Linked Data Platform Update

Since the launch of the W3C Linked Data Platform (LDP) WG in June last year, the WG has made a lot of progress.

It took a while for WG members to get to understand each other and sometimes it still feels like we don’t! But that’s what it takes to make a standard. You need to get people with very different backgrounds and expectations to come around and somehow find a happy medium that works for everyone.

One of the most difficult issues we had to deal with had to do with containers, their relationship to member resources and what to expect from the server when a container gets deleted. After investigating various possible paths the WG finally settled on a simple design that is probably not going to make everyone happy but that all WG members can live with. One reason for this is that it can possibly be grown into something more complex later on if we really want to. In some ways, we went full circle on that issue but in the process we have all gained a much greater understanding of what’s in the spec and why it is there so, this was by no means a useless exercise.

Per our charter, we’re to produce the Last Call specification this month. This is when the WG thinks it’s done – all issues are closed – and external parties are invited to comment on the spec (not to say that comments aren’t welcome all the time). I’m sorry to say that this isn’t going to happen this month. We just have too many issues still left open and the draft still has to incorporate some of the decisions that were made. This will need to be reviewed and may generate more issues. However, the WG is planning to meet face to face in June to tackle the remaining issues. If everything goes to plan this should allow us to produce our Last Call document by the end of June.

Anyone familiar with the standards development arena knows that one month behind is basically “on time”. 🙂

In the meantime, next week I will be at the WWW2013 conference where I will be presenting on LDP. It’s a good opportunity for people to come and learn about what’s in the spec if you don’t know yet! If you can’t make it to Rio, you’ll have another chance at the SemTech conf in June where I will be presenting on LDP as well. Jennifer Zaino from SemanticWeb.com wrote a nice piece based on an interview I gave her.