From: Dave Winer (dave@userland.com)
Date: Mon Aug 21 2000 - 04:25:04 PDT
Sorry, I must be missing a connection.
We worked on something like this at Living Videotext in the mid-80s, it was
called Boxes and Arrows. We started with the "tool problem" the one the RDF
advocates seem to have left for last. The data representation was relatively
easy, it's just an adjacency table on a storage pool.
The problem with the tool was the user interface (doh). While the results it
produced were gorgeous, the UI was far too complicated for people who were
accustomed to outliners. I really wanted this software, because I am one of
those people who thinks in boxes and circles and arrows. When I want to
visualize a difficult problem, I get out a pad and pen and start drawing.
Now one wonders why you need RDF at all since the HTML web already does
this. Early-on some people (including myself) thought that a website was a
hierarchy and found quickly that they are not hierarchies, they are directed
graphs. That's why next-prev links never caught on in the Web. Ask
Netobjects, that was Fusion's second big selling point (after being the
Quark of the Web).
Anyway, if Guha et al are really serious about this (I talked with him on
the phone last week and it wasn't clear that he is serious) I would
recommend starting with the tool, solve the UI problem, and then declare
victory. If you can create a scribble-space on a desktop computer using a
mouse and keyboard, you've got something with real value.
OTOH, I hesitate to give Guha too much encouragement because he's a patent
abuser. Makes me wonder if O'Reilly checked him out before teaming up with
him, afaik O'Reilly is an outspoken critic of software patents.
Dave
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan Brickley" <Daniel.Brickley@bristol.ac.uk>
To: "Dave Winer" <dave@userland.com>
Cc: "Dan Brickley" <Daniel.Brickley@bristol.ac.uk>; "foRK"
<fork@xent.ics.uci.edu>; "guha" <guha@guha.com>
Sent: Monday, August 21, 2000 4:18 AM
Subject: Re: What is RDF?
>
>
> It's just the Web information model. Typed links. We use URIs for those
> types, and for the types of the things they interconnect. Devil's in the
> detail (quoting mechanism, reification, datatyping etc), but the basic
> idea ain't new.
>
> Does this sound familiar?
>
> "...In providing a system for manipulating this sort of information,the
hope
> would be to allow a pool of
> information to develop which could grow and evolve with the
> organisation and the projects it
> describes. For this to be possible, the method of storage must
> not place its own restraints on the
> information. This is why a "web" of notes with links (like
> references) between them is far more useful
> than a fixed hierarchical system. When describing a complex
> system, many people resort to
> diagrams with circles and arrows. Circles and arrows leave one
> free to describe the
> interrelationships between things in a way that tables, for
> example, do not. The system we need is
> like a diagram of circles and arrows, where circles and arrows
> can stand for anything. "
>
> quoted in http://www.w3.org/1999/11/11-WWWProposal/thenandnow
>
>
> --danbri
>
>
> On Mon, 21 Aug 2000, Dave Winer wrote:
>
> > If it's not Guha's retirement plan, what is it?
> >
> > BTW, Guha boasts of eight issued patents on his website.
> >
> > http://web1.guha.com/patents.html
> >
> > Dave
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Dan Brickley" <Daniel.Brickley@bristol.ac.uk>
> > To: "Dave Winer" <dave@userland.com>
> > Cc: "foRK" <fork@xent.ics.uci.edu>; <guha@guha.com>
> > Sent: Monday, August 21, 2000 1:58 AM
> > Subject: Re: What is RDF?
> >
> >
> > > (+cc: guha)
> > >
> > > I voted for Guha's retirement plan too.
> > >
> > > You missed out the right answer of course...
> > >
> > > Dan
> > >
> > >
> > > On Sun, 20 Aug 2000, Dave Winer wrote:
> > >
> > > > Tomorrow I want to run a survey on Scripting News asking what RDF
is.
> > > >
> > > > dave@userland.com/whatIsRdf">http://surveys.userland.com/surveys/run/dave@userland.com/whatIsRdf
> > > >
> > > > You all presumably know that I don't like RDF. I'm most likely to
vote
> > for
> > > > the "Guha Retirement Plan" choice. But I know other people like RDF.
I
> > just
> > > > never understand their reasons why.
> > > >
> > > > I hope to start a discussion that instead of rambling all over the
map
> > into
> > > > someday panaceas that depend on a lot of magic, and focus on what
RDF
> > can do
> > > > for us today, and what the costs assosicated with that are, so
> > intelligent
> > > > busy people can make a decision.
> > > >
> > > > And so if it turns out that RDF is too complicated by two orders of
> > > > magnitude (another choice), we can figure out how to deliver the
> > benefits it
> > > > promises without compromising simplicity and without having to wait
for
> > > > magic to happen.
> > > >
> > > > Thanks for your help, I hope to learn a lot through this process.
> > > >
> > > > Dave
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
> >
>
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