Revisiting voiD discovery

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Semantic Sitemaps are dead. We should no longer promote them, or rely on them 
for voiD discovery.

What else could we do for discovering the voiD description of a domain?

Link in robots.txt? Use .well-known? Use a pseudo-canonical 
http://yourdomain/void.ttl location?

Original issue reported on code.google.com by richard....@gmail.com on 15 Sep 2010 at 2:46

• Blocked on: W3C SWIG note process #85

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Original comment by K.J.W.Al...@gmail.com on 30 Sep 2010 at 11:38

• Added labels: Milestone-Release2.0

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Per today's call, let's do it in Release 2.

We won't do the pseudo-canonical location approach.

Original comment by richard....@gmail.com on 30 Sep 2010 at 11:39

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As per discussion today, resolved to outsource it and the register with IETF; 
changed ownership as well

Original comment by Michael.Hausenblas on 29 Oct 2010 at 10:01

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I think in detail we should do this, in order:

1. Remove Section 7.2 from the Guide

2. Explain in the beginning of Section 7 that previous versions of voiD had a 
discovery mechanism based on robots.txt and Semantic Sitemaps, which was 
deprecated because it was not widely adopted. Include a link to 
http://vocab.deri.ie/void/guide/2009-01-29

3. Explain in the beginning of Section 7 that a new discovery mechanism will be 
defined in the future in a separate document, linking to 
http://vocab.deri.ie/void/autodiscovery

4. Create a one-sentence placeholder document at 
http://vocab.deri.ie/void/autodiscovery

5. Get the *draft* of the Note published in W3C space

6. Write a submission to IETF for a name under .well-known.

7. Draft the autodiscovery document: Describe the .well-known mechanism, and 
explain that IETF approval is pending.

Original comment by richard....@gmail.com on 8 Dec 2010 at 9:55

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Done step 1-3 in r172 however, vocab.deri.ie is down ATM, so need to wait till 
this is sorted to do the rest

Original comment by Michael.Hausenblas on 11 Dec 2010 at 3:43

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Update: vocab.deri.ie is back online, added 
http://vocab.deri.ie/void/autodiscovery - please review content

Original comment by Michael.Hausenblas on 13 Dec 2010 at 10:43

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Notes that the registry is located at 
http://www.iana.org/assignments/well-known-uris/well-known-uris.xhtml

Original comment by Michael.Hausenblas on 10 Jan 2011 at 4:52

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hi - Have steps 5-7 and a submission to IETF taken place yet ? In the interim, 
if Im creating a VoID document, should I continue with sitemap/robots or use 
the .well-known mechanism ?

Original comment by uoc...@googlemail.com on 19 Jan 2011 at 11:47

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Submission has not yet taken place. I expect that the entire registration 
process will take at least another few weeks.

My recommendation: If you already have the robots.txt/sitemap thing in place, 
then just leave it like that. Otherwise, publish the voiD file without 
autodiscovery, and wait for the process to complete.

Original comment by richard....@gmail.com on 19 Jan 2011 at 12:52

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I've implemented all the changes as discussed during today's (2011-01-20) voiD 
editor's call and now ready to submit to IETF.

Original comment by Michael.Hausenblas on 20 Jan 2011 at 12:38

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The request has been sent [1] - review period ends in 14 days (that is, 3 Feb 
2011).



[1] https://groups.google.com/d/topic/void-discussion/EnADedkV9kU/discussion

Original comment by Michael.Hausenblas on 20 Jan 2011 at 12:53

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As per today's (2011-02-01) editors call we decided that we'll publish the VoID 
guide as SWIG Note and then come back to IETF to register it (ETA: mid/end of 
Feb 2011)

Original comment by Michael.Hausenblas on 1 Feb 2011 at 12:03

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I took an action to draft a replacement for the placeholder autodiscovery 
section 7.2, along with clarifications regarding the relationship between 
hostnames and datasets. Proposed text is below.


Replace Section 7.2, “Discovery with well-known URI”:

<p><a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5785">RFC 5758</a> [<a 
href="#ref-RFC5758">RFC5758</a>] defines a mechanism for reserving 
“well-known” URIs on any web server.</p>

<p>The URI <code>/.well-known/void</code> on any web server is reserved for a 
VoID description of any datasets hosted on that server. For example, on the 
host <code>www.example.com</code>, this URI would be 
<code>http://www.example.com/.well-known/void</code>.</p>

<p>This URI may be an HTTP redirect to the location of the actual VoID file. 
The most appropriate HTTP redirect code is 302. Clients accessing this 
well-known URI MUST handle HTTP redirects.</p>

<p>The VoID file accessible via the well-known URI should contain descriptions 
of all RDF datasets hosted on the server. This includes any datasets that have 
resolvable URIs, a SPARQL endpoint, a data dump, or any other access mechanism 
(see <a href="#access">Section 3</a>) whose URI is on the server's hostname.</p>

<p>Any VoID file accessible via the well-known URI should follow the guidelines 
set out in <a 
href="http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/interest/ED-void-20101216/#void-file">Section 
6.2, <em>Publishing a voiD file alongside a dataset</em></a>.</p>



In addition, add this to the end of Section 6.2, “Publishing a voiD file 
alongside a dataset”:

<p class="note">In cases where multiple different <code>void:Dataset</code>s 
are published on the same website, the easiest option is usually to create a 
single <code>void:DatasetDescription</code> document that describes all of 
them.</p>

Original comment by richard....@gmail.com on 3 Feb 2011 at 6:17

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Implemented changes re auto-discovery in VoID guide as of comment #13, see r185

Original comment by Michael.Hausenblas on 9 Feb 2011 at 3:42

• Changed state: Started

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FYI: I tweaked the formatting of the text in the IETF registration box in r186.

Original comment by richard....@gmail.com on 16 Feb 2011 at 12:18

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Original comment by Michael.Hausenblas on 17 Feb 2011 at 4:27

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Yey! IANA registration completed - see announcement at [1]. Guess it's time to 
close the last v2 issue then ;) *party*

Original comment by Michael.Hausenblas on 12 May 2011 at 7:23

• Changed state: Fixed

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... and I sure did forget the pointer to the announcement ... here it comes:

https://groups.google.com/d/topic/void-discussion/HNhZeyhYVAs/discussion

Original comment by Michael.Hausenblas on 12 May 2011 at 7:25