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Clarify relationship of JSON-LD and RDF
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according the resolutions made in the 2013-06-11 JSON-LD telecon. See http://json-ld.org/minutes/2013-06-11

This addresses #222
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lanthaler committed Jun 11, 2013
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33 changes: 23 additions & 10 deletions spec/latest/json-ld/index.html
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Expand Up @@ -217,12 +217,14 @@ <h2>How to Read this Document</h2>

<ul>
<li>Software developers who want to encode Linked Data in a variety of
programming languages that can use JSON.</li>
programming languages that can use JSON</li>
<li>Software developers who want to convert existing JSON to JSON-LD.</li>
<li>Software developers who want to understand the design decisions and
language syntax for JSON-LD.</li>
language syntax for JSON-LD</li>
<li>Software developers who want to implement processors and APIs for
JSON-LD.</li>
JSON-LD</li>
<li>Software developers who want to generate or consume Linked Data, an
RDF graph, or an RDF Dataset in a JSON syntax</li>
</ul>

<p>A companion document, the JSON-LD Processing Algorithms and API specification
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -268,6 +270,13 @@ <h1>Design Goals and Rationale</h1>
esoteric use case, we chose not to support the use case. While Zero Edits is
a design goal, it is not always possible without adding great complexity
to the language. We should focus on simplicity when possible.</dd>
<dt>Usable as RDF syntax</dt>
<dd>JSON-LD was designed to be usable directly as JSON, with no knowledge of RDF,
but was designed also to be usable as RDF for use with other Semantic Web
technologies like SPARQL. People intending to use JSON-LD with RDF tools will
find it can be used as another RDF syntax, like Turtle. Complete details of
how JSON-LD relates to RDF can be found in
<a class="sectionRef" href="#relationship-to-rdf"></a>.</dd>
</dl>
</section>

Expand Down Expand Up @@ -3129,10 +3138,14 @@ <h2>Context Definitions</h2>
<section class="appendix normative">
<h2>Relationship to RDF</h2>

<p>The RDF data model, as outlined in [[RDF11-CONCEPTS]], is an abstract syntax for
representing a directed graph of information. It is a subset of
<tref title="JSON-LD data model">JSON-LD's data model</tref> with a few
additional constraints. The differences between the two data models are:</p>
<p>JSON-LD is a
<tref href="http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf11-concepts/#dfn-concrete-rdf-syntax">concrete RDF syntax</tref>
as described in [RDF11_CONCEPTS]. Hence, a JSON-LD document is both an
RDF document and a JSON document and correspondingly represents both an
instance of the RDF data model and an instance of the JSON-LD data model.
RDF's data model is a subset of <tref title="JSON-LD data model">JSON-LD's data model</tref>
with a few additional constraints. The differences between the two data
models are:</p>

<ul>
<li>In JSON-LD <tref title="graph name">graph names</tref> can be
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -3163,9 +3176,9 @@ <h2>Relationship to RDF</h2>
<tref title="property">properties</tref> to <tref title="IRI">IRIs</tref>,
minting new "Skolem IRIs" as per
<cite><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf11-concepts/#section-skolemization">Replacing Blank Nodes with IRIs</a></cite>
of [[RDF11-CONCEPTS]]. A complete description of the algorithms to convert
from RDF to JSON-LD and from JSON-LD to RDF is included in the JSON-LD
Processing Algorithms and API specification [[JSON-LD-API]].</p>
of [[RDF11-CONCEPTS]]. The normative algorithms for interpreting JSON-LD as RDF
and serializing RDF as JSON-LD are specified in the
JSON-LD Processing Algorithms and API specification [[JSON-LD-API]].</p>

<p>Even though JSON-LD serializes
<tref href="http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf11-concepts/#dfn-rdf-dataset">RDF Datasets</tref>, it can
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