RFC 4661: An Extensible Markup Language (XML)-Based Format for Event Notification Filtering

[M. David Peterson]

  http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc4661.txt

   The SIP event notification framework describes the usage of the
   Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) for subscriptions and notifications
   of changes to a state of a resource.  The document does not describe
   a mechanism whereby filtering of event notification information can
   be achieved.  Filtering is a mechanism for defining the preferred
   notification information to be delivered and for specifying triggers
   that cause that information to be delivered.  In order to enable
   this, a format is needed to enable the subscriber to describe the
   state changes of a resource that cause notifications to be sent to it
   and what those notifications are to contain.  This document presents
   a format in the form of an XML document.

Maybe its just me, but if you were to take (first and foremost),

The Content Creator

- Who would utilize the [Atom Publishing Protocol] for publishing the content he/she has created.
- Which would then invoke a process in which generates/updates an [Atom] feed providing subscription based access to this content.
- Which would then invoke a process which generates a [Blip Message] to describe the time/date/contextual semantics contained in the content.
- Which would then be wrapped inside of an [Atom Notification] as the two way PubSub delivery mechanism of these messages.
- Which would then be indexed by an indexing provider of some sort,
- Who would then make this content available via an [OpenSearch] machine readable interface, proving a simplified, human understandable mechanism to query this index for items of interest.
- Who might then use [RFC 4661 : Event Notification Filtering] such that once they find that in which they have interest in they are then enabled to set triggers in which to be notified when a match is made.

Wouldn't that for all intents and purposes complete the circle of the semantic webs life?

I mean, one might suggest that its the query mechanism in and of itself that provides the real power, but I just don't foresee Grandma Joe and Uncle John punching SPARQL queries into their favorite search engine, scheming up ways in which they can "Goose the System" to squeeze out "Every last drop of RDF-Tripled juice this baby is capable of producing!"

Then again, maybe they will...

... Or maybe they won't. 

Call me cautious, but maybe its not so much about squeezing the RDF-Triples to within an inch of ther well-formed semantically-enhanced result sets and instead using a simple, standard, semantically enabled interface such as OpenSearch as a machine readable format that provides simplified access into much more complex systems in which, for all we know will automagically generate the SPARQL or whatever else might be powering the semantic backbone of our webified future, providing all the juice and then some that anyone could, or even should be legally enabled to consume in any one (or even two!) given sitting(s).

Thoughts, answers, questions, comments (hate mail should be sent to the normal address set aside for such things ;)?

--
/M:D

M. David Peterson
http://mdavid.name | http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/2354