RDF

RDF

RDF is the Resource Development Framework. It is a way of organizing multiple, different internet resources. It describes what they are (URL, mailbox, mail message, newsgroup, etc), and how they relate to each other. Also, one RDF can dynamically update another RDF over a network.

Resource Development Framework

RDF is a general way of describing data that will give more power to applications that use that data. This is done by reducing all collections into nuggets of information called triples. It is intended for situations where information needs to displayed and processed by an application. RDF was originally based on identifying things using Web identifiers called URI's (Uniform Resource Identifiers). It can now use URI, literal, or blanks.

Links

• Resource Development Framework on Mozilla.org

http://www.mozilla.org/rdf/doc/

• Planet RDF - An site, built with RDF, that aggregates the blogs of semanitc webhackers

http://planetrdf.com/

• Wikipedia Entry on RDF

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_Description_Framework

• RDF in Fifty Words Or Less - A quick description, with example, of RDF

http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/RDF_in_Fifty_Words_or_Less

• W3C's RDF Concepts and Abstract Syntax

http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/WD-rdf-concepts-20030123/

Examples

Example based on http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/RDF_in_Fifty_Words_or_Less

There is an RDF "bookmark" folder. It is called Inbox. When you open that folder, RDF generates a list of bookmarks to email messages. Each of those messages are based on real, actual messages sitting in an inbox on another system.

The folder is actually a pointer to a CGI script that contains more RDF. The RDF in there fetches all new messages, and summarizes them. It turns them into XML, and feeds it back to the original RDF "inbox" folder. The folder recieves that data, and its own RDF transforms it into a bunch of bookmarks under the initial inbox folder.

Code

"The title of this resource is 'Tony Benn'"

  
<rdf:RDF
        xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
        xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">
        <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Benn">
                <dc:title>Tony Benn</dc:title>
                <dc:publisher>Wikipedia</dc:publisher>
        </rdf:Description>
  </rdf:RDF>

code example from wikipedia

Artifacts

• RDF Specifications:

http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-syntax-grammar/

Comunications

• Mozilla Developer's Newsgroup for RDF

mozilla.dev.tech.rdf

• Netscape's Public Mozilla channel for RDF:

netscape.public.mozilla.rdf

• W3C Semantic Web Interest Group - formerly the RDF Interest Group, a public forum

http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/interest/