http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/
Kingsley Idehen's Blog Data Space
I have seen the future and it's full of Linked Data! :-)
kidehen@openlinksw.com
kidehen@openlinksw.com
2024-03-28T09:56:14Z
Virtuoso Universal Server 08.03.3327
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/weblog/public/images/vbloglogo.gif
Additional OpenLink Data Spaces Features
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2008-02-09#1315
2008-02-09T17:54:35Z
2008-02-11T11:38:03.000006-05:00
<p> <a href="http://vanirsystems.com/danielsblog" id="link-id13df7aa0">Daniel Lewis</a> has published another post about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenLink_Data_Spaces" id="link-id170b4ce8">OpenLink Data Spaces</a> (ODS) functionality titled:<a href="http://vanirsystems.com/danielsblog/2008/02/09/a-few-new-features-in-openlink-data-spaces/#comments" id="link-idf6ad9e8">A few new features in OpenLink Data Spaces</a>, that exposes additional features (some hot out the oven).</p> <blockquote> <p> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/OpenLink_Data_Space" id="link-id16f42c90">OpenLink Data Spaces (<acronym title="OpenLink Data Spaces">ODS</acronym>)</a> now officially supports:</p> <ul> <li> <a href="http://apml.pbwiki.com/" id="link-id15baf3e0">Attention Profiling Markup Language (<acronym title="Attention Profiling Markup Language">APML</acronym>)</a>.</li> <li> <a href="http://moat-project.org/" id="link-iddd45db0">Meaning of a Tag (<acronym title="Meaning of a Tag">MOAT</acronym>)</a> in conjunction with <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SKOS" id="link-id14b97300">Simple Knowledge Organisation System (SKOS)</a> and <a href="http://scot-project.org/" id="link-id16e84910">Social-Semantic Cloud of Tags (<acronym title="Social-Semantic Cloud of Tags">SCOT</acronym>)</a>.</li> <li> <a href="http://oauth.net/" id="link-id13e5ae50">OAuth - an Open Authentication Protocol</a> </li> </ul> <p>Which means that OpenLink Data Spaces support all of the main standards being discussed in the DataPortability Interest Group!</p> <p> <strong><em>APML Example:</em> </strong> </p> <p>All users of ODS automatically get a dynamically created APML file, for example: <a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/kidehen/apml.xml" id="link-id14b59220">APML profile</a> for <a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/kidehen#this" id="link-id13dbb298">Kingsley Idehen</a> </p> <p>The URI for an APML profile is: http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/<ods-username>/apml.xml</p> <p> <em><strong>Meaning of a Tag Example:</strong> </em> </p> <p>All users of ODS automatically have tag cloud information embedded inside their <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SIOC" id="link-idf7182c8"><acronym title="Semantically Interlinked Online Communities">SIOC</acronym></a> file, for example: SIOC for Kingsley Idehen on the Myopenlink.net installation of ODS.</p> <p>But even better, MOAT has been implemented in the ODS Tagging System. This has been demonstrated in a recent test blog post by my colleague Mitko Iliev, the blog post comes up on the tag search: <a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/imitko/weblog/Mitko%27s%20Weblog/tag/paris" id="link-idfc14cf0">http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/imitko/weblog/Mitko%27s%20Weblog/tag/paris</a> </p> <p>Which can be put through the <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/rdfbrowser/" id="link-id14954fc8">OpenLink Data Browser</a>:</p> <ul> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/rdfbrowser/?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fmyopenlink.net%2Fdataspace%2Fimitko%2Fweblog%2FMitko%2527s%2520Weblog%2Ftag%2Fparis" id="link-id164edd88">OpenLink Data Browser with Mitko Ilievâs Paris Blog Tag</a> </li> </ul> <p> <strong><em>OAuth Example:</em> </strong> </p> <p>OAuth Tokens and Secrets can be created for any ODS application. To do this:</p> <ol> <li> you can log in to <a href="http://myopenlink.net:8890/ods/index.html" id="link-id167224c0">MyOpenlink.net</a> beta service, the <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/ods/index.html" id="link-id169733d8">Live Demo ODS installation</a>, an <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1261" id="link-id14b2d380">EC2 instance</a>, or your local installation</li> <li>then go to âSettingsâ</li> <li>and then you will see âOAuth Keysâ</li> <li>you will then be able to choose the applications that you have instantiated and generate the token and secret for that <abbr title="application">app</abbr>.</li> </ol> <p> <strong>Related Document (Human) Links</strong> </p> <ul> <li> <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/Ods" id="link-id16d1c2d8">OpenLink Data Spaces Official Page</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/" id="link-id16d8c500">OpenLink Software Page</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenLink_Data_Spaces" id="link-idf6b05f0">OpenLink Data Spaces Wikipedia Page</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.apml.org/" id="link-id12d8bbd0">Attention Profiling Markup Language Project Website</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://moat-project.org/" id="link-id137e7108">Meaning of a Tag Project Website</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/" id="link-id110f1028">Simple Knowledge Organisation Systems Project Website</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://scot-project.org/" id="link-id14b8d1e0">Social-Semantic Cloud of Tags Project Website</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://oauth.net/" id="link-id12da2dd0">OAuth Protocol Website</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.dataportability.org/" id="link-id13f52e08">DataPortability.org Website</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.sioc-project.org/" id="link-id15ebb6a0">Semantically Interlinked Online Communities Project Website<br /> </a> </li> </ul> </blockquote> <p>Remember (as per my <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1314" id="link-id16ea8bb8">most recent post about ODS</a>), ODS is about unobtrusive fusion of Web 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0+ usage and interaction patterns. Thanks to a lot of recent standardization in the Semantic Web realm (e.g SPARQL), we are now employ the MOAT, SKOS, and SCOT ontologies as vehicles for Structured Tagging.</p> <h2>Structured Tagging?</h2> <p>This is how we take a key <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Web_2.0" id="link-id1884ac58">Web 2.0 </a>feature (think 2D in a sense), bend it over, to create a Linked Data Web (Web 3.0) experience unobtrusively (see <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=web%20dimensions&type=text&output=html" id="link-id14b3d8a0">earlier posts re. Dimensions of Web</a>). Thus, nobody has to change how they tag or where they tag, just expose ODS to the URLs of your Web 2.0 tagged content and it will produce URIs (Structured Data Object Identifiers) and a lnked data graph for your Tags Data Space (nee. Tag Cloud). ODS will construct a graph which exposes tag subject association, tag concept alignment / intended meaning, and tag frequencies, that ultimately deliver "relative disambiguation" of intended Tag Meaning (i.e. you can easily discern the taggers meaning via the Tags actual Data Space which is associated with the tagger). In a nutshell, the dynamics of relevance matching, ranking, and the like, change immensely without futile timeless debates about matters such as: </p> <ul>What's the Linked Data value proposition?</ul> <ul>What's the Linked Data business model?</ul> <ul> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/XML" id="link-id105abcb0">XML</a> vs <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Resource_Description_Framework" id="link-id14b27b28">RDF</a> </ul> <ul> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/XQuery" id="link-id10572dd0">XQuery</a> vs <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id1326d4c8">SPARQL</a> </ul> <ul>What's the Semantic Web Killer application?</ul> <p>We can just get on with demonstrating Linked Data value using what exists on the Web today. This is the approach we are deliberately taking with ODS.</p> <h2>Related Items</h2> <ul> <a href="http://www.betaversion.org/~stefano" id="link-id170849b0">Stefano Mazzocch</a>'s <a href="http://blogs.usnet.private:8893/linotype/news/85/" id="link-idfde2e08"> response to Clay Shirky's 2005 talk</a> titled: <a href="http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/et2005/view/e_sess/6117" id="link-id13f45030">Ontology is Overrated: Links, Tags and Post-hoc Metadata</a> </ul> <ul> <a href="http://tomgruber.org" id="link-id16c745b8"> Tom Gruber</a>'s post titled: <a href="http://tomgruber.org/writing/ontology-of-folksonomy.htm" id="link-id13cbe7b0">Ontology of Folksonomy: A Mash-up of Apples and Oranges</a> </ul>. <p> <strong>Tip:</strong> This post is best viewed via an RDF aware User Agent (e.g. a <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/rdfbrowser" id="link-id14b325b8">Browser</a> or <a href="http://dataviewer.zitgist.com" id="link-id164bfab0">Data Viewer</a>). I say this because the permalink of this post is a URI in a Linked Data Space (My Blog) comprised of more data than meets the eye (i.e. what you see when you read this post via a Document Web Browser) :-)</p>
10 Reasons to use OpenLink Data Spaces (ODS)
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2008-02-08#1314
2008-02-08T17:33:45Z
2008-02-08T17:08:43-05:00
<p>Via post by <a href="http://vanirsystems.com/danielsblog" id="link-id1480d7c0">Daniel Lewis</a>, titled:<a href="http://vanirsystems.com/danielsblog/2008/02/08/10-reasons-to-use-openlink-data-spaces/#comments" id="link-id1320a618">10 Reasons to use OpenLink Data Spaces</a> </p> <blockquote> <p>There are quite a few reasons to use <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenLink_Data_Space" id="link-id103eb060">OpenLink Data Spaces (ODS)</a>. Here are 10 of the reasons why I use ODS:</p> <ol> <li>Its native support of DataPortability Recommendations such as <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/RSS" id="link-id18957e88">RSS</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Atom_%28standard%29" id="link-id1410a9c0">Atom</a>, <a href="http://www.apml.org/" id="link-idfde4b90">APML</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Yadis" id="link-id1328c260">Yadis</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/OPML" id="link-id10133f70">OPML</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Microformat" id="link-id16e19be0">Microformats</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Friend_of_a_friend" id="link-id12deef98">FOAF</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SIOC" id="link-id15fb99b0">SIOC</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/OpenID" id="link-id1390ae10">OpenID</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OAuth" id="link-id14dcce70">OAuth</a>.</li> <li>Its native support of Semantic Web Technologies such as: <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Resource_Description_Framework" id="link-id15fc75a0">RDF</a> and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id14255238">SPARQL</a>/<a href="http://jena.hpl.hp.com/~afs/SPARQL-Update.html" id="link-id15fe2e40">SPARUL</a> for querying.</li> <li>Everything in ODS is an <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Object_%28computer_science%29" id="link-id11c204a0">Object</a> with its own <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-id14812560">URI</a>, this is due to the underlying <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Object-relational_database" id="link-idf663e08">Object-Relational</a> Architecture provided by <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Virtuoso_Universal_Server" id="link-id1484e4c8">Virtuoso</a>.</li> <li>It has all the social media components that you could need, including: <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Blog" id="link-id10120b58">blogs</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Wiki" id="link-id14d9a608">wikis</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Social_network_service" id="link-idf0b3a30">social networks</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Aggregator" id="link-id188d7c78">feed readers</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Customer_relationship_management" id="link-id134a2c48">CRM</a> and a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Calendar" id="link-idf66af80">calendar</a>.