I had a conversation with Kingsley Idehen on #swig today [1], which
reveals the following interesting problem.

There are many foaf files out there. Some of them will be editable
via webdav or atom app. There is currently no way for a client such
as Beatnik [2], to know when reading a file whether or not this is an
editable file, and how it can be edited. It does not make sense to
try to PUT for every foaf file one encounters. Neither is this
problem going to be limited to foaf btw. But this is a good case.

So what seems to be needed in a foaf file is a :edit link relation to
the resource at which the file can be edited.

AtomOwl inherits this from APP [3]. Or rather it should: I have not
yet added the APP relations.
This is the xml from the APP spec

<?xml version="1.0"?>


urn:uuid:1225c695-cfb8-4ebb-aaaa-80da344efa6a
2005-10-07T17:17:08Z
Daffy

src="http://media.example.org/the_beach.png"/>

href="http://media.example.org/edit/the_beach.png" />
href="http://example.org/media/edit/the_beach.atom" />

What we need is something similar I think for RDF.

We could adapt the above from Atom. Then a foaf file could contain
the following

<> :link [ :type iana:edit ] .

But there are a couple of problems:

- currently a link is specified to have a domain of :Entry, and a
foaf file is not really an entry
- one could argue that the edit relation defined above is specific
to the atom protocol
+ would it apply to WebDAV?
+ would it be nice if there were a way to also specify a
protocol that allowed ftp or scp uploads too? Does the link relation
as defined above prohibit it?

Another use case which I go into in my post "Foaf enabling an
enterprise" [4], is one where a foaf file is cut into two sections,
one of which is controlled by the company - probably generated from
ldap and other information - and the other part is controlled by the
person described in the foaf file, who has access rights to that one,
and can use tools such as Beatnik to edit them. Again we need a way
to let clients such as Beatnik know about this, so they can work out
where to place the changes.

Is there work in this area that people are aware of?

Henry

[1] http://chatlogs.planetrdf.com/swig/2007-02-23.html#T17-27-07
[2] https://sommer.dev.java.net/source/browse/sommer/trunk/misc/
AddressBook/www/
[3] http://bitworking.org/projects/atom/draft-ietf-atompub-
protocol-13.html#rfc.section.11.1
[4] http://blogs.sun.com/bblfish/entry/foaf_enabling_an_enterprise

Home page: http://bblfish.net/
Sun Blog: http://blogs.sun.com/bblfish/
Foaf name: http://bblfish.net/people/henry/card#me

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