There are plenty of schemas for person data:
- FOAF - VCARD - HR-XML - InetOrgPerson - EduPerson - IMSEnterprisePerson - IMSLearnerInformation/BS-8788 - ... etc ...
Of all these, FOAF would seem to me to be closest in intent and audience to Atom (even though it does make some odd vocab choices in some places, overall I'm a big fan). I worked on the last two, for my sins!
However, rather than turn Atom into an identity spec, I would advise an approach supporting the absolute minimum of identity information within the core spec while allowing the introduction of more detailed information where required from other schemas.
So, keep the restrictions as they are, but make sure the practice of including appropriately namespaced elements from FOAF is understood as being a valid way of extending Atom.
I think this echoes what Henry posted earlier on this topic.
- Scott
========= Scott Wilson Centre For Educational Technology Interoperability Standards (CETIS) Web: http://www.cetis.ac.uk Atom: http://www.cetis.,ac.uk/news.atom Foaf: http://www.cetis.ac.uk/members/scott/foaf.rdf
On 4 Jan 2005, at 18:27, Brett Lindsley wrote:
I appreciate the interesting discussion although I do appologize for not having sufficient
time to keep up with the thread. I think we all have some motion toward a less constraining
Person construct with the ability to have more detail (phone number, alternate e-mails,
or whatever). Having spent a lot of time with SyncML, (RDF/XML) vCard was the first to
pop into my head [1]. Since I am not an authority on the alternatives, I hope the experts
can propose something better.
Brett Lindsley, Motorola Labs
[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/NOTE-vcard-rdf-20010222/