</li> <li>It is expandable by installing pre-configured components (called VADs), or by re-configuring a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/LAMP_%28software_bundle%29" id="link-id102e8008">LAMP</a> application to use <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Virtuoso_Universal_Server" id="link-id13fe2b68">Virtuoso</a>. Some examples of current VADs include: <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/MediaWiki" id="link-id1011d9f0">MediaWiki</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/WordPress" id="link-id13624060">Wordpress</a> and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Drupal" id="link-id100c4510">Drupal</a>.</li> <li>It works with external webservices such as: <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Facebook" id="link-id131fe6d0">Facebook</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Del.icio.us" id="link-idfdd1580">del.icio.us</a> and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Flickr" id="link-id1496aff0">Flickr.</a> </li> <li>Everything within OpenLink Data Spaces is <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id17114c00">Linked Data</a>, which provides more meaningful information than just plain structural information. This meaningful information could be used for complex inferencing systems, as ODS can be seen as a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Expert_system" id="link-id15ea4108">Knowledge Base</a>.</li> <li>ODS builds bridges between the existing static-document based web (aka â<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Web_1.0" id="link-idf08b338">Web 1.0</a>â), the more dynamic, services-oriented, social and/or user-orientated webs (aka â<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Web_2.0" id="link-idfde26e0">Web 2.0</a>â) and the web which we are just going into, which is more data-orientated (aka â<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Web_3.0" id="link-idf9b7328">Web 3.0</a>â or âLinked Data Webâ).</li> <li>It is fully supportive of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Cloud_computing" id="link-id189480d0">Cloud Computing</a>, and can be installed on <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Amazon_Elastic_Compute_Cloud" id="link-id10026778">Amazon EC2</a>.</li> <li>Its released free under the GNU <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/GNU_General_Public_License" id="link-id16002fb0">General Public License (GPL)</a>. [note]However, it is technically dual licensed as it lays on top of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtuoso_Universal_Server" id="link-id132d4238">Virtuoso Universal Server</a> which has both Commercial and GPL licensing[/note]</li> </ol> </blockquote> <p>The features above collectively provide users with a Linked Data Junction Box that may reside with corporate intranets or "out in the clouds" (Internet). You can consume, share, and publish data in a myriad of formats using a plethora of protocols, without any programming. ODS is simply about exposing the data from your Web 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 application interactions in structured from, with Linking, Sharing, and ultimately Meshing (not Mashing) in mind.</p> <p> <strong>Note:</strong> Although ODS is equipped with a broad array of Web 2.0 style Applications, you do not need to use native ODS apps in order to exploit it's power. It binds to anything that supports the relevant protocols and data formats.</p>
Data Spaces, User Identity, and Data Portability
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2008-02-04#1311
2008-02-04T14:54:40Z
2008-02-04T10:06:43-05:00
<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>
FOAF-ing Linked Data is quite SIOC-ing
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2008-01-31#1306
2008-01-31T02:40:12Z
2008-02-01T18:20:34-05:00
<p>The title of this post is a "Tongue in cheek" expression of euphoria now that I have <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Friend_of_a_friend" id="link-idfa63488">FOAF</a> and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SIOC" id="link-idfa976f0">SIOC</a> (pronounced SHOCK) based data spaces exposed via <a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/person/kidehen" id="link-idfde41f8">my FOAF</a> and <a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/kidehen" id="link-idfdca6c8">my SIOC</a> information resource (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Resource_Description_Framework" id="link-id16d0b0d8">RDF</a> files) <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-idfa97070">URI</a>s.</p> <p>If you want to explore who I know, what I read, and what I've tagged (amongst other things), all you have to do is:</p> <ol> <li>Beam a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-idfdca878">SPARQL</a> query down my data space URIs which expose FOAF or SIOC based interconnected <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-idfa954e8">Linked Data</a> graphs.</li> <li> Walkthrough using an RDF Browser until you reach a beachhead and then beam your SPARQL from there (remember you only need the URI of the RDF Data Source, and while in my Data Space every data item has a proper URI).</li> </ol> <p>Some Tools that help you comprehend what I am saying:</p> <h2>Browsers</h2> <ul> Zitgist Data Viewer (<a href="http://dataviewer.zitgist.com/?uri=http%3A//myopenlink.net/dataspace/kidehen" id="link-id16d410c0">SIOC</a> and <a href="http://dataviewer.zitgist.com/?uri=http%3A//myopenlink.net/dataspace/person/kidehen" id="link-idfa489e8">FOAF</a> data spaces)</ul> <ul>OpenLink RDF Browser (<a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/rdfbrowser/?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fmyopenlink.net%2Fdataspace%2Fkidehen" id="link-idfa8b0d8">SIOC</a> and <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/rdfbrowser/?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fmyopenlink.net%2Fdataspace%2Fperson%2Fkidehen" id="link-idfa974a8">FOAF</a> data spaces)</ul> <ul>DISCO (<a href="http://www4.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/rdf_browser/?browse_uri=http%3A%2F%2Fmyopenlink.net%2Fdataspace%2Fkidehen%2Fspace%23this" id="link-idfa62288">SIOC</a> and <a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/person/kidehen#this" id="link-idf940338">FOAF</a> data spaces)</ul> <ul> <a href="http://dig.csail.mit.edu/2005/ajar/release/tabulator/0.8/tab.html" id="link-id16d6a4b8">Tabulator</a> </ul> <h2>Query Tools</h2> <ul> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/sparql_demo" id="link-idfdd43b8">SPARQL Demo</a> </ul> <ul> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/isparql" id="link-idfa96bd0">iSPARQL QBE</a> </ul>
Semantic Data Web Epiphanies: One Node at a Time
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2008-01-17#1300
2008-01-17T22:59:00Z
2008-01-18T02:27:27.000004-05:00
<p>In 2006, I stumbled across <a href="http://www.jasonkolb.com" id="link-id17165b98">Jason Kolb</a> (online) via a 4-part series of posts titled: <a href="http://www.jasonkolb.com/weblog/2006/08/reinventing_the_1.html" id="link-id14204cf8">Reinventing the Internet</a>. At the time, I realized that Jason was postulating about what is popularly known today as "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_portability" id="link-id1412b280">Data Portability</a>", so I made contact with him (blogosphere style) via a post of my own titled: <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1033" id="link-id13b1cb20">Data Spaces, Internet Reinvention, and the Semantic Web</a>. Naturally, I tried to unveil to Jason the connection between his vision and the essence of the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id143117f0">Semantic Web</a>. Of course, he was skeptical :-)</p> <p>Jason recently moved to <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Massachusetts" id="link-id13c4a470">Massachusetts</a> which lead to me pinging him about our earlier blogosphere encounter and the emergence of a <a href="http://dataportability.org/" id="link-id17395c60">Data Portability Community</a>. I also informed him about the fact that <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Tim_Berners-Lee" id="link-id105507f0">TimBL</a>, myself, and a number of other Semantic Web technology enthusiasts, frequently meet on the 2nd Tuesday of each month at the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Massachusetts_Institute_of_Technology" id="link-id1719f798">MIT</a> hosted <a href="http://esw.w3.org/topic/CambridgeSemanticWebGatherings" id="link-id1734d460">Cambridge Semantic Web Gatherings</a>, to discuss, demonstrate, debate all aspects of the Semantic Web. Luckily (for both of us), Jason attended the last event, and we got to meet each other in person.</p> <p>Following our face to face meeting in Cambridge, a number of follow-on conversations ensued covering, Linked Data and practical applications of the Semantic Web vision. Jason writes about our exchanges a recent post titled: <a href="http://www.jasonkolb.com/weblog/2008/01/the-semantic-we.html" id="link-id13be6280">The Semantic Web</a>. His passion for Data Portability enabled me to use <a href="http://esw.w3.org/topic/FoafOpenid" id="link-id141516a8">OpenID and FOAF integration</a> to connect the Semantic Web and Data Portability via the Linked Data concept.</p> <p>During our conversations, Jason also eluded to the fact that he had already encountered <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenLink_Software" id="link-id17038218">OpenLink Software</a> while working with our <a href="http://data.openlinksw.com/oplweb/product_category/odbc#this" id="link-id14325f08">ODBC Drivers</a> (part of or <a href="http://data.openlinksw.com/oplweb/product_family/uda#this" id="link-id11ab1008">UDA product family</a>) for <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Informix" id="link-id125858d0">IBM Informix</a> (<a href="http://data.openlinksw.com/oplweb/product/odbc-informix-st#this" id="link-id13b85e30">Single-Tier</a> or <a href="http://data.openlinksw.com/oplweb/product/odbc-informix-mt#this" id="link-id13edceb0">Multi-Tier</a> Editions) a few years ago (interesting random connection).</p> <p>As I've stated in the past, I've always felt that the Semantic Web vision will materialize by way of a global epiphany. The count down to this inevitable event started at the birth of the blogosphere, ironically. And accelerated more recently, through the emergence of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Web_2.0" id="link-id171d4ec8">Web 2.0</a> and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/page/Social_network" id="link-id140da830">Social Networking</a>, even more ironically :-)</p> <p>The blogosphere started the process of Data Space coalescence via RSS/Atom based semi-strucutured data enclaves, Web 2.0 RDFpropagated Web Service usage en route to creating service provider controlled, data and information silosRDF, Social NetworkingRDF brought attention to the fact that User Generated Data wasn't actually owned or controlled by the Data Creators etc.</p> <p>The emergence of "Data Portability" has created a palatable moniker for a clearly defined, and slightly easier to understand, problem: the meshing of Data and Identity in cyberspace i.e. individual points of presence in cyberspace, in the form of "Personal Data Spaces in the Clouds" (think: doing really powerful stuff with .name domains). In a sense, this is the critical inflection point between the document centric "Web of Linked Documents" and the data centric "Web or Linked Data". There is absolutely no other way solve this problem in a manner that alleviates the imminent challenges presented by information overload -- resulting from the exponential growth of user generated data across the Internet and enterprise Intranets.</p>
W3C's SPARQLing Data Access Ingenuity
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2008-01-15#1295
2008-01-15T22:58:53Z
2008-01-17T15:41:04.000006-05:00
<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>
Semantic Web Killer Application?
