(tagfs)
a semantic filesystem for Linux kernels
based on libfuse
Semantic rules inside Tagsistant
Tagsistant is very useful in cataloguing files, but all the load of adding tags should be managed by the user. Even worst, if someday the user will decide that a tag is a subset of a more comprehensive tag, all the files tagged with the first tag should be also tagged with the second one, which is boring and unefficient.
Full semantic support implies that tags are related each other with a set of relations which describe their dependences. Current semantic formats are based on OWL which is a complex framework derived from RDF to describe full consistent onthologies.
After looking at OWL for a while I'm not able to tell if it's the right thing for Tagsistant. OWL is without doubt the most accepted and best promising standard. But it's also very complex and without an evident demonstration that such level of complexity is required by Tagsistant (which is a small application targeted to work even on PDAs), choosing it can be a strategic error.
On the other side, choosing something else, or even reinventing the wheel, can be a possibly worst choice. What should I do?
So far, nothing. The first thing to do is to draft some ideas about possible relations that can happen between tags inside Tagsistant, and later choose one or the other.
So the very first kinds of relations I can figure out are:
- Inclusion: a tag describe a subset of another tag (i.e. jazz, rock, metal, fusion are all subtags of music)
- Equivalence: one tag is equivalent to another and can be used interchangeably (like in "animation" and "cartoons", even if this is a very dangerous relationship)
To describe such kind of relations a complex language like OWL can be just a killer requirement, too heavy to implement and at most unuseful. But what about expanding the onthology and inserting a lot more relations? Having embedded OWL in Tagsistant can turn to be the right thing.
What do you think about? Send me your opinion by mail. You can find my address on top of this page.
