "Web of Databases" or "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web">Semantic Web</a> - Layer 1") is a Web dimension that provides "Open Data Access" that will be exemplified by the transition from "Mash-ups" (brute force data joining) to "Mesh-ups" (natural data joining) </li> </ol> <p> The original "Web of Hypertext" or "Interactive Web", the current "Web of Services", and the emerging "Data Web" or "Web of Databases" collectively provide dimensions of interaction in the innovation continuum called the Web. </p> <p> There are many more dimensions to come. Monikers come and go, but the retrospective "Long Shadow" of Innovation is ultimately timeless.</p> <p> "Mutual Inclusivity" is a critical requirement for truly perceiving these "<a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=web%20dimensions&type=text&output=html" id="link-id10de2178">Web Interaction Dimensions</a>" ("Participation" if I recall). "Mutual Exclusivity" on the other hand, simpy leads to obscuring reality with Versionitis as exemplified by the ongoing: Web 1.0 vs 2.0 vs 3.0 debates.</p> </blockquote> <p>BTW - I enjoyed reading <a href="http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2006/11/welcome_web_30.php" id="link-id1855a380">Nick Carr's take on the Web 3.0 meme</a>, especially his "tongue in cheek" power-grab for the rights to all "Web 3.0" Conferences etc. :-) </p>
Web 2.0 vs Web 3.0 Brouhaha!
2008-09-05T03:00:54Z
2008-09-04T23:00:54-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1076
<p>(Posted verbatim from <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/oerling/">Orri Erling's Blog</a>.)</p> <p> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/oerling/?id=1074">More RDF scalability tests</a>: "</p> <p>We have lately been busy with RDF scalability. We work with the 8000 university LUBM data set, a little over a billion triples. We can load it in 23h 46m on a box with 8G RAM. With 16G we probably could get it in 16h.</p> <p>The resulting database is 75G, 74 bytes per triple which is not bad. It will shrink a little more if explicitly compacted by merging adjacent partly filled pages. See Advances in Virtuoso Triple Storage for an in-depth treatment of the subject.</p> <p>The real question of RDF scalability is finding a way of having more than one CPU on the same index tree without them hitting the prohibitive penalty of waiting for a mutex. The sure solution is partitioning, would probably have to be by range of the whole key. but before we go to so much trouble, well look at dropping a couple of critical sections from index random access. Also some kernel parameters may be adjustable, like a spin count before calling the scheduler when trying to get an occupied mutex. Still we should not waste too much time on platform specifics. Well see.</p> <p>We just updated the Virtuoso Open Source cut. The latest RDF refinements are not in, so maybe the cut will have to be refreshed shortly.</p> <p>We are also now applying the relational to RDF mapping discussed in <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/VOSSQLRDF">Declarative SQL Schema to RDF Ontology Mapping</a> to the ODS applications.</p> <p>There is a form of the mapping in the VOS cut on the net but it is not quite ready yet. We must first finish testing it through mapping all the relational schemas of the ODS apps before we can really recommend it. This is another reason for a VOS update in the near future.</p> <p>We will be looking at the query side of LUBM after the ISWC 2006 conference. So far, we find queries compile OK for many SIOC use cases with the cost model that there is now. A more systematic review of the cost model for SPARQL will come when we get to the queries.</p> <p>We put some ideas about inferencing in the Advances in Triple Storage paper. The question is whether we should forward chain such things as class subsumption and subproperties. If we build these into the SQL engine used for running SPARQL, we probably can do these as unions at run time with good performance and better working set due to not storing trivial entailed triples. Some more thought and experimentation needs to go into this.</p> <p> </p>
More RDF scalability tests
2006-11-06T22:09:54Z
2006-11-06T17:09:54.000001-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1072