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2008-01-10#1293
2008-01-10T19:49:00Z
2008-02-04T20:32:42.000003-05:00
<p>In response to the <a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com" id="link-id0x1f562c28">ReadWriteWeb</a> piece titled: <a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/semantic_web_what_is_the_killer_app.php" id="link-id0x16961368">Semantic Web: What is the Killer App.</a> by <a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/about_alex.php" id="link-id0x16909678">Alex Iskold</a>:</p> <p>Information overload and Data Portability are two of the most pressing and imminent challenges affecting every individual connected to the global village exposed by the Internet and World Wide Web. I wrote an earlier post titled: <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1267" id="link-idfeb7718">Why We Need Linked Data</a> that shed light on frequently overlooked realities about the Document Web.</p> <p>The real Killer application of the Semantic Web (imho) is <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id10571ef0">Linked Data</a> (or Hyperdata), just as the killer application of the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web" id="link-id102be888">Document Web</a> was Linked Documents (Hyperlinks). Linked Data enables human users (indirectly) and software agents (directly in response to human instruction) to traverse Web Data Spaces (Linked Data enclaves within the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Global_Graph" id="link-id10b6ba08">Giant Global Graph</a>).</p> <p>Semantic Web applications (conduits between humans and agents) that take advantage of Linked Data include:</p> <p> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/DBpedia" id="link-id10fcc8f8">DBpedia</a> - General Knowledge sourced from <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Wikipedia" id="link-id10570808">Wikipedia</a> and a host of other Linked Data Spaces.</p> <p>Various Linked Data Browsers: <a href="http://dataviewer.zitgist.com" id="link-id139a2300">Zitgist Data Viewer</a>, <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/rdfbrowser" id="link-id12fb46f0">OpenLink RDF Browser</a>, <a href="http://www4.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/rdf_browser" id="link-idff652c0">DISCO Browser</a>, and TimBL's <a href="http://dig.csail.mit.edu/2005/ajar/ajaw/tab.html" id="link-idff63998">Tabulator</a>.</p> <p> <a href="http://zlinks.zitgist.com/" id="link-idff62b90">zLknks </a>- Linked Data Lookup technology for Web Content Publishing systems (note: more to come on this in a future post).</p> <p> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenLink_Data_Spaces" id="link-id1054a708">OpenLink Data Spaces</a> - a solution for Data Portability via a Linked Data Junction Box for Web 1.0 ((X)HTML Document Webs), 2.0 (XML Web Services based Content Publishing, Content Syndication, and Aggregation), and 3.0 (Linked Data) Data Spaces. Thus, via my URI (when viewed through a Linked Data Browser/Viewer) you can traverse my Data Space (i.e my Linked Data Graph) generated by the following activities:</p> <ul>Blog Posts publishing</ul> <ul>My RSS & Atom Content Subscriptions (what used to be called a "Blogroll")</ul> <ul>My Bookmarks (from my Desktop and Del.icio.us)</ul> <ul>and other things I choose to share with the public via the Web</ul> <p> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Virtuoso_Universal_Server" id="link-idff89b08">Virtuoso</a> - a Universal Server Platform that includes <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/VOSRDF" id="link-id12ff8810">RDF Data Management</a>, <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/presentations/Virtuoso_Sponger_1/Virtuoso_Sponger_1.html" id="link-idf7739b8">RDFization Middleware</a>, <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/presentations/RDF_Mapping_Presentation_W3C_workshop3/RDF_Mapping_Presentation_W3C_workshop3.html" id="link-id1025ca28">SQL-RDF Mapping</a>, <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/presentations/Virtuoso_Deploying_Linked_Data/Virtuoso_Deploying_Linked_Data.html" id="link-id1324db10">RDF Linked Data Deployment</a>, alongside a hybrid/multi-model, virtual/federated data service in a single product offering.</p> <p></p>BTW - There is a <a href="http://events.linkeddata.org/ldow2008/" id="link-id117a0190">Linked Data Workshop</a> at this years <a href="http://www2008.org/" id="link-id102abe28">World Wide Web conference</a>. Also note the <a href="http://esw.w3.org/topic/HCLS/WWW2008" id="link-id100c3a88">Healthcare & Life Science Workshop</a> which is a related Linked Data technology and Semantic Web best practices realm.
Politics, Old Media, and Linked Data
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2008-01-07#1290
2008-01-07T03:30:21Z
2008-01-07T12:22:15.000002-05:00
<p>According to current media:</p> <p>Senator <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Barack_Obama" id="link-idfa3e498">Barack Obama</a> is a beacon of change within the democratic party while Senator <a href="http://dbpedia.org/page/Hillary_Rodham_Clinton" id="link-idfd9ead8">Hillary Clinton</a> is status quo.</p> <p>According to the data in the <a href="http://www.govtrack.us/" id="link-idfcdd5f0">GovtTrack.us</a> data space:</p> <p>Senator Barack Obama is a rank-and-file Democrat according to <a href="http://www.govtrack.us/congress/person.xpd?id=400629" id="link-idfc172f8">GovTrack's analysis of his track record in congress</a>. Whereas, Senator Hillary Clinton is a radical democrat, according to the same <a href="http://www.govtrack.us/congress/person.xpd?id=300022" id="link-idf9463c8">Govt. Track analysis of her track record in congress</a>.</p> <p>Who do we believe? The GovtTrack.us performance data, old media pundits, or postulations of the candidates? GovtTrack.us is a new approach to candidate vetting. It provides data in traditional <a href="http://www.govtrack.us/" id="link-idf9cadc0">Document Web</a> and <a href="http://www.govtrack.us/sparql.xpd" id="link-idfb7af50">Linked Data Web</a> forms, placing analytic power in the hands of the citizen.</p> <p>Here are insights into the track records of Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama via the Zitgist <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id13325908">Linked Data</a> Viewer:</p> <ol> <li> <a href="http://dataviewer.zitgist.com/?uri=http%3A//www.govtrack.us/congress/person.xpd%3Fid%3D300022" id="link-idfada448">Senator Hillary Clinton</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://dataviewer.zitgist.com/?uri=http%3A//www.govtrack.us/congress/person.xpd%3Fid%3D400629" id="link-idfa3a860">Senator Barack Obama</a> </li> </ol> <p>Note: I am not aligned to any political party or candidate, this is just a demonstration of Linked Data that has a high degree of poignancy relative to US primary elections etc..</p>
2008, Facebook Data Portability, and the Giant Global Graph of Linked Data
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2008-01-05#1289
2008-01-05T17:11:55Z
2008-01-07T11:44:42.000007-05:00
<p>As 2007 came to a close I repeatedly mulled over the idea of putting together a usual "year in review" and a set of predictions for the coming year etc. Anyway, the more I pondered, the smaller the list became. While pondering (as 2008 rolled around), the <a href="http://www.techmeme.com/080103/p154#a080103p154" id="link-id113db9a0">Blogosphere was set ablaze with the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Robert_Scoble" id="link-idfe12a58">Robert Scoble</a>'s announcement of his account suspension by Facebook</a>. Of course, many chimed in expressing views either side of the ensuing debate: <a href="http://www.scripting.com/stories/2008/01/03/scobleAndHisFacebookData.html" id="link-id161e7c48">Who is right -- Scoble or Facebook</a>. The more I assimilated the views expressed about this event, the more ironic I found the general discourse, for the following reasons:</p> <ol> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Web_2.0" id="link-id16f6f3e0">Web 2.0</a> is fundamentally about <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Web_service" id="link-id1770f3c0">Web Services</a> as the prime vehicle for interactions across "points of Web presence"</li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Facebook" id="link-id162f3f60">Facebook</a> is a Web 2.0 hosted service for <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Social_Networking" id="link-id16e1dfc8">social networking</a> that provides Web Services APIs for accessing data in the Facebook data space. You have to do so "on the fly" within clearly defined constraints i.e you can interact with data across your social network via Facebook APIs, but you cannot cache the data (perform an export style dump of the data)</li> <li> Facebook is a main driver of the term: "social graph", but their underlying data model is relational and the Web Services response (data you get back) doesn't return a data graph, instead it returns an tree (i.e XML)</li> <li> <a href="http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl=en&q=scoble+semantic+web&btnG=Search+Blogs" id="link-id16680d08">Scoble's had a number of close encounters with Linked Data Web | Semantic Data Web | Web 3.0 aficionados</a> in various forms throughout 2007, but still doesn't quite make the connection between Web Services APIs as part of a processing pipeline that includes structured data extraction from XML data en route to producing Data Graphs comprised of Data Objects (Entities) endowed with: <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Identity_%28object-oriented_programming%29" id="link-id16af1f98">Unique Identifiers</a>, Classification or Categorization schemes, Attributes, and Relationships prescribed by one or more shared Data Dictionaries/Schemas/Ontologies</li> <li> A global information bus that exposes a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id16ce7c68">Linked Data</a> mesh comprised of Data Objects, Object Attributes, and Object Relationships across "points of Web presence" is what <a href="http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/card#i" id="link-id1aa304e0">TimBL</a> described in 1998 (<a href="http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/Semantic.html" id="link-id1a822db0">Semantic Web Roadmap</a>) and more recently in 2007 (<a href="http://dig.csail.mit.edu/breadcrumbs/node/215" id="link-id181e5998">Giant Global Graph</a>)</li> <li> The Linked Data mesh (i.e Linked Data Web or GGG) is anchored by the use of HTTP to mint Location, Structure, and Value independent Object Identifiers called <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-id16eae370">URI</a>s or <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/IRI" id="link-idffe16b8">IRI</a>s. In addition, the Linked Data Web is also equipped with a query language, protocol, and results serialization format for XML and JSON called: SPARQL. </li> </ol> <p>So, unlike Scoble, I am able to make my Facebook Data portable without violating Facebook rules (no data caching outside Facebook realm) by doing the following:</p> <ol> <li> Use an RDFizer for Facebook to convert XML response data from Facebook Web Services into RDF "on the fly" Ensure that my RDF is comprised of Object Identifiers that are HTTP based and thereby dereferencable (i.e. I can use SPARQL to unravel the Linked Data Graph in my Facebook data space)</li> <li> The act of data dereferencing enables me to expose my Facebook Data as Linked Data associated with my <a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/person/kidehen#this" id="link-id16b3e9d0">Personal URI</a> </li> <li> This interaction only occurs via my data space and in all cases the interactions with data work via my <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1172" id="link-id16c628b8">RDFizer middleware</a> (e.g the <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/presentations/Virtuoso_Sponger_1/Virtuoso_Sponger_1.html" id="link-id1572fb28">Virtuoso Sponger</a>) that talks directly to Facebook Web Services. </li> </ol> <p>In a nutshell, my Linked Data Space enables you to reference data in my data space via Object Identifiers (URIs), and some cases the Object IDs and Graphs are constructed on the fly via RDFization middleware.