Data on the Web
By Pierre-Antoine Champin (W3C)
See also the slides.
Transcript
So, we currently have a number of groups working on or with data related standards.
So I will give you a summary of what those groups have achieved in the past year.
In no particular order.
So the first one in my list, RDF.
The RDF Star Working Group has been created almost exactly a year ago, with the mission to update up to 18 Recommendation track documents inherited from the previous RDF and SPARQL Working Groups, in order to bring them to 1.2 version.
So, to make this task realistic, we have a very tight charter.
Basically there's, beyond addressing the errata, 10 years worth of errata on those specifications, there's only one new feature that we are chartered to add and that is the Star part.
In a nutshell, the ability to add and query statements about statements.
So, the group has 18 Working Drafts in active developments.
They are meeting right now for the whole day.
And I'd say that we are in good shape.
Things are progressing.
Another group that was created roughly a year ago, is the RDF Dataset Canonicalization and Hash Working Group, nicknamed the Rich Working Group.
This one has just one deliverable that aims to provide a way to hash, and therefore sign and verify, RDF datasets independently of how they are concretely written down or serialized, because sometimes what you really want to sign is the content of the graph rather than how it is specifically serialized.
So, this one is in pretty good shape.
We resolved to go to CR yesterday, pending some green light from the TAG, but as one of the TAG reviewers was with us, we don't think there should be any issue.
The Verifiable Credentials Working Group has been here for a while.
They're currently working on version 2 of the VC data model.
They're meeting on Thursday and Friday.
So if you're interested, still time to join.
The data model should go to CR at that time.
There are a number of other Working Drafts that are also actively worked on around the notion of data integrity which describe precisely in this part in the generic data model, how you express signatures and other verification material to check that your data has not been tempered with.
The Dataset Exchange Working Group has also been around for a while.
They are ready to bring to Candidate Recommendation DCAT version three, the Data Catalog Vocabulary.
I have to say this third version has been patiently waited for by a number of organizations that are using DCAT 2 and have been using DCAT 2 for a moment, including the European Commission.
So, this one also should be finalized very soon.
Also, this Working Group has another work item on content negotiation by profile.
So in a nutshell, DCAT is a very generic vocabulary.
All the organization that use it use it in more specific ways than what's just in the standard code application profiles.
And there's a need to be able to negotiate beyond the content type and language classic content negotiation, to negotiate which profile of a data catalog you want to get.
What's interesting is that this negotiation by profile is useful by a number of other groups beyond the data set exchange.
And that includes also the RDF Star Working Group which has some interest in this work.
So the content negotiation by profile has been dormant for a while, unfortunately, but in the past few months, activity has fortunately resumed and there's again, some progress on this future Recommendation.
The JSON-LD Working Group has been in maintenance mode for a while.
It's also meeting every other week together with the community group.
And in those meetings, time is shared among CG items like the incubation of YAML LD and Working Group items that is tackling the issues that were raised on the spec, in order to eventually publish a new snapshot.
Finally, the Web of Things Working Group, as Philippe said, it's currently being rechartered.
It has three core Recommendations that are all three in proposed Recommendation state.
So they should shortly become proper RECs, version 1.1 of the Web of Thing Architecture, Thing Description, and Web of Thing Discovery.
This Working Group has had a number of joint meetings with other Working Groups, including JSON LD, RDF Canonicalization, all along the week, also, yes, DIDs and verifiable credentials, and they are meeting in Thursday and Friday.
So again, feel free to join and that's all for me, thanks.
