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Posted to dev@clerezza.apache.org by Reto Bachmann-Gmuer <re...@apache.org> on 2010/10/29 14:13:23 UTC

FOO proposal and Clerezza

Hello

You probabbly have already seen the FOO proposal (
http://wiki.apache.org/incubator/FOOproposal).

The goal ("a modular software stack and reusable set of components for
semantic content management") seems quite similar to the one of Clerezza
("an OSGi-based modular application and set of components (bundles) for
building RESTFul Semantic Web applications and services.").

Since several people are involved in both project, I'm curios on how the two
projects goals or approaches differ, FOO is for Semantic Content Management,
Clerezza for Semantic Web Application. Is there really a difference (taking
into account how Celrezza isn't just focuses on the web presentation layers
but on the whole stack)?


Cheers,
Reto

RE: FOO proposal and Clerezza

Posted by Marco Zaugg <ma...@trialox.org>.

Very good point sir. I also would like to add, that Trialox
launched a Open Source Web CMS based on Apache Clerezza and therefore is
even closer to FOO. 

Another thing is the differentation to the Apache UIMA/TIKA projects
as it seems that FOO actually is a mixture of Clerezza/UIMA/TIKA and some
more components.

@Bertrand: As you seem to be the main architect behind this initiative I'm
wondering how you see the coexistence of those Apache projects. Could FOO
not just be a Subproject of Clerezza as FOO already use main components
of Clerezza?

Just wondering


-----Original Message-----
From: reto@trialox.org [mailto:reto@trialox.org] On Behalf Of Reto Bachmann-Gmuer
Sent: Freitag, 29. Oktober 2010 14:13
To: clerezza-dev@incubator.apache.org
Subject: FOO proposal and Clerezza

Hello

You probabbly have already seen the FOO proposal (
http://wiki.apache.org/incubator/FOOproposal).

The goal ("a modular software stack and reusable set of components for
semantic content management") seems quite similar to the one of Clerezza
("an OSGi-based modular application and set of components (bundles) for
building RESTFul Semantic Web applications and services.").

Since several people are involved in both project, I'm curios on how the two
projects goals or approaches differ, FOO is for Semantic Content Management,
Clerezza for Semantic Web Application. Is there really a difference (taking
into account how Celrezza isn't just focuses on the web presentation layers
but on the whole stack)?


Cheers,
Reto

Re: FOO proposal and Clerezza

Posted by Bertrand Delacretaz <bd...@apache.org>.

Hi,

On Fri, Oct 29, 2010 at 2:13 PM, Reto Bachmann-Gmuer <re...@apache.org> wrote:
> ...You probabbly have already seen the FOO proposal (
> http://wiki.apache.org/incubator/FOOproposal).
>
> ...Since several people are involved in both project, I'm curios on how the two
> projects goals or approaches differ, FOO is for Semantic Content Management,
> Clerezza for Semantic Web Application...

Now that Jena also comes into the picture, I have made a suggestion on
the general@incubator list [1] as to how the three podlings can
collaborate. Please reply there.

-Bertrand

[1] http://markmail.org/message/2w5tx62yuz5esym2

Re: FOO proposal and Clerezza

Posted by Fabian Christ <ch...@googlemail.com>.

Hi,

Am Dienstag, den 02.11.2010, 08:17 +0100 schrieb Reto Bachmann-Gmuer:
> > IMO the best is to view Clerezza and FOO as sister projects, with
> lots
> > of exchanges between their communities and a sizable chunk of common
> > software components, but different end goals and audiences. This
> will
> > enable both projects to follow their own goals while finding
> > synergies.
> >
> 
> With the recent development of Clerezza towards adding support for
> Social
> Web features alongside the semantic stack the target audience is
> clearly
> broader than traditional CMS vendors. Still, I don't think the target
> audiences are too distinct and looking at the current FOO code I think
> there's quite some duplication and that a lot could be simplified by
> using
> the pattern supported by Clerezza.

I think Clerezza is a very fruitful basis for FOO and it is used as
such. In this sense, the FOO community should carefully work together
with the Clerezza community and support (move code) to Clerezza if it is
more common Clerezza stuff than FOO specific.

But FOO clearly has a focus on a) CMS vendors and b) knowledge
interaction as FOO has its roots in the IKS project. Unfortunately, the
knowledge interaction is not that much visible in the current state of
the implementation but this will change in the future. So I would agree
with Bertrand and see FOO and Clerezza as sister projects.

-Fabian


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Re: FOO proposal and Clerezza

Posted by Reto Bachmann-Gmuer <re...@trialox.org>.