</p> <p>Here are my URIs that provide different paths to my Facebook Data Space:</p> <ul> <a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/person/kidehen#this" id="link-id16f817a8"> Personal URI</a> </ul> <ul> <a href="http://myopenlink.net/proxy?url=http%3A//www.facebook.com/people/Kingsley_Idehen/605980750&force=rdf&login=kidehen" id="link-id1a8e5950">My Facebook Data Space</a> (best viewed via a <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/rdfbrowser/?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fmyopenlink.net%2Fproxy%3Furl%3Dhttp%253A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fpeople%2FKingsley_Idehen%2F605980750%26force%3Drdf%26login%3Dkidehen" id="link-id15476588">Linked Data Browser/Viewer</a> session) </ul> <ul> <a href="http://myopenlink.net/proxy?url=http%3A//www.facebook.com/album.php%3Faid%3D14768%26id%3D605980750&force=rdf&login=kidehen" id="link-id16e3bcf0">My Facebook Photo Gallery -- WWW2007 Photo Collection</a> (also best viewed via a <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/rdfbrowser/?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fmyopenlink.net%2Fproxy%3Furl%3Dhttp%253A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Falbum.php%253Faid%253D14768%2526id%253D605980750%26force%3Drdf%26login%3Dkidehen" id="link-id16e10270">Linked Data Browser/Viewer</a> session) </ul> <p>To conclude, 2008 is clearly the inflection year during which we will final unshackle Data and Identity from the confines of "Web Data Silos" by leveraging the HTTP, SPARQL, and RDF induced virtues of Linked Data. </p> <p>Related Posts:</p> <ol> <li> <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/bblfish/entry/2008_the_rise_of_linked" id="link-id156baac0">2008 and the Rise of Linked Data</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/bblfish/entry/data_portability_scoble_explains" id="link-id16291310">Scoble Right, Wrong, and Beyond</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://scobleizer.com/2007/11/30/talking-with-tim-berners-lee-inventor-of-the-web/" id="link-id163c9c38">Scoble interviewing TimBL</a> (note to Scoble: re-watch your interview since he made some specific points about Linked Data and URIs that you need to grasp)</li> <li>Prior Blog posts my this Blog Data Space that include the literal patterns: <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=scoble%20semantic%20web&type=text&output=html" id="link-id163e6cd0">Scoble Semantic Web</a> </li> </ol>
OpenOffice.org, SPARQL, and the Linked Data Web
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2008-01-04#1288
2008-01-05T02:50:00Z
2008-02-04T20:42:50.000004-05:00
<p>Question posed by Dan Brickley via a blog post: SQL, OpenOffice: <a href="http://danbri.org/words/2008/01/04/245" id="link-id1689abd8">would a JDBC driver for SPARQL protocol make sense?</a> </p> <p>Writing a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/JDBC_driver" id="link-id16a96580">JDBC Driver</a> for <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL" id="link-id1a908a70">SPARQL</a> is a little overkill. <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/OpenOffice.org" id="link-id16ae69a8">OpenOffice.org</a> simply needs to make <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/XML" id="link-id168d3880">XML</a> or Web Data (<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/HTML" id="link-id1a7f1f50">HTML</a>, <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/XHTML" id="link-id16c1ae60">XHTML</a>, and XML) bonafide data sources within its "<a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Pivot_table" id="link-id16665398">Pivot Table</a>" functionality realm. Then all that would then be required is a <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-sparql-query/#select" id="link-id168bcbe8">SPARQL SELECT Query</a> transported via the <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-sparql-protocol/" id="link-id16c1bbc0">SPARQL Protocol</a> with results sent back using the <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-sparql-XMLres/" id="link-id1aa61118">SPARQL XML results serialization</a> format (all part of a single SPARQL Protocol URL).</p> <p>Excel successfully consumes the following information resource URI: http://tinyurl.com/yvoccj (a tiny url for a SPARQL SELECT against my<a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/person/kidehen" id="link-id16702ba8"> FOAF file</a>).</p> <p>Alternatively, and currently achievable, you could simply use <a href="http://esw.w3.org/topic/SPASQL" id="link-id1a1b6b78">SPASQL</a> (SPARQL within SQL) using a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/DBMS" id="link-id1661f240">DBMS</a> engine that supports SQL, SPARQL, and SPARQL e.g. <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Virtuoso_Universal_Server" id="link-id168bba60">Virtuoso</a>. </p> <p> <a href="http://docs.openlinksw.com/virtuoso/rdfapiandsql.html" id="link-id167d9508">Virtuoso SPASQL support</a> is exposed via it's <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Open_Database_Connectivity" id="link-id16c62160">ODBC</a> and/or JDBC Drivers. Thus you can do things such as: </p> <ol> <li>Use a SPARQL Query in the FROM CLAUSE of a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/SQL" id="link-id1657a3a8">SQL</a> statement</li> <li>Execute SPARQL via SQL processor by prepending SPARQL query text with the literals "sparql" </li> </ol> <p>BTW - My News Years Resolution: get my act together and shrink the ever increasing list of "simple & practical Virtuoso use case demos" on my todo which now spans all the way back to 2006 :-(</p>
Discussion: OpenLink Data Spaces
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2007-12-01#1280
2007-12-01T15:41:56Z
2007-12-01T15:26:12-05:00
<p>I've been a little busier than usual, of late. So busy, that even minimal blog based discourse participation has been a challenge. Anyway, during this quiet period, a number of interesting data streams have come my way that relate to <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/OdsIndex" id="link-id142b7e40">OpenLink Data Spaces</a> (ODS). Thus, in typical fashion, I'll use this post (via <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier" id="link-id1474d810">URI</a>s) to contribute a few nodes to the <a href="http://dig.csail.mit.edu/breadcrumbs/node/215" id="link-id149d8210">Giant Global Graph </a>that is the Web of Structured <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Linked_Data" id="link-id139f9190">Linked Data</a>, also known as the <a href="http:dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web" id="link-id1470e588">Data Web, Semantic Data Web, or Web of Data</a> (also see <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q='data%20web'&type=text&output=html" id="link-id13a4f828">prior Data Web posts</a>).</p> <p>Here goes:</p> <ol> <li> <a href="http://bizcast.typepad.com/" id="link-id14769268">Alan Wilensky</a> recalls his <a href="http://bizcast.typepad.com/clients/2007/11/social-networks.html" id="link-id14478c48">early encounters with OpenLink Data Spaces</a> (circa. 2004)</li> <li> <a href="http://www.vanirsystems.co.uk/foaf.rdf" id="link-id14516938">Daniel Lewis</a> shares his "<a href="http://vanirsystems.com/danielsblog/2007/11/29/where-is-the-semantic-web-well-it-is-here-already/" id="link-id149e2518">state of the Semantic Data Web"</a> findings</li> <li> <a href="http://vanirsystems.com/danielsblog/2007/11/30/openlink-data-spaces/" id="link-id14cddaf0">Daniel Lewis experiences OpenLink Data Space first hand</a> en route to creating Data Spaces in the Clouds (the <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1261" id="link-id146c35c8">Fourth Platform</a>).</li> </ol> <p>In addition, in one week, courtesy of the Web, UK Semnantic Web Gatherings in <a href="http://blogs.talis.com/nodalities/2007/11/cindy_che_and_other_interestin.php" id="link-id14304738">Bristol</a> and <a href="http://oxford.geeknights.net/2007/nov-28th/" id="link-id145589d8">Oxford</a>, I <a href="http://vanirsystems.com/danielsblog/2007/11/21/wanted-job/" id="link-id1399de08">discover</a>, interview, and employ Daniel :-) Imagine how long this would have taken to pull off via the Document Web, assuming I would even discover Daniel.</p> <p>As with all things these days, the <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/World_Wide_Web" id="link-id1477a7e0">Web</a> and <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Internet" id="link-id14c3f428">Internet</a> change everything, which includes talent discovery and recruitment.</p> <p>A Global Social graph that is a mesh of Linked Data enables the process of recruitment, marketing, and other elements of busines management to be condensed down to a sending powerful beams across the aforementioned Graph :-) The only variable pieces are the traversal paths exposed to your beam via the beam's entry point URI. In my case, <a href="http://kidehen.idehen.net/dataspace/person/kidehen#this" id="link-id1395e5f0">I have a single URI</a> that exposes a Graph of critical paths for the Blogosphere (i.e data spaces of RSS Atom Feeds). Thus, I can discover if your profile matches the requirements associated with an opening at OpenLink Software (most of the time) before you do :-)</p> <p>BTW - I just noticed that John Breslin described ODS as social-graph++ in his recent post, titled: <a href="http://www.johnbreslin.com/blog/2007/11/30/tales-from-the-sioc-o-sphere-part-6/" id="link-id14c82bc8">Tales from the SIOC-o-sphere, part 6</a>. In a funny way, this reminds of a post from the early blogosphere days about <a href="http://www.cadenhead.org/workbench/news/1427/commercial-server-supports-four-weblog-apis" id="link-id14a24c58">platforms and Weblog APIs </a>(circa. 2003) about ODS (then exposed via the Blog Platform realm of <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Virtuoso_Universal_Server" id="link-id14745100">Virtuoso</a>).</p>
Reminder: Why We Need Linked Data!
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2007-11-02#1267
2007-11-02T22:50:00Z
2007-11-02T18:52:34-04:00
<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>.
