Dear all,

Am 22.07.2011 um 10:59 schrieb Michael Hausenblas:

>> Apart from the error, somehow this is not what I expected. I assumed that 
>> the dataset URI is the URI of a dataset. It is the key to all other data. If 
>> you want something from a dataset, you only need to know this URI. So why is 
>> the dataset URI hard to find? Why isn't it used when references are made to 
>> DBpedia? Why isn't it the same as the base URI (http://dbpedia.org)?.
> 
> <http://lod-cloud.net/dbpedia> a void:Dataset;
>                               foaf:homepage <http://dbpedia.org/>;
> 
> Says everything, or?

No, I think Frans has a valid point here. What you propose is exactly the 
opposite of what he wants to have (and it is a valid claim btw):

"If you want something from the dataset, you only need to know this URI. So why 
is the dataset URI hard to find?"

What would be good would be a standardised way of identifying where the 
resources in a dataset are located. Where to start. Automatically. Without 
first looking into a huge, manually maintained turtle file that obviously can 
never know about all potential datasets.

What if there was a standard way of sending a request to the server root (using 
e.g. a special accept header) that says "tell me how I can access your data!" 
"tell me the services you offer and how exactly I can access them!", "tell me 
the kind of data you offer!". VoID provides a part of the answer, especially 
also with the SPARQL service descriptions. But (1) the information provided by 
VoID is too abstract to be used automatically, and (2) the problem is just 
moved one step, because now you need to know where the VoID file is located...

VoID makes this proposal of "well-known" URLs. Unfortunately, as far as I can 
tell, VoID is the only service making use of this a bit obscure HTTP standard 
and it is not really implemented widely.

I think there is still work to be done here - or maybe I am uninformed ;-)

Cheers,

Sebastian
-- 
| Dr. Sebastian Schaffert          [email protected]
| Salzburg Research Forschungsgesellschaft  http://www.salzburgresearch.at
| Head of Knowledge and Media Technologies Group          +43 662 2288 423
| Jakob-Haringer Strasse 5/II
| A-5020 Salzburg


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