On Mon, Nov 1, 2010 at 12:00 PM, Bertrand Delacretaz <bdelacretaz@apache.org
> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> On Mon, Nov 1, 2010 at 10:46 AM, Reto Bachmann-Gmuer <re...@apache.org>
> wrote:
> > ...The goal of the FOO proposal ("a modular software stack and reusable
> set of
> > components for semantic content management") seems quite similar to the
> one
> > of Clerezza ("an OSGi-based modular application and set of components
> > (bundles) for building RESTFul Semantic Web applications and
> services.")...
>
> I agree about the goal as described in the proposal - maybe we need to
> make it clearer there, as in reality I think the projects are further
> apart than that.
>
> My understanding is that Clerezza aims to be an out-of-the-box
> solution to build websites and web applications based on semantic
> storage of content. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
>
It shall be possible to use Clerezza as platform, but basically its a set of
components.

> The goals of FOO are broader IMO, and less "industrial" in many ways.
>
> While some components of FOO might be assembled to do the above, the
> main use of those components, is to provide *other* CMS platforms with
> semantic components, which might be more more experimental than the
> Clerezza production-ready stuff.
>
Not all of the Clerezza modules are part of the default platform
distribution, so we already have less production-ready module too.

Seeing that lots of things are done in parallel (templating system,
persistency abstraction, JAX-RS) I think FOO and CLEREZZA might as project
both have the highest benefit with a joined community. This is not to say
they couldn't exist as twin project and benefit from each other, but at the
current state I'm not sure if such a high level of parallelism is positive
for the young communities.

>
> So, although there's a sizable interesection between the FOO and
> Clerezza components, I think the end goal is quite different,
> sufficiently so to warrant two distinct projects.
>

I'm not sure, on one hand FOO provides what could be seen as a distribution
and front-end adaptor for Clerezza components. On the other hand (from what
I understood talking to some of the community members) FOO also wants to
exploit more possibilities of the backend and support inferencing and rule
based reasoning. So my impression is, that on one hand it aims to provide
some simple APIs for integration within existing CMS systems (as requested
by the industrial members of the IKS consortium) on the other hand it also
wants to use more of the semantic web possibilities. I think both directions
of development could fit well within Clerezza, but as separate projects I
think the problem is they address two interwoven and overlapping set of
layers which leads not only to duplicate efforts but also to a complicated
architecture with cyclic dependencies.

>
> >... Since several people are involved in both project, I'm curios on how
> the two
> > projects goals or approaches differ, FOO is for Semantic Content
> Management,
> > Clerezza for Semantic Web Application. Is there really a difference
> (taking
> > into account how Celrezza isn't just focuses on the web presentation
> layers
> > but on the whole stack and that FOO is based on OSGi too)?...
>
> IMO the best is to view Clerezza and FOO as sister projects, with lots
> of exchanges between their communities and a sizable chunk of common
> software components, but different end goals and audiences. This will
> enable both projects to follow their own goals while finding
> synergies.
>

With the recent development of Clerezza towards adding support for Social
Web features alongside the semantic stack the target audience is clearly
broader than traditional CMS vendors. Still, I don't think the target
audiences are too distinct and looking at the current FOO code I think
there's quite some duplication and that a lot could be simplified by using
the pattern supported by Clerezza.

>
> Maybe this needs to be better spelled out in the proposal and project
> charter, I'm open to suggestions on that.
>

I have nothing against having multiple semantic web projects at Apache with
a mixture of collaboration and competition. However I think the differences
either in what is implemented or in how it is implemented should be clear.
Currently I see as differences (FOO <-> Clerezza):

- jersey with proprietary jax-rs extensions <-> triaxrs (clerezza jax-rs
impl)
- resource bound to path <-> resource bound to path or rdf type
- freemarker <-> plugable templating engines with scala server pages as
default
- no systematic conneg (production of html by resource classes) <-> resource
classes normally produce RDF, conneg by rendering system
- uses rdf stores partially provided via clerezza but also uses SQL <-> data
Access over an RDF abstraction layer

Reto

>
> -Bertrand
>
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> To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe@incubator.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: general-help@incubator.apache.org
>
>

Re: FOO proposal and Clerezza

Posted by Ross Gardler <rg...@apache.org>.

It is correct that Jena will be submitting a proposal to the Incubator. I have the proposal now and I'm just waiting for their go-ahead to submit it. I guess it being on their public lists indicates that will come any day now. 

Sent from my mobile device.

On 3 Nov 2010, at 06:31, Bertrand Delacretaz <bd...@apache.org> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 6:27 AM, Andreas Kuckartz <A....@ping.de> wrote:
>> I think that Clerezza and "Foo" can work together in one top-level project...
> 
> I think distinct collaborating projects will be more efficient.
> 
>> ...I have seen that the Jena project also decided "to take Jena into the
>> incubator":
>> http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_name=4CD0127C.8090105%40epimorphics.com
> 
> This is great news, thanks for mentioning it!
> 
>> 
>> Maybe the time is ripe for a united Apache Semantic Technologies project....
> 
> For several good reasons, the ASF is trying to stay away from
> "umbrella" projects - witness several top-level projects being spawned
> off Hadoop recently.
> 
> What we need IMO is distinct focused projects, and probably a
> "semantic commons" project - or just a shared SVN area managed by one
> of the semantic projects. That project is then free to give commit
> access to that area to a larger set of committers.
> 
> -Bertrand
> 
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> To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe@incubator.apache.org
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> 

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Re: FOO proposal and Clerezza

Posted by Reto Bachmann-Gmuer <re...@trialox.org>.