Fourth Platform: Data Spaces in The Cloud (Update)
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2007-09-22#1261
2007-09-22T23:43:00Z
2008-10-26T17:59:33-04:00
<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>
Semantic Web Value Proposition
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2007-09-20#1254
2007-09-21T02:23:00Z
2007-09-21T08:05:07.000009-04:00
<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>
RDF Browser View of My Hyperdata & Linked Data Post
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2007-09-19#1253
2007-09-19T20:46:59Z
2007-09-19T21:26:02-04:00
<p>Bearing in mind we are all time challenged, here are links to OpenLink and Zitgist RDF Browser views of my earlier blog post re. Hyperdata & Linked Data.</p> <p> </p> <ul> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/rdfbrowser/?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.openlinksw.com%2Fdataspace%2Fkidehen%40openlinksw.com%2Fweblog%2Fkidehen%40openlinksw.com%2527s%2520BLOG%2520%255B127%255D%2F1252">OpenLink RDF Browser view of Hyperdata & Linked Data post</a> </ul> <ul> <a href="http://browser.zitgist.com/?uri=http%3A//www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%2527s%2520BLOG%2520%255B127%255D/1252">Zitgist Browser view of Hyperdata & Linked Data post</a> </ul> <p>Both browsers should lead you to the posts from Danny, Nova, and Tim. In both cases the URI < xmlns="http" www.openlinksw.com="www.openlinksw.com" dataspace="dataspace" kidehen="kidehen" openlinksw.com="openlinksw.com" weblog="weblog" s="s" blog="blog" b127="b127" d="d"> is a pointer to structured data (in my Blog Data Space) if your user agent (browser or other Web Client) requests an RDF representation of this post via its HTTP request payload (what the Browser are doing via the "Accept:" headers).</> </p> <p>As you can see the Data Web is actually here! Without RDF generation upheaval (or Tax).</p>
Yet Another RDFa Demo
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2007-09-03#1249
2007-09-03T17:59:02Z
2008-02-04T20:44:37.000009-05:00
<p> <a href="http://www.ivan-herman.net/Ivan_Herman">Ivan Herman</a> just posted another nice example of practical <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/RDFa">RDFa</a> usage in a blog post titled: <a href="http://ivanherman.wordpress.com/2007/09/03/yet-another-rdfa-processor…/">Yet Another RDFa Proccessor</a>. In his post, Ivan exposes a <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Uniform_Resource_Identifier">URI</a> for his<a href="http://www.ivan-herman.net/foaf.html"> FOAF-in-RDFa file</a>.</p> <p>Since I am <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1243">aggressively tracking RDFa developments</a>, I decided to quickly view <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/home/demo/Public/Queries/DataWeb/ivan_herman_foaf_via_rdfa.wqx">Ivan's FOAF-in-RDFa file via the OpenLink RDF Browser</a>. The full implications are best understood when you click on each of the Browser's Tabs -- each providing a different perspective on this interesting addition to the Semantic Data Web (note: the <a href="http://www.w3.org/2005/04/fresnel-info/">Fresnel</a> Tab which demonstrates declarative UI templating using N3).</p> <h3>What's Going on Here?</h3> <p>The <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/JS/rdfbrowser/index.html">OpenLink RDF Browser</a> is a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_internet_application">Rich Internet Application</a> built using OAT (<a href="http://oat.openlinksw.com">OpenLink Ajax Toolkit</a>). In my case, I am deploying the RDF Browser from a <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com">Virtuoso</a> instance, which implies that the Browser is able to use the <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen/?id=1172">Virtuoso Sponger</a> Middleware (exposed as a REST Service at the Virtuoso instance endpoint: /proxy); which includes an RDFa Cartridge comprised of a metadata extractor and an <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/RDF_Schema">RDF Schema</a> / <a href="http://dbpedia.org/resource/Web_Ontology_Language">OWL Ontology</a> mapper. That's it!</p>
Virtuoso Sponger & RDFa
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2007-07-25#1236
2007-07-25T11:15:14Z
2007-07-25T07:03:46-04:00
<p>Triggered by <a href="http://ivanherman.wordpress.com/2007/07/22/yet-another-rdfa-converter/">Ivan's Herman's post about Triplr </a>and <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-rdfa-primer/">RDFa</a>, I quickly took the <a href="http://rdfa.info/">RDFa Info page URI</a> from his post and pasted it into the <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/JS/rdfbrowser/index.html">OpenLink RDF Browser</a>. As expected, I received <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/home/demo/Public/Queries/DataWeb/RDFa_Tracker.wqx">RDF Triples from the RDFa Data Source</a>. </p> <p>Note:This all happens because the <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/oat">OAT</a> based RDF Browser simply makes a call to the <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s+BLOG+%5B127%5D/1172">Virtuoso Sponger</a>'s REST service which is exposed at the endpoint "/proxy" (note: this is standard with all Virtuoso Installations).</p>
Terminology & Specificity
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2007-07-20#1232
2007-07-20T17:15:04Z
2008-02-04T20:47:01.000001-05:00
<p>Terminology is a pain to construct, and an even bigger pain to diffuse effectively, when dealing with large collections of superficially heterogeneous, and factually homogeneous, interlinked individuals.</p> <p>In my "<a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s+BLOG+%5B127%5D/1231">Linked Data & Web Information BUS</a>" post (plus a few LOD mailing list posts), I had the delight and displeasure (on the brain primarily) of attempting to get terminology right with regards to Information- and Non-Information Web Resources. I eventually settled for Data Sources instead of the simpler and more obvious term: Data Resources :-)</p> <p>Thus, I redefine the URIs from earlier past as follows:</p> <ul>http://demo.openlinksw.com/Northwind/Customer/ALFKI (Information Resource)</ul> <ul>http://demo.openlinksw.com/Northwind/Customer/ALFKI#this (Data Resource)</ul> <p> Thanks to today's internet connectivity, it took a simple Skype ping from <a href="http://www.mkbergman.com/">Mike Bergman</a>, and a 30 minute (or so) session that followed for us to arrive at "Data Resource" as a clearer term for Non Information Resources.</p> <p>Mike has promised to write a detailed post covering our Linked Data and the Structured Web terminology meshing odyssey.</p>
Linked Data & The Web Information BUS
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2007-07-20#1231
2007-07-20T07:50:00Z
2007-08-08T18:26:55-04:00
<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>
Enterprise 0.0, Linked Data, and Semantic Data Web
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2007-06-14#1224
2007-06-14T15:28:26Z
2008-02-04T23:19:26.000001-05:00
<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>
Exploring a Music Data Space via Linked Data
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2007-05-25#1204
2007-05-25T22:57:32Z
2008-02-04T23:20:47.000003-05:00
<p> <a href="http://fgiasson.com/">Frederick Giasson</a> has put out a number of interesting posts (via his <a href="http://fgiasson.com/blog/">blog</a>) about a conceptual <a href="http://fgiasson.com/blog/index.php/2007/05/24/the-music-data-space">Music Data Space</a> (one of many Data Spaces that will ultimately permeate the Semantic Data Web). Anyway, While reading his initial post covering <a href="http://fgiasson.com/blog/index.php/2007/05/22/browsing-musicbrainzs-dataset-via-uri-dereferencing">Music Domain URIs and Linked Data</a>, it occurred to me that by only exposing the raw RDF instance data (RDF/XML format in this case) via URIs for: Diana Ross, Paul McCartney, The Beatles, and Madonna, the essence of the post may not be revealed to all, so I've knocked up a few demos to illustrate the core message:</p> <p> <b>Note</b>: the enhanced hyperlink (typed data link) lookup presents options to perform an Explore (all data about subject across Domains in the data space i.e. data links to and from Subject), Dereference (specific data in the Subject's Domain i.e. data links originating from subject).</p> <ol> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.openlinksw.com:8890/DAV/home/demo/dataweb/linked_data_pages/Diana_Ross.isparql">Diana Ross</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.openlinksw.com:8890/DAV/home/demo/dataweb/linked_data_pages/Paul_McCartney.isparql">Paul McCartney</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.openlinksw.com:8890/DAV/home/demo/dataweb/linked_data_pages/The_Beatles.isparql">The Beatles</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.openlinksw.com:8890/DAV/home/demo/dataweb/linked_data_pages/Madonna.isparql">Madonna</a> </li> </ol> <p>I built these Linked Data Pages by simply doing the following:</p> <ol> <li>Open up our <a href="http://oat.openlinksw.com">OAT</a> based <a href="http://dbpedia.openlinksw.com:8890/isparql">iSPARQL (Interactive SPARQL Query By Example)</a> Tool</li> <li>Paste a URI of Interest into the Data Source URI input field</li> <li>Execute the Query (hitting the ">" button) </li> <li>Saving the Query to WebDAV as a Linked Data Page (or what I initial called Dynamic Data Web pages in my Hello Data Web series of posts).</li> <li>Share your Data, Information, Knowledge with others via URIs (as shown in the section above). </li> </ol>
Shared Ontologies Linked Data Style!
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2007-05-25#1203
2007-05-25T21:12:36Z
2007-06-01T19:54:05.000001-04:00
<p>As the <a href="http://blogs.talis.com/nodalities/2007/05/linked_data_the_real_semantic.php">Linked Data meme</a> beams across the Web, it is important to note that Ontology / Schema sharing and reuse is critical to the overall vitality of the burgeoning Semantic Data Web.</p> <p>The items that follow attempt to demonstrate the point by way of SIOC (<a href="http://rdfs.org/sioc/spec/">Semantically-Interlinked Online Communities Ontology</a>) and MO (<a href="http://musicontology.com/">Music Ontology</a>) domain exploration:</p> <p> <b>Linked Data or Dynamic Data Web Pages</b>:</p> <ol> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.openlinksw.com:8890/DAV/home/demo/dataweb/linked_data_pages/music_ontology_overview.isparql">Music Ontology Overview</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.openlinksw.com:8890/DAV/home/demo/dataweb/linked_data_pages/sioc_ontology_overview.isparql">SIOC Ontology Overview</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.openlinksw.com:8890/DAV/home/demo/dataweb/linked_data_pages/sioc_types_ontology_module.isparql">SIOC Type Ontology Module</a> (how you extend SIOC Concepts unobtrusively)</li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.openlinksw.com:8890/DAV/home/demo/dataweb/linked_data_pages/sioc_services_ontology_overview.isparql">SIOC Services Ontology Module</a> (how you extend SIOC in relation to Services Modeling).</li> </ol> <p> <b>Semantic Web Browser Sessions</b>:</p> <ol> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.openlinksw.com:8890/DAV/home/demo/dataweb/browser_sessions/exploring_music_the_ontology.wqx">Music Ontology Overview via OpenLink RDF Browser</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.openlinksw.com:8890/DAV/home/demo/dataweb/browser_sessions/exploring_sioc.wqx">SIOC Ontology Overview via OpenLink RDF Browser</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.openlinksw.com:8890/DAV/home/demo/dataweb/browser_sessions/exploring_sioc_types_modules.wqx">SIOC Type Ontology Module </a>via OpenLink RDF Browser<br /> </li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.openlinksw.com:8890/DAV/home/demo/dataweb/browser_sessions/exploring_sioc_services.wqx">SIOC Services Ontology Module </a>via OpenLink RDF Browser.</li> </ol> <p>Key point, if you are modeling People, Communities, Organizations, Documents, and other entities in the People, Organizations, Documents etc. Data Space, don't forget to : FOAF-FOAF-FOAF it Up! :-)</p>
