FOAF Vocabulary Specification
0.91
Namespace Document 2 November 2007
- OpenID Edition
This version:
http://xmlns.com/foaf/spec/20071002.html (rdf)
Latest version:
http://xmlns.com/foaf/spec/ (rdf)
Previous version:
http://xmlns.com/foaf/spec/20070524.html (rdf)
Authors:
Dan Brickley, Libby Miller
Contributors:
Members of the FOAF mailing list (foaf-
dev@lists.foaf-project.org) and the wider RDF and
SemWeb developer community. See
acknowledgements.
Copyright © 2000-2007 Dan Brickley and Libby Miller
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution License. This copyright applies to the
FOAF Vocabulary Specification and accompanying
documentation in RDF. Regarding underlying
technology, FOAF uses W3C's RDF technology, an open Web
standard that can be freely used by anyone.
Abstract
This specification describes the FOAF language, defined
as a dictionary of named properties and classes using
W3C's RDF technology.
Status of This Document
FOAF has been evolving gradually since its creation in
mid-2000. There is now a stable core of classes and
properties that will not be changed, beyond modest
adjustments to their documentation to track
implementation feedback and emerging best practices.
New terms may be added at any time (as with a natural-
language dictionary), and consequently this specification
is an evolving work. The FOAF RDF namespace, by
contrast, is fixed and it's identifier is not expected to
change. Furthermore, efforts are underway to ensure the
long-term preservation of the FOAF namespace, its
xmlns.com domain name and associated documentation.
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This document is created by combining the RDFS/OWL
machine-readable FOAF ontology with a set of per-term
documents. Future versions may incorporate multilingual
translations of the term definitions. The RDF version of
the specification is also embedded in the HTML of this
document, or available directly from the namespace URI
by content negotiation.
The FOAF specification is produced as part of the FOAF
project, to provide authoritative documentation of the
contents, status and purpose of the RDF/XML vocabulary
and document formats known informally as 'FOAF'.
The authors welcome comments on this document,
preferably via the public FOAF developers list
foaf-dev@lists.foaf-project.org; public archives are
available. A historical backlog of known technical issues
is acknowledged, and available for discussion in the
FOAF wiki. Proposals for resolving these issues are
welcomed, either on foaf-dev or via the wiki. Further work
is also needed on the explanatory text in this specification
and on the FOAF website; progress towards this will be
measured in the version number of future revisions to the
FOAF specification.
This revision of the specification includes a first draft
description of the new foaf:openid property. The prose
description of this property is likely to evolve, but the
basic mechanism seems robust. To accompany this
support for OpenID in the FOAF specification, the FOAF
wiki has also been updated to support usage of OpenID
by members of the developer community. This revision of
the spec also involves a change in the DTD declared at
the top of the document. This is a foundation for using
inline RDFa markup in future versions. The current
version however does not yet validate according to this
document format; it contains RDF/XML markup
describing FOAF in machine-readable form. We welcome
feedback on whether to retain this markup at the expense
of DTD-based validation.
As usual, see the changes section for details of the
changes in this version of the specification.
Table of Contents
FOAF at a glance
Introduction
The Semantic Web
FOAF and the Semantic Web
What's FOAF for?
Background
FOAF and Standards
Evolution and Extension of FOAF
FOAF Auto-Discovery: Publishing and Linking
FOAF files
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