<a href="http://fgiasson.com"> Frederick Giasson</a> continues <a href="http://fgiasson.com/blog/index.php?title=the_first_three_dimensions_of_the_web_in&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1">the conversation about the Web Experience Dimensions</a> in a new post --the first of several-- that chronicles the evolution of Pingthesemanticweb.com and Talk Digger, from Interactive-Web (Web 1.0) sites to Data-Web oriented Data Spaces:<br /> <br />On a related front, I also came across an e-Government Data Reference Model presentation (<a href="http://web-services.gov/scopedrmit210172005.ppt">PPT</a>) by <a href="http://www.project10x.com/pages/team.html">Mills Davis</a> from the <a href="http://colab.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?DRMImplementationThroughIterationandTestingPilotProjects">Colab Wiki</a> that illustrates the aforementioned Web Dimensions (even though his presentation didn't have dimensionality of the Web in mind) in one of its graphics (which I've yanked and placed into this post so that it has a URI courtesy of <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/OdsIndex">ODS</a> <img src="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/images/smileys/01.gif" />):<br /> <br /> <img src="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/%7Ekidehen/briefcase/Public/graphics/drm-smart-search.png" /> <br /> <br /> Notes:<br />=====<br /> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Conceptual</span> - Data-Web (*we are starting to comprehend and use this dimension* aka Semantic Web Layer 1)<br /> <br /> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Logical Theory </span>- To follow when we let loose the intelligent agents that enrichen the Data Web experience<br /> <br /> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Philosophy</span> - by way of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiology">Axiology </a>(sometime in the future, but note, we are talking Internet time :-) )<br /> <br />I also stumbled across another graphic that actually provides visual delineation of the value propositions of XML (Structure) and RDF (Context):<br /> <img src="http://colab.cim3.net/file/work/SICoP/EPADRM2.0/ombdrm2.gif" /> <br />Notes:<br />=====<br /> <br /> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Description</span> - <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-infoset/#intro">XML</a> <br /> <br /> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Context</span> - <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-concepts/">RDF</a> <br /> <br /> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Sharing</span> - Access Points (e.g <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-sparql-query/">SPARQL</a>, <a href="http://www.xmla.org/faq.asp">XMLA,</a> <a href="http://code.google.com/apis/gdata/">GData</a> Generic Query oriented Web Service Endpoints)<br />
Contd: Web Dimensionality
2006-10-25T22:19:40Z
2006-10-25T18:19:40.000001-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1061
<p>In a <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen/index.vspx?page=&id=1038">previous blog post</a> I suggested that the emerging <a href="http://captsolo.net/info/blog_a.php/2006/09/29/sioc_o_sphere">SIOC-o-sphere</a> should be described as "Blogosphere 2.0". Well, as I think about this a little deeper, I have come to the realization that this cannot really be correct (even though it may be more buzz worthy etc..). The fact of the matter is that, SIOC is about Semantically-Interlined Online Communities (Data Spaces) comprised of Blogs, Wikis, Discussion Forums etc.. Thus, "Blogosphere 2.0" is simply a part of the SIOC-o-sphere :-) Ditto the Wikisphere and so on...</p> <p> What is Blogosphere 2.0 anyway?</p> <p>Blog clusters that incorporate the "Open Data Access" dimension to their usage pattern via content exported as RDF Data Sets or Virtual RDF Data Sets (as demonstrated by the <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/ODSSIOCRef">OpenLink Data Spaces SIOC Reference</a>). In either scenario, the RDF rendition of blog content is accessible for to ad-hoc querying via SPARQL (btw - checkout this cool <a href="http://thefigtrees.net/lee/sw/sparql-faq">SPARQL FAQ</a>). </p> <p>The really fascinating thing about the "Blgosophere 2.0" is that the transition from "Blogosphere 1.0" is going to be transparent! The "Open Data Access" will actually do the talking etc..</p>
SIOC-o-sphere & Blogosphere 2.0
2006-09-29T23:05:27Z
2006-09-29T19:05:27-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1060