Semantic Web Data Spaces
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2007-04-13#1185
2007-04-13T21:15:54Z
2007-04-13T18:19:29.000001-04:00
<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>
More Ajax Security
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2007-04-04#1177
2007-04-04T12:16:21Z
2007-04-04T19:49:07.000003-04:00
<p>The Recent security Ajax security alert <a href="http://blogs.usnet.private:8893/RPC2"></a> have attracted comments from: </p> <p> <a href="http://burningbird.net/">Shelley Powers</a> via her post titled: <a href="http://burningbird.net/adding-ajax/more-ajax-security/"> More Ajax Security </a> and many others.</p> <p>In anticipation of the obvious concerns of many Javascript based developers,<a href="http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/ondras"> Ondrej Zara</a> (lead developer of the <a href="http://oat.openlinksw.com">OpenLink Ajax Toolkit</a>) has written a post titled: <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/oat/index.vspx?page=&id=1176">OAT and JS Hijacking</a>, that explains the security aspects our Javascript Toolkit in relation to this alert</p>
RDF based Integration Challenges (update)
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2007-03-30#1174
2007-03-30T21:18:26Z
2007-03-30T19:35:35-04:00
<p> <a href="http://dannyayers.com/">Danny Ayers</a> responds, via his post titled: <a href="http://dannyayers.com/2007/03/30/sampling">Sampling</a>, to "Stefano Mazzochi's post about <a href="http://www.betaversion.org/~stefano/linotype/news/101/">Data Integration using Semantic Web Technologies</a>.</p> <blockquote> <p>"There is a potential problem with republication of transformed data, in that right away there may be inconsistency with the original source data. Here provenance tracking (probably via named graphs) becomes a must-have. The web data space itself can support very granular separation. Whatever, data integration is a hard problem. But if you have a uniform language for describing resources, at least it can be possible."<br /> </p> <p>Alex James also chimes in with valuable insights in his post: <a href="http://www.base4.net">Sampling the global data model</a>, where he concludes:</p> <blockquote>"Exactly we need to use projected views, or conceptual models. ' <p> See a projected view can be thought of as a conceptual model that has some mapping to a *sampling* of the global data model.</p> <p>The benefits of introducing this extra layer are many and varied: Simplicity, URI predictability, Domain Specificity and the ability to separate semantics from lower level details like data mapping.</p> <p>Unfortunately if you look at todayâs ORMs you will quickly notice that they simply map directly from Object Model to Data Model in one step.</p> <p>This naïve approach provides no place to manage the mapping to a conceptual model that sampling the worldâs data requires.</p> <p>What we need to solve the problems Stefano sees is to bring together the world of mapping and semantics. And the place they will meet is simply the Conceptual Model."</p> </blockquote> <p>Data Integration challenges arise because the following facts hold true all of the time (whether we like it or not):</p> <ol> <li>Data Heterogeneity is a fact of life at the intranet and internet levels </li> <li>Data is rarely clean</li> <li>Data Integration prowess are ultimately measured by pain alleviation</li> <li>A some point human participation is required, but the trick is to move human activity up the value chain</li> <li>Glue code size and Data Integration success are inversely related</li> <li>Data Integration is best addressed via "M" rather than "C" (if we use the MVC pattern as a guide. "V" is dead on arrival for the scrappers out there)</li> </ol> <p>In 1997 we commenced the <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/virtuoso/">Virtuoso</a> Virtual DBMS Project that morphed into the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtuoso_Universal_Server">Virtuoso Universal Server</a>; A fusion of DBMS functionality and Middleware functionality in a single product. The goal of this undertaking remains alleviation of the costs associated with Data Integration Challenges by Virtualizing Data at the Logical and Conceptual Layers.</p> <p>The Logical Data Layer has been concrete for a while (e.g Relational DBMS Engines), what hasn't reached the mainstream is the <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q=conceptual%20data%20model&type=text&output=html">Concrete Conceptual Model</a>, but this is changing fast courtesy of the activity taking place in the realm of RDF.</p> <p>RDF provides an Open and Standards compliant vehicle for developing and exploiting Concrete Conceptual Data Models that ultimately move the Human aspect of the "Data Integration alleviation quest" higher up the value chain. </p> </blockquote>
Personal URIs & Data Spaces
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2007-03-01#1148
2007-03-01T19:42:41Z
2007-03-02T09:14:02.000004-05:00
<blockquote> <p> <a href="http://www.johnbreslin.com/blog/2007/03/01/linking-personal-posted-content-across-communities/#comments">Linking personal posted content across communities</a>: "</p> <p>With the help of Kingsley, Uldis and I have been looking at how <a href="http://sioc-project.org/">SIOC</a> can be used to link the content that a single person posts to a number of community sites. The picture below shows an example of stuff that Iâve created on Flickr, YouTube, etc. through my various user identities on those sites (these match some <a href="http://wiki.sioc-project.org/index.php/TypesModule">SIOC types</a> that we want to add to a separate module). We can also say that each Web 2.0 content item is a user-contributed post, with some attached or embedded content (e.g. a file or maybe just some metadata). This is part of a new discussion on the <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/sioc-dev">sioc-dev</a> mailing list, and weâd value your contributions.</p> <p> <img id="image1178" src="http://www.johnbreslin.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/20070228a.png" alt="20070228a.png" /> </p> <p>Edit: The inner layer is a person (semantically described in FOAF), the next layer is their user accounts (described in FOAF, SIOC) and the outer layer is the posted content - text, files, associated metadata - on community sites (again described using SIOC). </p> No Tags" <p>(Via <a href="http://www.johnbreslin.com/blog">John Breslin - Cloudlands</a>.)</p> </blockquote> <p>The point that John is making about the Data Web and Interlinked <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/weblog/public/search.vspx?blogid=127&q='data%20spaces'&type=text&output=html">Data Spaces</a> exposed via <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Resource_Identifier">URI</a>s (e.g Personal URIs), crystallizes a number of very important issues about the Data Web that may remain unclear. I am hoping that by digesting the post excerpt above, in conjunction with the items below, aids the pursuit of clarity and comprehension about the all important Data Web (Semantic Web - Layer 1):</p> <ol> <li> <a href="http://kidehen.idehen.net/dataspace/kidehen">Your OpenID can be Your Personal URI</a> (as noted by <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/bblfish/">Henry Story</a>'s post about: <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/bblfish/entry/openid_for_blogs_sun_com">The Many Uses of OpenID</a>). That that's what I have courtesy of OpenLink Data Spaces (ODS)</li> <li>The above only works unobtrusively (i.e. OpenID and Personal sharing a URI) if Content Negotiation is exploited on the Client and Server sides.</li> <li> <a href="http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/card.rdf">TimBL</a>'s call out to <a href="http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html">Share Your Data and Link to Other Data</a> via URIs via post titled: <a href="http://dig.csail.mit.edu/breadcrumbs/node/71">Give Yourself a URI</a>.</li> <li> <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/swbp-vocab-pub/">W3C's Best Practice Recipes for Publishing RDF Vocabularies</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-webarch-20041215/#dereference-uri">W3C's Architecture of the World Wide Web - Vol 1</a> which covers URI Dereferencing (HTTP GET-ing the data that a URI points to)</li> <li> <a href="http://www4.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/is-group/page/persons/Person6">Richard Cyganiak</a>'s post titled: <a href="http://dowhatimean.net/2007/02/debugging-semantic-web-sites-with-curl">Debugging Semantic Web Sites with Curl</a>.</li> </ol> <p>Examples of some of these principles in practice:</p> <ol> <li>Chris Bizer, Tobias Gaub, and Richard's Javascript based<a href="http://sites.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/suhl/bizer/ng4j/semwebclient/"> Semantic Web Client Library</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://sites.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/suhl/bizer/ng4j/disco/">DISCO RDF Browser</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://oat.openlinksw.com">OpenLink Ajax Toolkit</a>'s (OAT) <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/JS/tests/rdfbrowser/index.html">RDF Browser</a> </li> <li>OpenLink <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/isparql">Interactive SPARQL Query by Example</a> (iSPARQL QBE)</li> <li>Dynamic Data Web Pages from my prior posts [<a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen/?id=1144">1</a>][<a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen/index.vspx?page=&id=1145">2</a>][<a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen/index.vspx?page=&id=1146">3</a>]</li> <li> <a href="http://dbpedia.org/docs/">dbpedia</a> (Wikipedia as a Data Web oriented Data Source)</li> <li>And of course this blog post's permalink is a bona fide dereferencable URI.</li> </ol> <p>And of course there is more to come such as Grandma's Semantic Web Browser which is coming from <a href="http://fgiasson.com/blog/index.php/2007/02/18/zitgist_a_semantic_web_search_engine">Zitgist LLC</a> (pronounced: Zeitgeist) a joint venture of OpenLink Software and <a href="http://fgiasson.com/blog/">Frederick Giasson</a>.</p>
Rich Clients, Conceptual Models, and Self-Describing Data
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2007-02-25#1145
2007-02-25T18:45:00Z
2007-02-26T18:27:47.000009-05:00
<p> <a href="http://www.base4.net">Alex James</a> has just written an interesting piece titled: <a href="http://www.base4.net/Blog.aspx?ID=329">Who Controls Your Model</a>, that sets the stage for introducing the concept of "Self Describing Data". To cut a long story short, RDF is one example of a mechanism that facilitates the assembly/construction of self-describing databases (built around a Concrete Conceptual Model) that allows instance data to be serialized using open serialization formats such as: XML, N3, Turtle, TriX.</p> <p>Rich Internet Applications ultimately enable intelligent processing of self-describing databases originating from data servers as demonstrated by these examples:</p> <ol> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/home/demo/Public/Queries/kidehen_dataspace.isparql.xml">My Dynamic Data Web Start Page</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/home/demo/Public/Queries/bizer_dataspace.isparql.xml">Chris Bizer Data Space</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/JS/tests/rdfbrowser/index.html">Our RDF Browser</a> (just enter a Web URI e.g http://sites.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/suhl/bizer/foaf.rdf or http://www.openlinksw.com and then drill down; not Grandma's unobtrusive Data Web Navigator, but headed in that direction..)</li> </ol>
SPARQL, Ajax, Tagging, Folksonomies, Share Ontologies and Semantic Web
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2006-12-07#1095
2006-12-07T17:35:29Z
2006-12-13T15:09:50-05:00
