From kjetil at kjernsmo.net  Mon Jan  8 08:13:43 2007
From: kjetil at kjernsmo.net (Kjetil Kjernsmo)
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 17:13:43 +0100
Subject: [Dahut-pm] Semantic Web hacking questionnaire
Message-ID: <200701081713.44234.kjetil@kjernsmo.net>

DAAAAAAAAAAHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT!

So, I've gotten myself into the W3C Semantic Web Education and Outreach 
interest group (SWEO). Well, I'm not furniture yet, but I guess I might 
be headed that direction... :-) Now, many dahuts have an interest in 
semweb, and many are great hackers. Therefore, I have something I'd 
like to show you and hear what you think.

It is not all that easy to "sell" the semweb, many think that it is too 
complex and that it is an academic exercise without real-world 
applications. There are some examples to the contrary, but not much yet 
that would influence many people. I think that to attract anyone to 
semweb ideas, only running code, code that does something useful, will 
make a significant impact.

Quite a few semweb hackers write code, but the initiatives have been 
rather fragmented, and has not got to the point where a lot of people 
would see the usefulness, but if we could gather people around a few 
projects, and bring them to do something useful, I think that could be 
a way forward. 

Now, I've taken the initiative to find out how we could get semweb 
hackers to rally around creating something useful. This is a pretty 
delicate matter, as I know people don't like to be told what to do, 
they do it because they do feel something is interesting, and we all 
have different ideas about what is interesting. I have composed a small 
questionnaire, and hope the group of hackers allready interested in 
semweb will find enough interest in the proposed projects to get 
something running. 

My first draft is at 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-sweo-ig/2006Dec/0169.html

There are two goals, one is to get proposals on interesting things, the 
other is to ask questions that hackers would ask when they decide what 
kind projects they would join.

At some point I will probably ask dahuts to answer the questions, but 
for now, I'd like to hear what would be your reaction to seeing the 
questions? Would you answer it (it addresses first and foremost people 
allready interested in semweb)? Do you feel that I'm just asking people 
to work for free? If you were to join somebody else's project, are 
there other questions you would like to have answered? Other things you 
would like to be asked?

May you never tumble down a mountain side,

Kjetil
-- 
Semantic Web Specialist at Opera Software when getting paid :-)