On 3/11/08, Kingsley Idehen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
> In you message above you use the term RDFization. Please clarify that
> you mean exposing Drupal's SQL Data as RDF.


No. Assertions are made not only at the SQL level (ok, ok, they're stored
there). One of the things that we've been saying is "get rid of your
developer". You can build a fully functional Drupal site by learning the web
gui. Exposing the data should / will be a side effect of *users* creating
data types views, and even just entering data (we do lots of things like
making a review type that then gets filled out and becomes a review of an
album, for instance).

As Dries stated, there are several problems that we are hitting (relations
between local data, integration of remote data sources, etc.) that RDF and
similar technologies have already solved. We are also believers in
standards, so there seems to be a good fit there.

If this is what you mean
> then please note that we have produced complete RDFization of Drupal
> (via Relational Schema to RDF Schema / Ontology Mapping) for a while
> now.  Our main problem has been locating the right people on the Drupal
> front re. incorporation into the main Drupal codebase.


Right. That would mean a high level of participation in the community,
learning community norms, etc. This is hard to do from the outside.
Although, I hadn't heard about this at all -- blogging about it and tagging
it with "drupal" would be good, or announcing it in the Sem Web group would
be good.

In our case we
> are using Virtuoso where you would normally have MySQL and Apache, and
> we achieve this by simply making Drupal ODBC compliant (as Virtuoso like
> other DBMS engines supports ODBC and like Apache supports HTTP).


Neat. But not appropriate for running out-of-the-box on any typical run of
the mill shared web hosting. The LAMP stack is typically the main target for
Drupal core, including the "average joe" that runs it on cheap web hosting.

Ideally, I would like us to have all the Drupal and RDF efforts in one
> place for reference by others. A nice starting point would be the ESW
> Wiki [5].


Well, we will be working with our community on what is best for moving it
forward. References are great, but the Drupal community -- esp. its
developers -- must  want to bring Semantic Web concepts into their DNA and
believe that it is the right thing.

The Semantic Web group (http://groups.drupal.org/semantic-web) will be one
point of of discussion. Other than that, the developer mailing list and the
issue queue for Drupal core will be the places where discussion and code
happens.

I have suggested that replacing the File API layer in Drupal core with some
of the RDF code developed by Arto and Miglius would be a good starting
point. The File API is a weak point, so attempting to replace it in the
Drupal 7 development cycle -- and walking in the required pieces of the RDF
API. The other area is data structures for the "content creation kit" aka
CCK. See http://groups.drupal.org/node/9572 for a post of mine linking to
the discussion.

Lastly, this is technology available today in Drupal 6 -- so anyone can
install and kick the tires, and even extend to implement things like MOAT on
top of the API. It would be great if folks outside the Drupal community that
have much deeper RDF knowledge could jump in and see what works. Plugfests
with data being flowed between, e.g. SPARQLPress and Drupal, would be
another interesting area.

Hope that helps present some context. I could probably close by saying that
the Drupal developer community is a meritocracy -- "Talk is silver, code is
gold".

Cheers,

--
Boris Mann
http://bmannconsulting.com / http://www.raincitystudios.com
_______________________________________________
Linking-open-data mailing list
[email protected]
http://simile.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/linking-open-data

Reply via email to