<p>A quick dump that demonstrates how I integrate tags and links from del.icio.us with links from my local bookmark database via one of my public Data Spaces (this demo uses the <a href="http://myopenlink.net:8890/dataspace/kidehen">kidehen Data Space</a>).</p> <p> <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-sparql-query/">SPARQL</a> (query language for the Semantic Web) basically enables me to query a collection of typed links (predicates/properties/attributes) in my Data Space (<a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/OdsIndex">ODS</a> based of course) without breaking my existing local bookmarks database or the one I maintain at del.icio.us.</p> <p>I am also demonstrating how <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0">Web 2.0</a> concepts such as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tags">Tagging</a> mesh nicely with the more formal concepts of Topics in the Semantic Web realm. The key to all of this is the ability to generate <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-primer/">RDF Data Model</a> Instance Data based on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_ontology_(computer_science)">Shared Ontologies</a> such as <a href="http://rdfs.org/sioc/spec/">SIOC</a> (from <a href="http://www.semanticweb.org/">DERI</a>'s <a href="http://sioc-project.org/">SIOC Project</a>) and <a href="http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/">SKOS</a> (again showing that <a href="http://tomgruber.org/writing/ontology-of-folksonomy.htm">Ontologies and Folksonomies</a> are complimentary).</p> <p>This demo also shows that Ajax also works well in the Semantic Web realm (or <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen/?id=1037">web dimension of interaction 3.0</a>) especially when you have a toolkit with Data Aware controls (for SQL, RDF, and XML) such as OAT (<a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/JS/demo/index.html">OpenLink Ajax Toolkit</a>). For instance, we've successfully used this to build a <a href="http://myopenlink.net:8890/isparl/">Visual Query Building Tool for SPARQL</a> (alpha) that really takes a lot of the pain out of constructing SPARQL Queries (there is much more to come on this front re. handling of DISTINCT, FILTER, ORDER BY etc..). </p> <p>For now, take a look at the SPARQL Query dump generated by this <a href="http://myopenlink.net:8890/DAV/home/kidehen/gallery/my_photos/sparql_qbe_sioc_skos_shot1.png">SIOC & SKOS SPARQL QBE Canvas Screenshot</a>. </p> <p>You can cut and paste the queries that follow into the Query Builder or use the screenshot to build your variation of this query sample. Alternatively, you can simply click on *<a href="http://myopenlink.net:8890/sparql?default-graph-uri=http%3A%2F%2Fmyopenlink.net%2Fdataspace&query=PREFIX+rdf%3A+%3Chttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F1999%2F02%2F22-rdf-syntax-ns%23%3E%0D%0APREFIX+sioc%3A+++%3Chttp%3A%2F%2Frdfs.org%2Fsioc%2Fns%23%3E%0D%0APREFIX+dct%3A+%3Chttp%3A%2F%2Fpurl.org%2Fdc%2Felements%2F1.1%2F%3E%0D%0APREFIX+skos%3A+%3Chttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2004%2F02%2Fskos%2Fcore%23%3E%0D%0A%0D%0ASELECT+distinct+%3Fforum_name%2C+%3Fowner%2C+%3Fpost%2C+%3Ftitle%2C+%3Flink%2C+%3Furl+%3Ftag%0D%0AFROM+%3Chttp%3A%2F%2Fmyopenlink.net%2Fdataspace%3E%0D%0AWHERE+%7B%0D%0A++++++++%3Fforum+a+sioc%3AForum.%0D%0A++++++++%3Fforum+sioc%3Atype+%22bookmark%22.%0D%0A++++++++%3Fforum+sioc%3Aid+%3Fforum_name.%0D%0A++++++++%3Fforum+sioc%3Ahas_member+%3Fowner.%0D%0A++++++++%3Fowner+sioc%3Aid+%22kidehen%22.%0D%0A++++++++%3Fforum+sioc%3Acontainer_of+%3Fpost+.%0D%0A++++++++%3Fpost++dct%3Atitle+%3Ftitle+.%0D%0A++++++++optional+%7B+%3Fpost+sioc%3Atopic+%3Ftopic.%0D%0A+++++++++++++++++++%3Ftopic+a+skos%3AConcept%3B%0D%0A+++++++++++++++++++++++++skos%3AprefLabel+%3Ftag.+%7D%0D%0A++++++++optional%7B+%3Fpost+sioc%3Alink+%3Flink++%7D+.%0D%0A++++++++optional%7B+%3Fpost+sioc%3Alinks_to+%3Furl+%7D%0D%0A++++++%7D%0D%0AORDER+BY+%3Ftitle&format=text%2Fhtml">This</a>* <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-sparql-protocol/">SPARQL Protocol</a> URL to see the query results in a basic HTML Table. And one last thing, you can grab the <a href="http://myopenlink.net:8890/DAV/home/kidehen/SPARQL/tagging_sioc_skos_delicios_my_bookmarks.rq">SPARQL Query File</a> saved into my <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/OdsBriefcase">ODS-Briefcase</a> (the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebDAV">WebDAV</a> repository aspect of my Data Space). </p> <p> <b>Note the following SPARQL Protocol Endpoints:</b> </p> <ol> <li> <a href="http://myopenlink.net:8890/sparql/">MyOpenLink Data Space</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://myopenlink.net:8890/isparql/">Experimental Data Space SPARQL Query Builder</a> (you need to register at http://myopenlink.net:8890/ods to use this version)</li> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/sparql/">Live Demo Sever</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/isparql/">Demo Server SPARQL Query Builder</a> (use: demo for both username and pwd when prompted)</li> </ol> <p>My beautified Version of the SPARQL Generated by QBE (you can cut and paste into "Advanced Query" section of QBE) is presented below:</p> <pre> PREFIX rdf: <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#> PREFIX sioc: <http://rdfs.org/sioc/ns#> PREFIX dct: <http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/> PREFIX skos: <http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core#> <br /> SELECT distinct ?forum_name, ?owner, ?post, ?title, ?link, ?url, ?tag FROM <http://myopenlink.net/dataspace> WHERE { ?forum a sioc:Forum; sioc:type "bookmark"; sioc:id ?forum_name; sioc:has_member ?owner. ?owner sioc:id "kidehen". ?forum sioc:container_of ?post . ?post dct:title ?title . optional { ?post sioc:link ?link } optional { ?post sioc:links_to ?url } optional { ?post sioc:topic ?topic. ?topic a skos:Concept; skos:prefLabel ?tag}. } </pre> <p>Unmodified dump from the QBE (this will be beautified automatically in due course by the QBE):</p> <pre> PREFIX rdf: <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#> PREFIX sioc: <http://rdfs.org/sioc/ns#> PREFIX dct: <http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/> PREFIX skos: <http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core#> <br /> SELECT ?var8 ?var9 ?var13 ?var14 ?var24 ?var27 ?var29 ?var54 ?var56 WHERE { graph ?graph { ?var8 rdf:type sioc:Forum . ?var8 sioc:container_of ?var9 . ?var8 sioc:type "bookmark" . ?var8 sioc:id ?var54 . ?var8 sioc:has_member ?var56 . ?var9 rdf:type sioc:Post . OPTIONAL {?var9 dc:title ?var13} . OPTIONAL {?var9 sioc:links_to ?var14} . OPTIONAL {?var9 sioc:link ?var29} . ?var9 sioc:has_creator ?var37 . OPTIONAL {?var9 sioc:topic ?var24} . ?var24 rdf:type skos:Concept . OPTIONAL {?var24 skos:prefLabel ?var27} . ?var56 rdf:type sioc:User . ?var56 sioc:id "kidehen" . } } </pre> <p> Current missing items re. Visual QBE for SPARQL are:</p> <ol> <li> Ability to Save properly to WebDAV so that I can then expose various saved SPARQL Queries (.rq file) from my Data Space via URIs </li> <li> Handling of DISTINCT, FILTERS (note: OPTIONAL is handled via dotted predicate-links) </li> <li>General tidying up re. click event handling etc. </li> </ol> Note: You can even open up your own account (using our <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com/ods">Live Demo</a> or <a href="http://myopenlink.net:8890/ods">Live Experiment Data</a> Space servers) which enables you to repeat this demo by doing the following (post registration/sign-up): <ol> <li>Export some bookmarks from your local browser to the usual HTML bookmarks dump file</li> <li>Create an ODS-Bookmarks Instance using your new ODS account</li> <li>Use the ODS-Bookmark Instance to import your local bookmarks from the HTML dump file</li> <li>Repeat the same import sequence using the ODS-Bookmark Instance, but this time pick the del.icio.us option</li> <li>Build your query (change 'kidehen' to your ODS-user-name)</li> <li>That's it you now have Semantic Web presence in the form of a Data Space for your local and del.icio.us hosted bookmarks with tags integrated</li> </ol> <p>Quick Query Builder Tip: You will need to import the following (using the Import Button in the Ontologies & Schemas side-bar); </p> <ol> <li> <a href="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#">http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#</a> (<a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-primer/">RDF</a>)</li> <li> <a href="http://rdfs.org/sioc/ns#">http://rdfs.org/sioc/ns#</a> (<a href="http://rdfs.org/sioc/spec/">SIOC</a>)</li> <li> <a href="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/</a> (<a href="http://dublincore.org/">Dublin Core</a>)</li> <li> <a href="http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core#">http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core#</a> (<a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/WD-swbp-skos-core-guide-20050510/">SKOS</a>)</li> </ol> <p>Browser Support: The SPARQL QBE is SVG based and currently works fine with the following browsers; Firefox 1.5/2.0, Camino (Cocoa variant of Firefox for Mac OS X), Webkit (Safari pre-release / advanced sibling), Opera 9.x. We are evaluating the use of the Adobe SVG plugin re. IE 6/7 support.</p> <p>Of course this should be a screencast, but I am the middle of a plethora of things right now :-) </p>
Web Me2.0 -- Exploding the Myth of Web 2.0
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2006-11-15#1081
2006-11-15T23:17:36Z
2006-11-16T16:11:46-05:00
<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>
Virtuoso's SQL Schema to RDF Ontology Mapping Language (1.0)
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2006-10-18#1064
2006-10-18T22:18:00Z
2006-11-17T18:24:25-05:00
<p>A new technical white paper about our declarative language for SQL Schema to RDF Ontology Mapping has just been published.</p> <h2>What is this?</h2> <p>A declarative language adapted from SPARQL's graph pattern language (N3/Turtle) for mapping SQL Data to RDF Ontologies. We currently refer to this as a Graph Pattern based RDF VIEW Definition Language.</p> <h2>Why is it important?</h2> <p>It provides an effective mechanism for exposing existing SQL Data as virtual RDF Data Sets (Graphs) negating the data duplication associated with generating physical RDF Graphs from SQL Data en route to persistence in a dedicated Triple Store. </p> <p>Enterprise applications (traditional and web based) and most Web Applications (Web 1.0 and Web 2.0) sit atop relational databases, implying that SQL/RDF model and data integration is an essential element of the burgeoning "Data Web" (Semantic Web - Layer 1) comprehension and adoption process.</p> <p>In a nutshell, this is a quick route for non disruptive exposure of existing SQL Data to SPARQL supporting RDF Tools and Development Environments.</p> <h2>How does it work?</h2> <h3>RDF Side</h3> <ol> <li>locate one or more Ontologies (e.g FOAF, SIOC, AtomOWL, SKOS etc.) that effectively defines the Concepts (Classes) and Terms (Predicates) to be exposed via your RDF Graph</li> <li>Using the Virtuoso's RDF View Definition Language declare a International Resource Identifier (or URI) for your Graph. Example:<pre>CREATE GRAPH IRI("http://myopenlink.net/dataspace")</pre> </li> <li>Then create Classes (Concepts), Class Properties/Predicates (Memb), and Class Instances (Inst) for the new Graph. Example: <pre>CREATE IRI CLASS odsWeblog:feed_iri "http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/kidehen/weblog/MyFeeds" ( in memb varchar not null, in inst varchar not null)</pre> </li> </ol> <h3>SQL Side</h3> <ol> <li>If Virtuoso isn't your SQL Data Store, Identify the ODBC or JDBC SQL data source(s) containing the SQL data to be mapped to RDF and then link the relevant tables into Virtuoso's Virtual DBMS Layer</li> <li>Then use the RDF View Definition Language's graph pattern feature to generate SQL to RDF Mapping Template for your Graph. As shown in this <a href="http://www.usnet.private:8889/wiki/main/Main/VOSSQLRDF#MappingOdsBlogToAtomOwlExample">ODS Weblog -> AtomOWL Mapping example</a>.</li> </ol>
OpenID meets Data Spaces etc..
