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<div class=Section1>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Having identified what might be possible, we can move to
looking at how to accomplish it -- the mechanisms for sharing. </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Here is a quick list of ways that people have shared data on
the web:</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.25in'><font size=2
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>-<font size=1
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>
</span></font></span></font><font face=Arial><span style='font-family:Arial'>point-to-point
translation of static data files with a proprietary data formats</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.25in'><font size=2
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>-<font size=1
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>
</span></font></span></font><font face=Arial><span style='font-family:Arial'>point-to-point
integration using data derived by crawling and screen-scraping sites </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.25in'><font size=2
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>-<font size=1
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>
</span></font></span></font><font face=Arial><span style='font-family:Arial'>point-to-point
integration using an API (REST, Web Service, etc) that assumes a particular
data model and encapsulates the format in code</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.25in'><font size=2
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>-<font size=1
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>
</span></font></span></font><font face=Arial><span style='font-family:Arial'>point-to-point
integration accessing databases with documented schemas</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.25in'><font size=2
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>-<font size=1
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>
</span></font></span></font><font face=Arial><span style='font-family:Arial'>common
content formats, such as microformats and I-tags</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.25in'><font size=2
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>-<font size=1
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>
</span></font></span></font><font face=Arial><span style='font-family:Arial'>common
database schemas using a standard schema definition language</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.25in'><font size=2
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>-<font size=1
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>
</span></font></span></font><font face=Arial><span style='font-family:Arial'>common
ontologies and RDF for interchange</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Trebuchet MS"> </font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Notice that there are two kinds of sharing -- point-to-point
and through a common mechanism. You can still write point-to-point
mappings using a common mechanism, but the difference is the common mechanism
is N-to-1 to a canonical format/model, where the others mechanisms require
many-to-many mappings. For example, to map from one system's API to
another, you have to know the contract and assumptions of each system at
operational, format, and semantic levels. </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Within the common convention approaches, the formats are
more constrained than the database schemas, which are more constrained than the
ontologies. In other words, the level of abstraction is going up from
formats to schemas to ontologies, and therefore the differences in contract and
assumptions are going down. Still, one could provide mechanisms at the
format level to account for semantic distinctions, and enforce them with a
social contract. For instance, microformats encode "semantic" (nonpresentational)
information in the HTML "class" element, such as <div
class="vcard">, where the string "vcard" is known by convention
to mean that the markup in the div element is a format-level representation of
a contact.</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Within the world of databases, there are all kinds of ways
to specify conceptual constraints, and tools for enforcing them. Ontologies,
of course, are all about specifying conceptual constraints, and the Semantic
Web has machinery for communicating and computing over them.</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=red face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:red'>ACTION REQUESTED</span></font><font
face=Arial><span style='font-family:Arial'>: </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>This message summarizes some mechanisms for sharing, but I
would like to ask members of the group to please pipe in with how you envision the
interoperability could work if we proposed adapting and/or extending some
formal mechanisms and coming to some kind of agreement on it. For
example, application and tool developers, what practically would you need from
the agreement to enable your work? Content and research people, what
would help you get the data you need? Ontology / Semantic Web people,
what else needs to happen to hook up the various levels to make a tagcommons
work?</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>For example, here are some teaser topics for this thread:</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.25in'><font size=2
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>-<font size=1
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>
</span></font></span></font><font face=Arial><span style='font-family:Arial'>How
can a web service translate among or aggregate different tag data sources?
How can we enable "semantic mashups"?</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.25in'><font size=2
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>-<font size=1
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>
</span></font></span></font><font face=Arial><span style='font-family:Arial'>How
would a tag ontology map to microformats and what could be the consequence (we've
already heard some about this from Harry Halpin; we could use a more detailed
proposal).</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.25in'><font size=2
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>-<font size=1
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>
</span></font></span></font><font face=Arial><span style='font-family:Arial'>How
can semantic web ontologies be integrated and/or mapped to each other?</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.25in'><font size=2
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>-<font size=1
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>
</span></font></span></font><font face=Arial><span style='font-family:Arial'>How
can ontologies be layered on top of existing tag data sources that we don't own
(for example, how does Annotea talk to del.icio.us?</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.25in'><font size=2
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>-<font size=1
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>
</span></font></span></font><font face=Arial><span style='font-family:Arial'>How
can database schemas and data sources exposed at that level be mapped to
operational APIs, formats, and ontologies?</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.25in'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>To ground the discussion, see if you can tie the analysis to
one or more of the use cases we generated, or propose a new use case where
needed.</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Thanks. It would be great if we could do this phase in
a week or so.</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Best,</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Tom</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'> </span></font></p>
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