I've got one last change I would like to make before finalization this week.
We already made changes last week to simplify the section, by removing the requirement for the abbreviated RDF/XML. As of now we say OSLC services MUST provide/accept RDF/XML and MAY provide/accept other formats. I'd like to make the Core less prescriptive and more realistic by changing that MUST to a SHOULD, adding more concise explanation of intent and removing the 5 paragraphs on "why does OSLC require RDF/XML". It's less prescriptive because SHOULD is looser than MUST and it's more realistic because, as far as I know, OSLC implementations don't yet provide/accept full RDF/XML -- there are limitations still being worked out. Here's the new spec text that I propose: OSLC resource representations come in many forms and are subject to standard HTTP mechanisms for content negotiation. OSLC domain specifications are expected to (1) require the representations needed for the specific scenarios that they are addressing and (2) recognize that different representations are appropriate for different purposes. For example, browser oriented scenarios might be best addressed by JSON or Atom format representations. For these reasons, OSLC services MAY provide and accept standard or emerging standard formats such as XML, JSON, HTML, Turtle and the Atom Syndication Format. OSLC domain specifications are also expected to follow common practices and conventions that are in concert with existing industry standards and offer consistency across domains. All of the OSLC specifications are built upon the standard RDF data model, allowing OSLC to align with the W3C's Linked Data initiative. In addition, all OSLC specifications have adopted the convention to illustrate RDF/XML representations and will typically require RDF/XML representations to enable consistency across OSLC implementations. For those reasons, OSLC services SHOULD provide and accept RDF/XML representations for each OSLC resource. Though the OSLC Core workgroup does provide guidance on how to form RDF/XML representations using a subset of RDF/XML (reference: OSLC Core Representations Guidance) , OSLC clients SHOULD NOT assume any specific form of RDF/XML. It is recommended that OSLC services also provide an HTML representation for each resource. Thanks, Dave
