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Re: Meta-somethingorother (was the semantic web mega-permathre

• To: XML Developers List <xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: Re: Meta-somethingorother (was the semantic web mega-permathread thing)
• From: Michael Champion <mc@x...>
• Date: Tue, 8 Jun 2004 22:02:51 -0400
• In-reply-to: <0E36FD96D96FCA4AA8E8F2D199320E52020E851A@R...>
• References: <0E36FD96D96FCA4AA8E8F2D199320E52020E851A@R...>

On Jun 8, 2004, at 8:54 PM, Joshua Allen wrote:
>

OK, so the problem with Doctorow is his argument implies that "data" is 
just as crapalacious as "metadata"?  Fair enough, but I think he would 
reply that people take some care with "data" when it's for humans who 
see it and evaluate the author on its quality, but can't be bothered 
with metadata that is basically consumed by machines which don't do 
performance reviews or post flames.  Of course people SHOULD care about 
metadata because doing it badly will hurt them in the long run, but 
remember what he thinks about typical human veracity, intelligence, 
self-awareness ....  In any event, when metadata and data come 
together, as they do in XML, RDF/OWL,  and WinFS, Doctorow's argument 
loses a lot of steam, I agree.

> really the value of WinFS is that you have "liberated" your metadata
> (well, a lot of it :-))from the clutches of proprietary formats and
> APIs, and that is something I think is going to have a *huge* impact.
> And can anyone *honestly* argue that "no, PIM data should be hidden in
> as many different and incompatible data models as possible, because
> metadata is crap!"??

I'm not sure why PIM records are metadata rather than data, but I 
understand the point -- WinFS isn't about adding more human-authored 
metadata, it's about capturing data/metadata/whatever in a consistently 
queryable way.    Sortof like XML :-)


>
> Semantic web is similar vision, but on a global scale.  We recognize
> that people are already storing and managing terabytes of metadata; so
> what will happen when we "liberate" that metadata in a way that allows
> repurposing, sharing, and synergy?

Well, I'm totally with Jon Udell on this  -- XML+XPath lets you do this 
today, in a platform-neutral way with widely deployed technology.  Feel 
the power of the non-Dark Side of the Force, Luuuke!
http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2004/06/02.html#a1012
http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2004/06/07.html#a1017

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    • From: Didier PH Martin <martind@n...>

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    • From: "Joshua Allen" <joshuaa@m...>

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