A modest proposal to enable RIF dialects with limited forward compatibility

Abstract

We introduce the notion of limited forward compatibility, and we argue for its usefulness. We describe, and argue for, a low cost, non-disruptive, extensible implementation, using XSLT to specify individual transforms, a new XML format to associate them with individual RIF constructs, and the RIF import mechanism to convey the fallback information from RIF producer to RIF consumer. We argue, also, for consumer-side fallbacks, as opposed to producers-side approaches such as mandatory least dialect serialization. © 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.