Semantic Web

Stephen Downes thinks that the Semantic Web initiative is faltering due to the complexity of the W3C standards being defined. He mentions the following guidelines in the Whither the Semantic Web article.

From where I sit, there are two ways of developing a new technology (a new specification, a new language, whatever):

• develop a simple core that users can expand if they need to
• develop a comprehensive system anticipating the way users would expand it

RSS developed the first way. The RSS language is very easy to learn - it has only a half dozen core elements, expressed in the simplest possible XML. An RSS file can be created by any person with a minimum of technical skill. Examples that they can use as templates abound. RSS has been extended in various ways, and various versions have emerged, and they all work. Just like with HTML, you don't have to be letter perfect to a detailed spec to make it work, you need only create valid XML.

And some gospel:

Here is some gospel: if you can't do it simply, with a simple text-editor,a web server and a standard browser, it's broken.

More gospel: if you can't say what you want to say with it, it's broken.

A Third Gospel: if you can't link, it's broken.

A Fourth Gospel: if you can't find it, it doesn't exist.

Conclusion:

If the system that evolves from the work on the semantic web is one system for Enterprise, and another for the people, then we are creating an information infrastructure that is fundamentally flawed from the outset. The developers of the Semantic Web must, in my opinion, step back from the drawing boards for a bit, and roll out a basic infrastructure that allows people, real people, to communicate real things in a straightforward manner. The potential is there and people are just waiting for it.