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RE: SemWeb again

• To: "Mike Champion" <mc@x...>,"xml-dev" <xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: RE: SemWeb again
• From: "Joshua Allen" <joshuaa@m...>
• Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 14:38:49 -0700
• Thread-index: AcHr01txzqbz/nKQTJ+ZuFzh3W3aUQAAz7/w
• Thread-topic: SemWeb again

My opinion is that the semantic web (in the purest, most basic sense)
will happen inevitably, and there is nothing anyone could do to stop it.
I would also point out that controversy over RDF is irrelevant; the
semantic web could happen with or without RDF.  Thinking of RDF as a
syntax that actually *does* something just clouds things and gets people
confused.  Take away RDF, pretend it never existed, and think about how
to make the web handle meta.

I wrote this paper some time ago which talks about the low-hanging fruit
for a semantic web; stuff that should be able to be easily deployed on
existing technology and would be very appealing (maybe even "killer") to
people.

http://www.netcrucible.com/semantic.html

The attempt of the paper is to show the pragmatic way that things will
probably happen.  I still stand by this analysis more than a year later;
I think it covers the major practical use cases and the probable issues
that will arise.

In fact, I think that the semantic web and web-services are not so
misaligned as some people claim.  I think that web-services is currently
advertised as a B2C thing, when it is more realisticly a B2B thing.  And
most uses of RDF today are B2B, and I think the real semantic web will
be inevitable because of its C2C potential.

In the end, it turns out that Web-Services are just the semantic web in
controlled and well-orchestrated scenarios, and SemWeb is just
web-services in a totally sloppy and uncontrolled global scenario.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mike Champion [mailto:mc@x...]
> Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2002 2:02 PM
> To: xml-dev
> 
> 4/24/2002 12:33:29 PM, Paul Prescod <paul@p...> wrote:
> 
> 
> >
> >Given these facts, I have recently tended to give the SemWeb the
benefit
> >of the doubt. It is probably in the same state SGML was before XML.
It
> >needs a simplification and some killer apps.
> 
> Perhaps, but it has generated an awful lot of ill feeling for the W3C
> leadership, in my
> humble and personal opinion garnered from many private conversations.
> Whatever the
> justification for that ill feeling, it is critical for SemWeb
advocates to
> understand and
> come to grips with it.
> 
> I see three general threads in the critique of the semantic web
initiative:
> 
> 1 - Priority:  This is simply not something that most of the member
> companies want the
> consortium to focus on.  Whether or not it is true that the W3C has
failed
> to get out in
> front of the technology curve on web services, there is a persistent
> belief that the W3C
> leadership has been twiddling with the SemWeb while WS
interoperability
> got burned.  This
> resulted in the founding of the WS-I to do what the major vendors
formerly
> relied on the
> W3C to do.
> 
> 2 -  Progress to date: The WWW (by most accounts, again I don't claim
this
> is reality)
> emerged as a working system out of CERN in the early 1990's, and was
> adopted because it
> solved real problems for real people (initially in the academic
quasi-
> academic research
> communities, I believe).  The SemWeb by contrast has, after 4 years or
so,
> no "killer
> apps" that any but true believers find useful in their day jobs.  RSS
1.0
> is probably the
> best know RDF application, but even it is less popular in actual use
than
> the non-RDF
> variants. I wasn't around for the early days of SGML, but as far as I
know
> it won converts
> by solving problems, not on the coolness of its vision.
> 
> 3 - Probability of eventual success: this smells a LOT like some "next
big
> things" of days
> gone by that never amounted to anything. Rightly or wrongly, many
people
> see RDF as Prolog
> in XML syntax, and the vision as being disturbingly similar to the
Fifth
> Generation
> project/vision/hype of the early 1980's in which logic programming was
> going to put the
> hackers out of business and lead Japan (the center of interest and
> research in this field)
> to world economic domination.  Other techniques/paradigms that came
out of
> one or another
> branch of the AI community over the last 25 years have had similar
> patterns of overwhelming
> hype / underwhelming success.
> 
> 
> OK, I'll take the flames on this :~) but I'm pretty sure this is the
> "conventional wisdom"
> and not some idiosyncratic position of mine.  I consider myself a
friendly
> skeptic, I'd be
> happy to be convinced that something like RDDL+RDF or some RDF version
of
> a well-accepted
> controlled vocabulary (e.g. SNOMED in the medical field) adds real
value
> over what we can
> do without it. So, flame me if you want, but I'd much rather that
those
> who are saddened by
> the bad reputation of the SemWeb would convince me (and most everyone
else
> in the industry)
> that the conventional wisdom is wrong.
> 
> 
> 
> 
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