Dear Ted, even though I agree that the term "Linked Data" is very generic, this is out of my influence, and it describes quite well what the topic is about. The term "Linked Data" has actually been proposed by Tim Berners-Lee:
http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html and is used in the various standardisation efforts (like the W3C "Linked Data Platform" recommendation mentioned in the proposal). There is also a nice presentation from 2009 at TED: http://www.ted.com/talks/tim_berners_lee_on_the_next_web.html Linked Data is also already used by major enterprises like: - BBC: http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/sweo/public/UseCases/BBC/ - Volkswagen: http://semanticweb.com/volkswagen-das-auto-company-is-das-semantic-web-company_b23233 - German National Library: http://www.dnb.de/EN/Service/DigitaleDienste/LinkedData/linkeddata_node.html So my fear that 'nobody is likely to understand the phrase "Linked Data"' is very low for the future. If there have been other uses of the phrase in Computer Science before they are now marginalized (if you can trust a Google search for "Linked Data"). That said, we take your concern serious (especially the legal issue) and will discuss the issue on Monday. I am also grateful for the proposals that have already been done on the list. Greetings, Sebastian Am 17.11.2012 um 23:49 schrieb Ted Dunning: > Frankly, the phrase "linked data" is also so generic as to be essentially > meaningless outside your community. There are many, many uses of this > phrase in computer science that mean something completely different from > what you guys seem to mean. > > It took me quite a bit of reading to figure out what you were talking > about. At the very least, you need to look at your supporting materials > with a naive eye so that you can avoid the confusion that your name and > terminology are likely to cause. > > Having a project name that memorializes a phrase that nobody is likely to > understand without (lots of) supporting material and which is used by other > projects in roughly the same domain is problematic. > > My feeling is that I would be -0 on the name meaning that I think that it > isn't good, but I wouldn't stand in the way by vetoing it. You guys seem > pretty attached to your terminology regardless of the merits and it doesn't > seem a big enough issue to be worth causing friction over it. > > You should be aware, however, that with these defects, it seems very > unlikely to me that Apache would be able to help with trademark and name > conflict issues. That may not seem like a big deal now, but if your > project really does get going and then somebody tries to take over your > community with a nearly identically named product, it will definitely feel > like a big deal. Take a look at what happens with Open Office all the time. > > On Sat, Nov 17, 2012 at 2:12 PM, Sebastian Schaffert < > sebastian.schaff...@salzburgresearch.at> wrote: > >> I agree that "Linda" is a very generic name and as such there are already >> several projects out there with this name. On the other hand, we chose >> "Linda" as an acronym for "Linked Data" in order to increase >> recognizability especially in the domain we are targeting. For our >> community, we think it would be quite easy to identify "Apache Linda" with >> the Linked Data Platform and not with a blackboard system or a methodology >> for parallel execution. A more artificial name would probably have a harder >> time establishing a brand (but of course the project is good enough to >> manage ;-) ). >> >> In case the Incubator PMC still recommends to rename the project, I agree >> we should do it BEFORE starting up the project. We will discuss options for >> renaming on Monday (European Time) and come up with suggestions. >> Sebastian -- | Dr. Sebastian Schaffert sebastian.schaff...@salzburgresearch.at | Salzburg Research Forschungsgesellschaft http://www.salzburgresearch.at | Head of Knowledge and Media Technologies Group +43 662 2288 423 | Jakob-Haringer Strasse 5/II | A-5020 Salzburg --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