<p>(Posted verbatim from <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/oerling/">Orri Erling's Weblog</a>):</p> <blockquote> <p> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/oerling/?id=1058">RDF Bulk Loading Revisited</a>: "</p> <p>We have made new benchmarks with loading the 47 million triples of the Wikipedia links data set. So far, our best result is 40 minutes with a dual core Xeon with 8G memory. This comes to about 18000 triples per second with between 1.2 and 2 CPU cores busy, slightly depending on configuration parameters. Our previous best result was with a dual 1.6GHz SPARC with 7700 triples per second on loading the 2M triple Wordnet data set.</p> <p>These are memory based speeds. We have implemented an automatic background compaction for database tables and have tried the Wikipedia load with and without. The CPU cost of the compaction was about 10% with a slight gain in real time due to less IO.</p> <p>But the real deal remains IO. With the compaction on, we got 91 bytes per triple, all included, i.e. two indices on the triples table, dictionaries from IRI IDs to URIs etc. The compaction is rather simple, it just detects adjacent dirty pages about to be written to disk and sees if the set of contiguous dirty pages would fit on fewer pages than they now take. If so, it rewrites the pages and frees the ones left over. It does not touch clean pages. With some more logic it could also compact clean pages, provided the result did not have more dirty pages than the initial situation. With more aggressive compaction we will get about 75 bytes per triple. We will try this.</p> <p>But the real gains will come from index compression with bitmaps. For the Wikipedia data set, this will cut one of the indices to about a third of its current size. This is also the index with the more random access, so the benefit is compounded in terms of working set. At that point we will be looking at about 50 bytes per triple. We will see next week how this works with the LUBM RDF benchmark.</p> </blockquote>
RDF Bulk Loading Revisited
2006-09-29T21:44:14Z
2006-09-29T17:44:14.000003-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1037
<p>I have just watched a pretty nifty presentation (courtesy of <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/bblfish/entry/the_10_dimensions_of_reality">Babelfish</a>) about <a href="http://www.tenthdimension.com/flash2.php">the 10 dimensions of our existence</a> (a 'la <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_theory">String Theory</a>) when it dawned on me that similar thinking can be applied to the Web :-)</p> <il> </il> <ol> Dimension 1 = Interactive Web (Visual Web of HTML based Sites aka Web 1.0) </ol> <ol> Dimension 2 = Services Web (Presence based Web of Services; a usage pattern commonly referred to as Web 2.0) </ol> <ol> Dimension 3 = Data Web (Presence and Open Data Access based Web of Databases aka Semantic Web layer 1) </ol> <ol> Dimension 4 = Ontology Web (Intelligent Agent palatable Web aka Semantic Web layer 2)</ol> <ol> .... </ol> <p>Hopefully, I can expand further :-)</p>
Dimensions of the Web
2006-11-12T23:55:54Z
2006-11-12T18:55:54.000001-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1036
<p>Another example of <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=%27data%20spaces%27&type=text&output=html">Data Spaces</a> in action by <a href="http://www.johnbreslin.com/blog">John Breslin</a>.. In this case John visualizes the connections that are exploitable by creating SIOC (<a href="http://rdfs.org/sioc/">Semantically-Interlinked Online Communities</a>) instance data from existing Distributed Collaborative Application profiles (<a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=web%202.0&type=text&output=html">Web 2.0</a> in current parlance). Of course, SIOC is an Ontology for RDF data since it describes the Concepts and Terms for a a network mesh of online communities. Which by implication provides another insight into the realization that the Web we know has always been a "Web of Databases" (federation of Graph Model Databases encapsulated in Data Spaces). The emergence of <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=sparql%0D%0A&type=text&output=html">SPARQ</a>L as the standard <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-sparql-query/">Query Language for querying RDF Data Sets</a>, alongside the SPARQL Protocol for transmitting SPARQL Queries over HTTP, and the SPARQL Query Results Serialization formats (XML or JSON) Results Serialization Format), basically set the stage truly open and flexible data access across Web Data Space clusters such as: the Blogosphere, Wikispehere, Usenetverse, Linkspaces, Boardscapes, and others.</p> <p> For additional clarity re. my comments above, you can also look at the <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/ODSSIOCRef">SPARQL & SIOC Usecase samples document</a> for our <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/OdsIndex">OpenLink Data Spaces platform</a>. Bottom line, the Semantic Web and SPARQL aren't <a href="http://morenews.blogspot.com/2006/09/myth-of-web-20.html"> BORING.