Hi

To have a better overview how the different project are supposed to be
different I've started a wiki-page to compare the features:

http://wiki.apache.org/incubator/SemanticComparison#preview

At the current state it is in no way objective, but to me it would help to
see what is most likely to belong into which project if the chart could be
extended to the planned features of FOO.

Cheers,
Reto

On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 11:26 PM, Tommaso Teofili
<to...@gmail.com>wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> 2010/11/3 Bertrand Delacretaz <bd...@apache.org>
>
> >
> > What we need IMO is distinct focused projects, and probably a
> > "semantic commons" project - or just a shared SVN area managed by one
> > of the semantic projects. That project is then free to give commit
> > access to that area to a larger set of committers.
> >
> >
> I agree with this point of view, it seems to me more reasonable at the
> moment; having some experience with both I see like by now Clerezza and FOO
> would benefit more from growing in parallel to establish strong projects
> with good communities, stable code, etc. and then, at some time in the
> future, they could go for a marriage :-)
> My 2 cents,
> Tommaso
>

Re: FOO proposal and Clerezza

Posted by Tommaso Teofili <to...@gmail.com>.

Hi all,

2010/11/3 Bertrand Delacretaz <bd...@apache.org>

>
> What we need IMO is distinct focused projects, and probably a
> "semantic commons" project - or just a shared SVN area managed by one
> of the semantic projects. That project is then free to give commit
> access to that area to a larger set of committers.
>
>
I agree with this point of view, it seems to me more reasonable at the
moment; having some experience with both I see like by now Clerezza and FOO
would benefit more from growing in parallel to establish strong projects
with good communities, stable code, etc. and then, at some time in the
future, they could go for a marriage :-)
My 2 cents,
Tommaso

Re: FOO proposal and Clerezza

Posted by Bertrand Delacretaz <bd...@apache.org>.

Hi,

On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 6:27 AM, Andreas Kuckartz <A....@ping.de> wrote:
> I think that Clerezza and "Foo" can work together in one top-level project...

I think distinct collaborating projects will be more efficient.

> ...I have seen that the Jena project also decided "to take Jena into the
> incubator":
> http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_name=4CD0127C.8090105%40epimorphics.com

This is great news, thanks for mentioning it!

>
> Maybe the time is ripe for a united Apache Semantic Technologies project....

For several good reasons, the ASF is trying to stay away from
"umbrella" projects - witness several top-level projects being spawned
off Hadoop recently.

What we need IMO is distinct focused projects, and probably a
"semantic commons" project - or just a shared SVN area managed by one
of the semantic projects. That project is then free to give commit
access to that area to a larger set of committers.

-Bertrand

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Re: FOO proposal and Clerezza

Posted by Andreas Kuckartz <A....@ping.de>.

I think that Clerezza and "Foo" can work together in one top-level project.

I have seen that the Jena project also decided "to take Jena into the
incubator":
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_name=4CD0127C.8090105%40epimorphics.com

Maybe the time is ripe for a united Apache Semantic Technologies project.

Cheers,
Andreas


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Re: FOO proposal and Clerezza

Posted by Reto Bachmann-Gmuer <re...@trialox.org>.

On Mon, Nov 1, 2010 at 12:00 PM, Bertrand Delacretaz <bdelacretaz@apache.org
> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> On Mon, Nov 1, 2010 at 10:46 AM, Reto Bachmann-Gmuer <re...@apache.org>
> wrote:
> > ...The goal of the FOO proposal ("a modular software stack and reusable
> set of
> > components for semantic content management") seems quite similar to the
> one
> > of Clerezza ("an OSGi-based modular application and set of components
> > (bundles) for building RESTFul Semantic Web applications and
> services.")...
>
> I agree about the goal as described in the proposal - maybe we need to
> make it clearer there, as in reality I think the projects are further
> apart than that.
>
> My understanding is that Clerezza aims to be an out-of-the-box
> solution to build websites and web applications based on semantic
> storage of content. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
>
It shall be possible to use Clerezza as platform, but basically its a set of
components.

> The goals of FOO are broader IMO, and less "industrial" in many ways.
>
> While some components of FOO might be assembled to do the above, the
> main use of those components, is to provide *other* CMS platforms with
> semantic components, which might be more more experimental than the
> Clerezza production-ready stuff.
>
Not all of the Clerezza modules are part of the default platform
distribution, so we already have less production-ready module too.

