Keywords: RDF, FOAF, Semantic Web, software, project registries, freshmeat, sourceforge
Biography
Edd Dumbill is chair of the XML Europe conference. He is a long-time commentator on XML, and was managing editor of XML.com between 1999 and 2004. Edd is now Editor at Large for O'Reilly Network, where he continues his interest in XML and RDF, but also covers Linux and other free software topics. Edd develops free software and is a developer on the Debian GNU/Linux project. He has a weblog at http://usefulinc.com/edd/blog.
DOAP (Description of a Project) is a free XML and RDF format and toolset that provides a computer-readable description of a software project's public resources.
Taking inspiration from the successful Friend-of-a-Friend project, DOAP allows project maintainers to write only one project description and allow it to be read by software registries such as Freshmeat, as well as any other interested party. Additionally, DOAP provides tools and mechanisms for many who wish to develop their own special purpose registries, or export data from existing registries.
In this presentation by the project leader, the goals and development process of DOAP will be described, with reference to forerunner web-wide vocabularies such as HTML, Dublin Core and RSS. As well as the technical details of the project itself, the presentation will cover the social and community aspects of getting such a project running and adopted, and demonstrate the emerging set of tools developed by open source participants in the DOAP project.
Since this was a late-breaking talk, the author did not have time to complete the paper for the proceedings.
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