</a> In fact, quite the contrary, since they are essential ingredients of a more powerful Web than the one we work with today!</p> <p>Enjoy the rest of John's post:</p> <blockquote> <p> <a href="http://www.johnbreslin.com/blog/2006/09/07/creating-connections-between-discussion-clouds-with-sioc/#comments">Creating connections between discussion clouds with SIOC</a>: </p> <p>(Extract from our forthcoming <a href="http://blogtalk.net/Main/Program"> BlogTalk</a> paper about browsers for SIOC.)</p> <p> <a class="imagelink" title="20060907b.png" href="http://www.johnbreslin.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2006/09/20060907a.png"><img id="image515" alt="20060907b.png" src="http://www.johnbreslin.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2006/09/20060907b.png" /> </a> </p> <p>SIOC provides a unified vocabulary for content and interaction description: a semantic layer that can co-exist with existing discussion platforms. Using SIOC, various linkages are created between the aforementioned concepts, which allow new methods of accessing this linked data, including:</p> <ul> <li> <strong>Virtual Forums</strong>. These may be a gathering of posts or threads which are distributed across discussion platforms, for example, where a user has found posts from a number of blogs that can be associated with a particular category of interest, or an agent identifies relevant posts across a certain timeframe.</li> <li> <strong>Distributed Conversations</strong>. Trackbacks are commonly used to link blog posts to previous posts on a related topic. By creating links in both directions, not only across blogs but across all types of internet discussions, conversations can be followed regardless of what point or URI fragment a browser enters at.</li> <li> <strong>Unified Communities</strong>. Apart from creating a web page with a number of relevant links to the blogs or forums or people involved in a particular community, there is no standard way to define what makes up an online community (apart from grouping the people who are members of that community using FOAF or OPML). SIOC allows one to simply define what objects are constituent parts of a community, or to say to what community an object belongs (using sioc:has_part / part_of): users, groups, forums, blogs, etc.</li> <li> <strong>Shared Topics</strong>. Technorati (a search engine for blogs) and BoardTracker (for bulletin boards) have been leveraging the free-text tags that people associate with their posts for some time now. SIOC allows the definition of such tags (using the subject property), but also enables hierarchial or non-hierarchial topic definition of posts using sioc:topic when a topic is ambiguous or more information on a topic is required. Combining with other Semantic Web vocabularies, tags and topics can be further described using the SKOS organisation system.</li> <li> <strong>One Person, Many User Accounts</strong>. SIOC also aims to help the issue of multiple identities by allowing users to define that they hold other accounts or that their accounts belong to a particular personal identity (via foaf:holdsOnlineAccount or sioc:account_of). Therefore, all the posts or comments made by a particular person using their various associated user accounts across platforms could be identified.</li> </ul> </blockquote>
Creating connections between discussion clouds with SIOC
2008-02-05T04:22:26Z
2008-02-04T23:22:26.000001-05:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1035
<p>I just spotted a nice <a href="http://www.johnbreslin.com/blog/wp-content/20051015a.gif">Semantic Desktop animation</a> Courtesy of <a href="http://www.johnbreslin.com/">John Breslin</a>.</p> <p>This is fundamentally an animation demonstrating Semantic Web exploitation in the classic: picture speaks a thousand words manner. It also illustrates (yet again) the important <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=%27data%20spaces%27&type=text&output=html">Data Space(s)</a> aspect of creating Semantic Web presence.</p> <p>Finally, the Web 2.0 usage pattern tries to espouse what's demonstrated in this animation via data-context-challenged interactions (due to its <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=connundrum&type=text&output=html">"Walled Garden" and "Data Silo" approach to Data Access</a> etc..). The <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=%27semantic%20web%27&type=text&output=html">Semantic Web</a> (as per numerous posts on the subject) on the other hand achieves this via data-context-aware interactions (as will be exemplified via meshups).</p>
Data Spaces and Semantic Web Animation
2006-09-05T20:00:17Z
2006-09-05T16:00:17.000001-04:00
Kingsley Uyi Idehen
kidehen@openlinksw.com