Features/Semantic Web
Comments and Explanations:
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Summary
Make use of Semantic Web technologies (for instance RDF, SPARQL) to enhance data management in Sugar.
Owner
- Name: Christophe Gueret
- Email: <christophe.gueret@gmail.com>
Current status
- Targeted release: 0.98
- Last updated: 20111201071525
- Percentage of completion: 20%
Detailed Description
The idea is to leverage the flexible RDF data model to encode the data Sugar has to deal with. In association with SPARQL, a query language for RDF, it will be possible to have a universal query system as expressive as SQL but without the constraints imposed by databases (tables of fixed schema).
Benefit to Sugar
What is the benefit to the platform? If this is a major capability update, what has changed? If this is a new feature, what capabilities does it bring? Why will Sugar become a better platform or project because of this feature?
Make sure to note here as well if this feature has been requested by a specific deployment, or if it has emerged from a bug report.
Scope
What work do the developers have to accomplish to complete the feature in time for release? Is it a large change affecting many parts of the distribution or is it a very isolated change? What are those changes?
UI Design
Does the feature have a direct impact on the work flow, or does it need a UI? Link here mockups, or add detailed descriptions.
How To Test
It is possible to test SemanticXO on both an XO-1 or a desktop PC. However, it is recommended to use an XO-1 are the installation is easier on these and they are used as a primary target for all the development.
On an XO-1 running the software 12.1.0
- Put the files "setup.sh" and "semanticxo.tar.gz" somewhere on the XO
- Login as root, set setup.sh to be executable and type "./setup.sh setup". This will install the API of SemanticXO, the triple store and two demo activities
- Reboot
On a desktop PC
This is a step by step intruction guide to test the triple store based Journal backend. It assumes that all the packages for sugar are available and the sugar-emulator is running.
- Download and install RedStore
Follow the instructions on http://www.aelius.com/njh/redstore/ to download and install RedStore on the test machine. It should also be possible to use other triple stores such as Virtuoso or OWLIM as long as a SPARQL 1.1 compliant service is accessible on the port 8080.
- Install the dependencies for SemanticXO
- RDFLib http://code.google.com/p/rdflib/
- SPARQLWrapper http://sparql-wrapper.sourceforge.net/
- Download and install the code from SemanticXO
Clone the repository:
git clone git://git.sugarlabs.org/semanticxo/main.git semanticxo
Edit line 4 and 5 of datastore/bin/datastore-service to make it fit the location of the directory where you clone the code (by default ~/Code/SemanticXO) Locate the datastore-service startup script from the normal datastore
type datastore-service
Replace that daemon with datastore/bin/datastore-service
- Start redstore in debug mode, so that you will see the queries being executed ;-)
redstore -v
- Start the sugar emulator
sugar-emulator
- Play around with Sugar, creating and updating entries in the Journal
- With an explorer, within the emulator or outside, go to http://localhost:8080/ to see the content of the triple store. There should be one named graph per Journal entry
User Experience
If this feature is noticeable by its target audience, how will their experiences change as a result? Describe what they will see or notice.
Dependencies
What other packages (RPMs) depend on this package? Are there changes outside the developers' control on which completion of this feature depends? In other words, does your feature depend on completion of another feature owned by someone else or that you would need to coordinate, which might cause you to be unable to finish on time? Other upstream projects like Python?
Contingency Plan
If you cannot complete your feature by the final development freeze, what is the backup plan? This might be as simple as "None necessary, revert to previous release behaviour." Or it might not. If your feature is not completed in time, we want to assure others that other parts of Sugar will not be in jeopardy.
Documentation
Is there upstream documentation on this feature, or notes you have written yourself? Has this topic been discussed in the mailing list or during a meeting? Link to that material here so other interested developers can get involved.
Release Notes
The Sugar Release Notes inform end-users about what is new in the release. An Example is 0.84/Notes. The release notes also help users know how to deal with platform changes such as ABIs/APIs, configuration or data file formats, or upgrade concerns. If there are any such changes involved in this feature, indicate them here. You can also link to upstream documentation if it satisfies this need. This information forms the basis of the release notes edited by the release team and shipped with the release.