Seeing that lots of things are done in parallel (templating system,
persistency abstraction, JAX-RS) I think FOO and CLEREZZA might as project
both have the highest benefit with a joined community. This is not to say
they couldn't exist as twin project and benefit from each other, but at the
current state I'm not sure if such a high level of parallelism is positive
for the young communities.

>
> So, although there's a sizable interesection between the FOO and
> Clerezza components, I think the end goal is quite different,
> sufficiently so to warrant two distinct projects.
>

I'm not sure, on one hand FOO provides what could be seen as a distribution
and front-end adaptor for Clerezza components. On the other hand (from what
I understood talking to some of the community members) FOO also wants to
exploit more possibilities of the backend and support inferencing and rule
based reasoning. So my impression is, that on one hand it aims to provide
some simple APIs for integration within existing CMS systems (as requested
by the industrial members of the IKS consortium) on the other hand it also
wants to use more of the semantic web possibilities. I think both directions
of development could fit well within Clerezza, but as separate projects I
think the problem is they address two interwoven and overlapping set of
layers which leads not only to duplicate efforts but also to a complicated
architecture with cyclic dependencies.

>
> >... Since several people are involved in both project, I'm curios on how
> the two
> > projects goals or approaches differ, FOO is for Semantic Content
> Management,
> > Clerezza for Semantic Web Application. Is there really a difference
> (taking
> > into account how Celrezza isn't just focuses on the web presentation
> layers
> > but on the whole stack and that FOO is based on OSGi too)?...
>
> IMO the best is to view Clerezza and FOO as sister projects, with lots
> of exchanges between their communities and a sizable chunk of common
> software components, but different end goals and audiences. This will
> enable both projects to follow their own goals while finding
> synergies.
>

With the recent development of Clerezza towards adding support for Social
Web features alongside the semantic stack the target audience is clearly
broader than traditional CMS vendors. Still, I don't think the target
audiences are too distinct and looking at the current FOO code I think
there's quite some duplication and that a lot could be simplified by using
the pattern supported by Clerezza.

>
> Maybe this needs to be better spelled out in the proposal and project
> charter, I'm open to suggestions on that.
>

I have nothing against having multiple semantic web projects at Apache with
a mixture of collaboration and competition. However I think the differences
either in what is implemented or in how it is implemented should be clear.
Currently I see as differences (FOO <-> Clerezza):

- jersey with proprietary jax-rs extensions <-> triaxrs (clerezza jax-rs
impl)
- resource bound to path <-> resource bound to path or rdf type
- freemarker <-> plugable templating engines with scala server pages as
default
- no systematic conneg (production of html by resource classes) <-> resource
classes normally produce RDF, conneg by rendering system
- uses rdf stores partially provided via clerezza but also uses SQL <-> data
Access over an RDF abstraction layer

Reto

>
> -Bertrand
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe@incubator.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: general-help@incubator.apache.org
>
>

Re: FOO proposal and Clerezza

Posted by Bertrand Delacretaz <bd...@apache.org>.

Hi,

On Mon, Nov 1, 2010 at 10:46 AM, Reto Bachmann-Gmuer <re...@apache.org> wrote:
> ...The goal of the FOO proposal ("a modular software stack and reusable set of
> components for semantic content management") seems quite similar to the one
> of Clerezza ("an OSGi-based modular application and set of components
> (bundles) for building RESTFul Semantic Web applications and services.")...

I agree about the goal as described in the proposal - maybe we need to
make it clearer there, as in reality I think the projects are further
apart than that.

My understanding is that Clerezza aims to be an out-of-the-box
solution to build websites and web applications based on semantic
storage of content. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

The goals of FOO are broader IMO, and less "industrial" in many ways.

While some components of FOO might be assembled to do the above, the
main use of those components, is to provide *other* CMS platforms with
semantic components, which might be more more experimental than the
Clerezza production-ready stuff.

So, although there's a sizable interesection between the FOO and
Clerezza components, I think the end goal is quite different,
sufficiently so to warrant two distinct projects.

>... Since several people are involved in both project, I'm curios on how the two
> projects goals or approaches differ, FOO is for Semantic Content Management,
> Clerezza for Semantic Web Application. Is there really a difference (taking
> into account how Celrezza isn't just focuses on the web presentation layers
> but on the whole stack and that FOO is based on OSGi too)?...

IMO the best is to view Clerezza and FOO as sister projects, with lots
of exchanges between their communities and a sizable chunk of common
software components, but different end goals and audiences. This will
enable both projects to follow their own goals while finding
synergies.

Maybe this needs to be better spelled out in the proposal and project
charter, I'm open to suggestions on that.

-Bertrand

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