stain
commented
9 years ago Together, we came up with the idea of Commons RDF for solving the incompatibility problem. The community has been in healthy development at GitHub, including participants from the major Java RDF toolkits.
The natural path to Apache Commons Sandbox has been studied, but we think that in this phase of the project, which focuses on the API design and activelty involves the developers of existing toolkits, it is better to have a more focused community and infrastructure. Rather than a new Top-Level Project, the goal is still to graduate as part of Apache Commons, that is when API has achieve the required maturity and the project goes into maintenance mode.
Part of the motivation for doing the incubator process would therefore be to bring together the existing Commons RDF community in the Apache Way, mature the API, and then gradually prepare the Commons RDF community for working within the larger Apache Commons community.
ansell
wikier
afs
retog
Here a very initial draft to be discussed (cc @afs, @ansell, @stain, @westei, etc.):
= Apache Commons RDF incubation proposal =
== Status ==
Draft
== Abstract ==
Commons RDF a set of interfaces for the RDF 1.1 concepts that can be used to expose common RDF-1.1 concepts using common Java interfaces.
== Proposal ==
The main motivation behind this simple library is revise an historical incompatibility issue. This library does not pretend to be a generic api wrapping those libraries, but a set of interfaces for the RDF 1.1 concepts that can be used to expose common RDF-1.1 concepts using common Java interfaces. In the initial phase commons-rdf is focused on a subset of the core concepts defined by RDF-1.1 (URI/IRI, Blank Node, Literal, Triple, and Graph). In particular, commons RDF aims to provide a type-safe, non-general API that covers RDF 1.1. In a future phase we may define interfaces for Datasets and Quads.
The goal is to provide a compact API that could be implemented by the upcoming versions of the main Java toolkits (Apache Jena 3.0 and OpenRDF Sesame 4.0) as well as for other libraries (OWLAPI) and other JVM languages (Banana RDF and so on).
In addition, the project could provide some basic implementations suitable for some basic scenarios. But the major and established Java toolkits will always remain the recommend implementations to use.
== Background ==
In the Java world there has been historically an incompatibility issue between the two major RDF toolkits: Apache Jena and OpenRDF Sesame. Many libraries have tried to wrap them, but besides technical considerations, they normally end up being unmaintained.
We came up with the idea of Commons RDF for going to the root of the problem. The project is healthy developing at GitHub. The natural path to Apache Commons Sandbox has been studied, but we think that in this phase of the project is better to have a more focused community and infrastructure. However that's still the goal, as soon as the API has achieve the required maturity.
== Rationale ==
The library comes from the need for providing a generic and neutral API for RDF 1.1 that everybody can transparently use without bounding the design to concrete implementations. It is the result of cooperation between contributors to the main Java toolkits, and will try to be available in a timely manner to influence the major version updates Jena 3.0 and Sesame 4.0.
== Initial Goals ==
== Current Status ==
The API is already quite agreed by all involved players, and it's been started to be prototyped, both by the major toolkits and by simple implementations.
=== Meritocracy ===
Commons RDF has been completely designed by committee using git workflows, where every single feature has been discussed based on a Pull Request. We plan to keep such methodology where the commons understanding comes first than personal decisions.
=== Community ===
Commons RDF addresses the developers who are working with Semantic Web technologies in the JVM. The initial committers are core contributors to that community.
=== Core Developers ===
=== Alignment ===
Commons RDF comes to help in the integration of the different ASF projects using RDF technologies, where Apache Jena can be integrated with others which use Sesame (Any123 and Marmotta). In addition, proposals by other projects (Clerezza and Stanbol) can be also aligned.
== Known Risks ==
=== Orphaned Products ===
Probably one of the major risks will that the API provided does not fit well in the development plan of the main Java toolkits. But we try to minimize such risk by having on board core developers of those framework, the API will live or die on its own merits.
=== Inexperience with Open Source ===
The committers have large experience with open source development and ASF communities.
=== Homogeneous Developers ===
The initial list of developers come from four different organizations and three different counties.
=== Reliance on Salaried Developers ===
Although the project is also in the strategic agenda of project of our current employers, so far the main development is happening at volunteer time.
=== Relationships with Other Apache Projects ===
The project really relates with Jena as one of the potential implementations, with Any23 and Marmotta which are based on Sesame, and Clerezza and Stanbol as project that may benefit of such common api.
=== An Excessive Fascination with the Apache Brand ===
While we expect the Apache brand may help attract more contributors, our interests in starting this project is based on the factors mentioned in the Rationale section.
== Documentation ==
Documentation for the current project can be found at GitHub: http://commons-rdf.github.io
== Initial Source ==
The current source code can be found at GitHuh: https://github.com/commons-rdf/commons-rdf
=== Source and Intellectual Property Submission Plan ===
The whole copyright is hold by the four developers signing this proposal, all of them already with a ICLA with ASF in place. Current licence is already Apache Software License 2.0.
=== External Dependencies ===
Most of current dependencies should have Apache compatible licenses, including BSD, CDDL, CPL, MPL and MIT licensed dependencies. We are aware of some incompatible licenses right now, but we will work to solve this issue. See Appendix A for a detailed list of dependencies.
=== Cryptography ===
Does Not Apply.
== Required Resources ==
=== Mailing lists ===
=== Repository ===
=== Issue Tracking ===
=== Other Resources ===
== Initial Committers ==
=== Affiliations ===
== Sponsors ==
=== Champion ===
=== Nominated Mentors ===
=== Sponsoring Entity ===
Apache Incubator PMC
== Appendix A: list of dependencies ==
TBC