Re: [LAD] minimal LV2

On 2010-06-14, at 10:58, fons@email-addr-hidden wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 14, 2010 at 08:04:06AM +0100, Steve Harris wrote:
>
>> On 2010-06-13, at 21:17, fons@email-addr-hidden wrote:
>>
>>> I've been wondering what is the purpose of things like:
>>>
>>> @prefix : <http://lv2plug.in/ns/lv2core#> .
>>> @prefix rdf: <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#> .
>>> @prefix rdfs: <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#> .
>>> @prefix xsd: <http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema> .
>>> @prefix doap: <http://usefulinc.com/ns/doap#> .
>>> @prefix foaf: <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/> .
>>>
>>> where 'doap' stands for 'Description Of A Project', and
>>> 'foaf' for 'Friend Of A Friend'.
>>
>> So, the plugin contains a certain amount of "metadata".
>> Things like the licence, the author, where to go and find
>> documentation, and so on.
>> The DOAP and FOAF schemas can express this information
>
> To whom or what ? If the destination is a human, something
> like
>
> # Author: Steve Harris
> # License: GLPv2
>
> would seem a bit more user friendly.

User, as in developer? LV2 users never see turtle data.

This what we had in LADSPA, more or less, but in reality it said things like "Licence": "GPL", which is not very helpful.

>> and are widely used on the internet (there are in excess of 200M
>> FOAF files out there), so reusing their structures makes sense.
>
> I've never seen one. And certainly when I'd see one it wouldn't
> look very inviting to read it. Is this meant for humans ? If not
> *which software is reading this, and what is it doing with the
> information provided* ?

It's meant for machines, so you wouldn't have seen one, but here's an example: http://www.google.com/s2/webfinger/?q=s.w.harris@email-addr-hidden&fmt=foaf

>>> If this has to be part of an LV2 plugin somehow (and it's not
>>> clear if it has to be or not), AND whatever software that is
>>> reading this is *not* supposed to follow these links and find
>>> some information there, what is the purpose ?
>>
>> http://lv2plug.in/spec/lv2.ttl defines what data must be present.
>
> After reading that for the N-th time, it's not clear at all if
> the lines quoted above (from that very file) are required or not,
> and *if* they are required, for what purpose - how this information
> is used. If the links are not followed, they are little more than
> magic incantations. Does the software that reads someplugin.ttl
> depend on these things or not (AFAICS it doesn't) ?

Some things are marked MUST, some SHOULD. I don't see how it could be more clear.

>>> I'm more and more convinced that people creating these sort of
>>> thing entertain the illusion that they somehow create meaning
>>> while there is none. It looks more like an extreme form of
>>> illiteracy, a complete failure to convey meaning in a form that
>>> makes sense to a human.
>>
>> Oh joy. Random ad hominem attacks remind me why I lost interest
>> in the free software "community".
>
> It's not an attack but an opinion, and certainly not directed at
> you (Steve) personally. If I wanted to attack you 'ad hominem'
> I would not choose a subject in which you are 1000 time more expert
> than I am - it would be very easy to select one where the roles
> would be reversed.

Well, I am one of those people who believe that I'm creating meaning.

>> I'm not quite sure why you have come to such a dismissive
>> conclusion, of a technology that you admit you don't understand.
>> It's always possible that the many thousands of companies using
>> this technology to solve real world problems are operating under
>> some sort of mass hysteria of course, but I don't think so.
>
> Such a mass hysteria wouldn't be the first one - we've seem some
> bubbles bursting before. And whatever problem these companies
> are solving seem to be quite remote from audio plugins.
>
> The essential point in my comment is that it is foolish to confuse
> the 'semantic web' with reality. Are your 13857 Facebook friends
> real friends ? Are those 200e6 'FOAFs' what they claim to be ?

No, and no, but it's missing the point. Just because some percentage of the data is wrong, it doesn't mean there's not value to sharing it (c.f. Wikipedia).

> Back to the technical side, it all seems as futile as including
> a complete BNF of the C language (or a reference to it) at the top
> of each *.c source file. It's useless to the compiler (which is not
> going to modify itself), and it's useless for the human reading or
> editing the file.

I disagree, but I'm thoroughly uninterested in arguing the point.

I see a very large value in standardisation, even across domains - clearly you don't, and that's a perfectly valid viewpoint. History will no doubt show one of us to be correct.

- Steve
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Received on Mon Jun 14 16:15:02 2010