[Nepomuk] Re: newbie questions about KDE Nepomuk

[Darren Cruse]

>> In my mind I was imagining Nepomuk/Strigi indexing and feeding RDF into
>> Virtuoso using the Soprano C++ api on one side, and me hitting
>> Virtuoso's SPARQL endpoint (or manipulating triples in Virtuoso using
>> their java api) from the other side.
>
> This is not the way it is intended. While you have access to the full
> SPARQL API through C++ and DBus at the moment the idea is that Nepomuk
> filters all data modifications in order to perform additional checks and
> add additional data.
> Currently most of this is in the C++ APIs while it should be in the service.

Truly I knew nothing about the Semantic Desktop idea till just
recently, though I'd used stuff like Google Desktop on my Windows
machine, or Spotlight on my Mac, and then even my exposure to RDF only
came a few months ago when I started working on this system others had
initially started.

And I was surprised when I recognized that what you've done in Nepomuk
follows the same pattern as what we were doing, with the indexer and
the RDF store, etc.

And having used stuff like Google Desktop, which Nepomuk reminded me
of, I did not at first think about serving our web app using it.

But considering the work you've done with the faceted browsing in
Dolphin, your documentation (even your blog entries are more than what
we have!), the user base you have on KDE that should drive the system
to greater performance and stability much quicker than our little
system...  the thought of using Nepomuk the way I described to serve
our web search interface seems to have a lot of advantages.

I say this all to ask what I really want to ask:  Do you feel what I
described is an appropriate use of Nepomuk?  Or does it seem like it's
fighting what Nepomuk is meant for - that it's not really a use you
would encourage?

(I know some of these writings about Nepomuk and the Semantic Desktop
are referring to "meta data sharing" in a "peer to peer" fashion -
that seems like it might have addressed the need for remote access to
the RDF metadata in a different way than our web search interface -
but I get the impression those features are sometime down the road
yet?)

> Well, this could be achieved by creating a simple bridge between the
> Nepomuk API and a web service.

I didn't follow at first but then I realized you're saying e.g. a
"SPARQL endpoint" is really just a RESTful url for sending SPARQL
queries so I could connect that up myself invoking the C++ query apis
(or maybe exec'ing out to that "sopranocmd" command?)

And you're saying this would be preferable to me trying to hit
Virtuoso's endpoint directly?  For the reasons you said about Nepomuk
doing some things that I should not be "going around" by hitting
Virtuoso directly?

(is the version of Virtuoso used with Nepomuk really a feature reduced
version of Virtuoso that doesn't include it's SPARQL endpoint
functionality?  it hadn't occurred to me to even ask that...)

>> Do you also have a link handy with instructions on getting/building
>> the playground version of Mandriva? :)
>
> Actually for what you are trying to do there is no need to do that at
> this point.

Since I had this Ubuntu setup already, at the moment I've just
installed kde-desktop on it as a step toward upgrading that to KDE 4.6
(where I noticed release candidate 2 was put out today).

Should that alone get me to where I could at least play with e.g. the
Dolpin faceted search stuff and show some of my teammates?

(I'm still a little unclear on what's unique to Mandriva versus what's
in this KDE 4.6 release that I would put on Kubuntu).

Thanks again for your time and advice,

Darren