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2006-09-20#1048
2006-09-20T14:47:17Z
2006-09-26T01:42:04.000001-04:00
<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>
Dimensions of the Web
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2006-09-08#1037
2006-09-08T22:11:00Z
2006-11-12T18:55:54.000001-05:00
<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>
Creating connections between discussion clouds with SIOC
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2006-09-07#1036
2006-09-08T00:56:00Z
2008-02-04T23:22:26.000001-05:00
<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>
Data Spaces and Semantic Web Animation
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2006-09-05#1035
2006-09-05T20:14:00Z
2006-09-05T16:00:17.000001-04:00
<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, Internet Reinvention, and Semantic Web
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2006-09-04#1033
2006-09-04T21:06:00Z
2007-01-25T16:50:40.000001-05:00
<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 and Web of Databases
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2006-08-28#1030
2006-08-28T19:38:00Z
2006-09-04T18:58:56.000001-04:00
<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 âStrategic Developerâ 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 âMash-upsâ (combining web accessible data that exists without integration and repurposing in mind) to âMesh-upsâ (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>
DBMS Hosted Filesystems & WinFS
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2006-06-26#990
2006-06-26T21:41:33Z
2006-06-26T21:28:44-04:00
<p> The return of WinFS back into SQL Server has re-ignited interest in the somewhat forgotten “DBMS Engine hosted Unified Storage System” vision. The WinFS project struggles have more to do with the futility of “Windows Platform Monoculture” than the actual vision itself. In today's reality you simply cannot seek to deliver a “Unified Storage” solution that's inherently operating system specific, and even worse, ignores existing complimentary industry standards and the loosely coupled nature of the emerging Web Operating System. </p> <p> A quick FYI: <br />Virtuoso has offered a DBMS hosted Filesystem via WebDAV for a number of years, but the implications of this functionality have remained unclear for just as long. Thus, we developed (a few years ago) and released (recently) an application layer above <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/VOSDAV">Virtuoso's WebDAV storage</a> realm called: “<a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/OdsBriefcase">The OpenLink Briefcase</a>” (nee. oDrive). This application allows you to view items uploaded by content type and/or kind (People, Business Cards, Calendars, Business Reports, Office Documents, Photos, Blog Posts, Feed Channels/Subscriptions, Bookmarks etc..). it also includes automatic metadata extraction (where feasible) and indexing. Naturally, as an integral part of our “OpenLink Data Spaces” (ODS) product offering, it supports GData, URIQA, SPARQL (note: WebDAV metadata is sync'ed with <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/VOSRDF">Virtuoso's RDF Triplestore</a>), SQL, and WebDAV itself. </p> <p> You can explore the power of this product via the following routes: </p> <ol> <li>Download the <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/">Virtuoso Open Source Edition</a> and the <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/OdsIndex">ODS add-ons </a>or</li> <li>Visit <a href="http://demo.openlinksw.com">our live demo server</a> (note: this is strictly a demo server with full functionality available) and simply register and then create a “Briefcase” application instance</li> <li>Digest this <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/~kidehen/blog/public/graphics/briefcase_home_page.png">Briefcase Home Page Screenshot</a> </li> </ol>
Screencast: Building Database Centric Web 2.0 Mash-ups using Ajax Database Connectivity
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2006-05-26#985
2006-05-26T22:38:00Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
This screencast covers the actual codeless process of building a database centric Web 2.0 mash-up using OAT's database-aware Forms Designer. This is basically the simplicity of Paradox or Microsoft ACCESS form building delivered via Ajax without any database or operating system lock-in. This demo uses the Google Mapping Service (note: there is a <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/%7Ekidehen/blog/public/Screencasts/oat-formdesigner-mashup-yahoo-maps-demo1.mov">Yahoo! Mapping Service screencast demo</a> that follows this post). Also note that fact that in this demonstration I actually incorporate the Pivot building functionality from an earlier <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/%7Ekidehen/index.vspx?page=&id=983">Ajax based Pivot Building screencast</a>.<br /> <br />
A Web 2.0 Style Mash-up using the OpenLink Ajax Toolkit (OAT)
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2006-05-25#981
2006-05-25T20:47:00Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
We are now on the verge of finally releasing one of the many items discussed in my recent <a href="http://www.usnet.private:8889/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/127/index.vspx?page=&id=965&sid=e295397b4a9d07fa9c12baf31569aa97&realm=wa">chat with Jon Udell</a>. The item in question is the OpenLink Ajax Toolkit (OAT) that enables the rapid development of Database Independent Rich Internet Applications. My very first public screencast is deliberately silent (since its a live work in progress etc.). <br /> <br />The screencast style demo covers the production of a map based mashup that simply unveils the national flag of each country underneath its map marker (a lookup associated with geocoded map pin).<br /> <br />This post is also a deliberate test of the automatic production of IPod and Yahoo RSS sytle syndication gems based on the content of my blog post. Naturally, this is a demonstration of the soon to be unveiled OpenLink Data Spaces technology (the one that supports GData and SPARQL Query Services).<br /> <br />BTW - The the Data Space that is this blog has been <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/%7Ekidehen/GData">GData</a> aware for a few weeks now (I digress, just watch the movie!):<br /> <br />Note: If you are reading this post Web 1.0 style (i.e. via traditional non aggregating browser UI) then click on the "enclosure" link to grab the quicktime movie file. If on the other hand your are reading via a Web 2.0 aggregator, note that the Podcast Gem should alert you to the existence of the movie enclosure.<br />
Slightly enigmatic OPML Directory Service
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2006-05-08#969
2006-05-08T15:56:30Z
2006-06-22T08:56:58-04:00
<blockquote> <p> <a href="http://share.opml.org/">Share Your OPML is an instant...</a>: "<a href="http://share.opml.org/">Share Your OPML</a> is an instant hit. I can't believe how much traffic the server is taking, lots of new users, lists, feeds."</p> <p>(Via <a href="http://www.scripting.com/">Scripting News</a>.)</p> </blockquote> <p>Am I missing something here? Why doesn't this Data Space offer an OPML feed that aggregates the RSS links culled from the OPML content contributions of its membership? </p> <p>I was expecting to be able to search this Data Space / Service (at least using Free Text) over HTTP, but I am restricted to a set of canned searches offered by the system. Even so, why isn't there a subscription gem beside each of these canned queries? There could be one OPML for each query.</p> <p>Why doesn't this system have the ability to consume OPML feed URLs? At the current time you are limited to file uploads.</p> <p>I hope to receive some clarification re. my observations in due course. This Directory style Data Space could be a little more useful if it offered a tad more flexibility :-)</p>
"Free" Databases: Express vs. Open-Source RDBMSs
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2006-05-05#968
2006-05-05T16:02:17Z
2006-07-21T07:21:57.000006-04:00
<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 andâto a lesser extentâIngres 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 brotherâSQL 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)âupdated to support SSEâis 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>
My podcast conversation with Jon Udell
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2006-04-28#965
2006-04-28T14:43:12Z
2006-07-21T07:22:41.000001-04:00
<p>Jon and I had a recent chat yesterday that is now available in <a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2006/04/28.html#a1437">Podcast</a> form.</p> <blockquote> <cite><p>"In my <a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/gems/ju_idehen.mp3">fourth Friday podcast</a> we hear from Kingsley Idehen, CEO of <a href="http://openlinksw.com/">OpenLink Software</a>. I wrote about OpenLink's universal database and app server, Virtuoso, back in <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/article/02/04/12/020415plvirtuoso_1.html">2002</a> and <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/03/21/12virtuoso_1.html">2003</a>. Earlier this month Virtuoso became the first mature SQL/XML hybrid to make the <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen/?id=951">transition to open source</a>. The latest incarnation of the product also adds SPARQL (a semantic web query language) to its repertoire. <b>...</b>"</p> <p>(Via <a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/">Jon's Radio</a>.)</p> </cite> </blockquote> I would like to make an important clarification re. the GData Protocol and what is popularly dubbed as "<a href="http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/006687.html">Adam Bosworth's fingerprints.</a>" I do not believe in a one solution (a simple one for the sake of simplicity) to a deceptively complex problem. Virtuoso supports Atom 1.0 (syndication only at the current time) and Atom 0.3 (syndication and publication which have been in place for years). <blockquote>BTW - the GData Protocol and Atom 1.0 publishing support will be delivered in both the Open Source and Commercial Edition updates to Virtuoso next week (very little work due to what's already in place).</blockquote> <p>I make the clarification above to eliminate the possibility of assuming mutual exclusivity of my perspective/vison and Adam's (Jon also makes this important point when he speaks about our opinions being on either side of a spectrum/continuum). I simply want to broaden the scope of this discussion. I am a profound believer in the Semantic Web / Data Web vision, and I predict that we will be querying the Googlebase via SPARQL in the not to distant future (this doesn't mean that netizens will be forced to master SPARQL, absolutely not! But there will be conduit technologies that deal with matter).</p> <p>Side note: I actually last spoke with Adam at the NY Hilton in 2000 (the day I unveiled Virtuoso to the public for the first time, in person). We bumped into each other and I told him about Virtuoso (at the time the big emphasis was SQL to XML and the vocabulary we had chosen re. SQL extension...), and he told me about his departure from Microsoft and the commencement of his new venture (CrossGain prior to his stint at BEA), what struck me even more was his interest in Linux and Open Source (bearing in mind this was about 3 or so week after he departed Microsoft.)</p> <p>If you are encountering Virtuoso for the first time via this post or Jon's, please make time to read the <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/VOSHistory/">product history</a> article on the <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/">Virtuoso Wiki</a> (which is one of many Virtuoso based applications that make up our soon to be released OpenLink DataSpace offering).</p> <p>That said, I better go listen to the podcast :-)</p>
My podcast conversation with Jon Udell
http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?date=2006-04-28#993
2006-04-28T14:43:12Z
2006-06-29T10:14:44.000001-04:00
<p>Jon and I had a recent chat yesterday that is now available in <a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2006/04/28.html#a1437">Podcast</a> form.</p> <blockquote> <cite></cite> <p>"In my <a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/gems/ju_idehen.mp3">fourth Friday podcast</a> we hear from Kingsley Idehen, CEO of <a href="http://openlinksw.com/">OpenLink Software</a>. I wrote about OpenLink's universal database and app server, Virtuoso, back in <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/article/02/04/12/020415plvirtuoso_1.html">2002</a> and <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/03/21/12virtuoso_1.html">2003</a>. Earlier this month Virtuoso became the first mature SQL/XML hybrid to make the <a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/%7Ekidehen/?id=951">transition to open source</a>. The latest incarnation of the product also adds SPARQL (a semantic web query language) to its repertoire. <b>...</b>"</p> <p>(Via <a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/">Jon's Radio</a>.)</p> </blockquote> I would like to make an important clarification re. the GData Protocol and what is popularly dubbed as "<a href="http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/006687.html">Adam Bosworth's fingerprints.</a>" I do not believe in a one solution (a simple one for the sake of simplicity) to a deceptively complex problem. Virtuoso supports Atom 1.0 (syndication only at the current time) and Atom 0.3 (syndication and publication which have been in place for years). <blockquote>BTW - the GData Protocol and Atom 1.0 publishing support will be delivered in both the Open Source and Commercial Edition updates to Virtuoso next week (very little work due to what's already in place).</blockquote> <p>I make the clarification above to eliminate the possibility of assuming mutual exclusivity of my perspective/vison and Adam's (Jon also makes this important point when he speaks about our opinions being on either side of a spectrum/continuum). I simply want to broaden the scope of this discussion. I am a profound believer in the Semantic Web / Data Web vision, and I predict that we will be querying the Googlebase via SPARQL in the not to distant future (this doesn't mean that netizens will be forced to master SPARQL, absolutely not! But there will be conduit technologies that deal with matter).</p> <p>Side note: I actually last spoke with Adam at the NY Hilton in 2000 (the day I unveiled Virtuoso to the public for the first time, in person). We bumped into each other and I told him about Virtuoso (at the time the big emphasis was SQL to XML and the vocabulary we had chosen re. SQL extension...), and he told me about his departure from Microsoft and the commencement of his new venture (CrossGain prior to his stint at BEA), what struck me even more was his interest in Linux and Open Source (bearing in mind this was about 3 or so week after he departed Microsoft.)</p> <p>If you are encountering Virtuoso for the first time via this post or Jon's, please make time to read the <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/Main/VOSHistory">product history</a> article on the <a href="http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/wiki/main/">Virtuoso Wiki</a> (which is one of many Virtuoso based applications that make up our soon to be released OpenLink DataSpace offering).</p> <p>That said, I better go listen to the podcast :-)</p>