Web: Is Semantic Web Technology Taking the Wrong Turn?

Is Semantic Web Technology Taking the Wrong Turn?
Internet Computing (02/08) Vol. 12, No. 1, P. 75; Bussler, Christoph
Author Christoph Bussler sees a disaster in the making for Semantic Web technology (SWT) unless a change of course is implemented. "SWT doesn't propose a different application architecture," he writes. "Instead, it proposes languages and technologies that are intended to make the application development process and integration efforts a lot simpler, faster, and more reliable, especially in the areas of data and process mediation to achieve uniform semantic interpretation." But Bussler notes that the impact of SWT requires a certain degree of integration with current core computing technologies. He points out that the deployment of SWT as a wrapping technology to facilitate semantic interfaces for layers causes the number of data models requiring additional mediation to sharply increase due to problems with heterogeneity. SWT would like to tackle the heterogeneity challenge, but researchers generally attempt to bypass it by making assumptions or establishing restrictions to produce homogeneous environments, Bussler says. He considers the research community and industry's decision to split up the SWT space along classical lines of distinction between layers and components in software architectures, and along classical academic research fields, to be one possible reason for the derailment of the original SWT vision. "One possible turn would be to start addressing the problem of data and process heterogeneity, not only among systems but also along the layers within them to reduce or eliminate the number of mediations necessary," Bussler writes.
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