Stefan Decker on the Semantic Web - Comments

claudio gutierrez: The Database Community and the Semantic Web

nospam@example.com (claudio gutierrez) — Tue, 09 May 2006 17:24:46 +0200

Great [entry|reflexion|thought|opinion] Stefan! Any avenue for develping the Semantic Web will face the problem of managing HUGE data volumes. And, let us recognize that the people who know how to do this are those in the database community. I think we people in the Semantic Web side have been reluctant --or at least slow-- to recognize this fact.

Now, how to interest people in that community in our problems? My feeling is that "Semantic Web" as a whole is something too vague to be of any interest to the mainstream DB community. General discussion are not of interest to a technical community. Recall on these lines that the issue of "managing data on the Web", or if the Web as such is a database was a hot discussion in the late nineties: "...Good news for database systems research: the Web is one huge database" (Asilomar Report, 1998) versus "The Web is not a Database" (A. Mendelzon, 1998). But at the end, the DB community embraced this "problem" not because the new topic of the Web was "hot", but because they found XML full of nice technicalities, and for years "research on the Web" in this community was indistinguishable from research on XML. (And recall that the DB community only accepted XML when they found it was essentially the same as "their" semistructured model.)

I think this example of XML gives some light on what could be a promising avenue to establish bridges between these communities. The Semantic Web wave has brought new technologies with it, and these particular technologies --more than the whole vision-- is what could be of interest to the database community. And, sadly, we haven't been efficient at positioning these new technical pearls.

claudio gutierrez

Mariano Rico: Semantic Web 2.0...

nospam@example.com (Mariano Rico) — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 18:35:41 +0100

In this page (http://novaspivack.typepad.com/nova_spivacks_weblog/2005/10/towards_a_world.html) the author places or beloved "Semantic Web" as Web 3.0

Kingsley Idehen: The Database Community and the Semantic Web

nospam@example.com (Kingsley Idehen) — Tue, 15 Nov 2005 00:22:41 +0100

There are other DBMS and Data Access Middleware vendors that have long seen the synergy between the Semantic Web and Database Engines. For years I have espoused that what we call Web Sites today would in the no too distant future be known as "Databases" of the "Semantic" variety.

I beiieve wholely in the intersection of SQL/XML/RDF (Data, Information, Knowledge representation respectively).

My Blog is a live demo of a product (OpenLink Virtuoso that is living proof of my vision). If you play around with my blog a little (look at the gems, the search, summary, and link pages you should get the general drift).

There is more to come, but I can assure you we believe in the power of an IRI/URI with properties that are navigable en route to creating and disseminating knowledge

Are we a Database Vendor? Hard to say as we build a product (far back as 1998) that combines Database (SQL, XML, Text, etc.), HTTP Server, Web Services Platform, and more as part of a single server offering.

Dieter Fensel: The Social Semantic Web vs. Semantic Web Services

nospam@example.com (Dieter Fensel) — Sat, 01 Oct 2005 16:00:35 +0200