Hi Ted,
in addition to the comments and links from Sebastian, I want to add
something myself.
On 17/11/12 22:49, Ted Dunning wrote:
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.
Where else is the phrase "linked data" used with a different meaning?
What 'those guys' seem to mean is well described in the Linked Data
Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linked_data
Please, notice there isn't a disambiguation page. :-)
The Wikipedia page in itself is not a primary source of information,
however it refers and link to the primary sources regarding 'linked data'.
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.
The above wiki page seems pretty short and clear to me.
Is there anything in your opinion which isn't clear and should be
better explained?
The phrase "linked data" is composed by two words and the common
definition of 'linked' (in particular if referred to the Web) and 'data'
applies here unchanged. If you think at the Web as is big 'library' of
linked 'documents', can we do the same also for data, instead of
documents? How? This is what 'linked data' is all about and what it is
trying to achieve: a Web of data.
Now, we could discuss (elsewhere) on what's the best way to achieve
that, but here is out of scope.
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.
I disagree.
The 4 principles are very clear and simple:
1. Use URIs as names for things
2. Use HTTP URIs so that people can look up those names.
3. When someone looks up a URI, provide useful information, using the
standards (RDF*, SPARQL)
4. Include links to other URIs. so that they can discover more things.
We could debate indefinitely on the "using the standards ..." part, but
should we do it here?
What's isn't clear to you from the four principles above?
You already know what a URI, HTTP URIs, links are. Isn't it? :-)
Now, I could have sympathy with you if you point your finger at RDF and
SPARQL, but, once again, the Wikipedia pages of these two W3C
Recommendations are quite short and clear... and if you want you can
always refer to the W3C Recommendations (those are your primary sources
of information in this case).
... and if you still need more info or want to put those things into
practice, come on the jena-user mailing list and we will help you out. :-)
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.
I conclude with pointing to a poing of the Apache philosophy which says:
"faithful implementation of standards":
http://www.apache.org/foundation/how-it-works.html#philosophy
IMHO two of the places to look for these 'standards' in relation to the
Web are IETF (http://www.ietf.org/) (which, by the way, do not produce
standards but RFC) and the W3C (http://www.w3.org/) (which, by the way,
do not produce standards but Recommendations). Both, although not
perfect, have great and open as well as transparent processes and I am
grateful they exists (as they have been and are fundamental to Internet
and the Web and their evolution).
The Apache Software Foundation often provides reference implementations
to these RFCs and Recommendations and I am grateful to ASF to put those
into practice and in the hands of thousands of developers (including me
;-)).
I disagree with you also on your "regardless of the merits", but I am
unsure if this is is scope of this thread, if it is. I am happy to
discuss further if you are interested.
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.
Regarding the name, I have no better suggestion than dropping the 'n'?
Linda --> Lida (but I have not done much research to see if that has
problems or not).
Paolo
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.
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