New paper “Authoritative linked data descriptions of debian source packages using ADMS.SW” accepted at OSS 2013

I’ll be presenting “Authoritative linked data descriptions of debian source packages using ADMS.SW” at OSS 2013.

Here’s the abstract :

The Debian Package Tracking System is a Web dashboard for Debian contributors and advanced users. This central tool publishes the status of subsequent releases of source packages in the Debian distribution.

It has been improved to generate RDF meta-data documenting the source packages, their releases and links to other packaging artifacts, using the ADMS.SW 1.0 model. This constitutes an authoritative source of machine-readable Debian “facts” and proposes a reference URI naming scheme for Linked Data resources about Debian packages.

This should enable the interlinking of these Debian package descriptions with other ADMS.SW or DOAP descriptions of FLOSS projects available on the Semantic Web also using Linked Data principles. This will be particularly interesting for traceability with upstream projects whose releases are packaged in Debian, derivative distributions reusing Debian source packages, or with other FLOSS distributions.

Update: If you are interested, a preprint is available here in HTML form. See also previous installments on ADMS.SW in this blog.

Update: The slides of the presentation I made at Isola are here.

Debian Package Tracking System now produces RDF description of source packages

Here’s a second post on the subject of RDF descriptions for Debian source packages (see the previous post for some context).

From now on, the Debian Package Tracking System (PTS) will produce, alongside HTML pages meant for humans, RDF pages meant for Linked Data / Semantic Web aware applications.

Every Debian source package, which used to have an HTML page like http://packages.qa.debian.org/packagename now has a corresponding RDF/XML document available provided that the application/rdf+xml content-type is required (the HTTP client being redirected to the proper HTML or RDF document).
Continue reading “Debian Package Tracking System now produces RDF description of source packages”

Generating RDF description of Debian package sources with ADMS.SW

Edit : I’ve now managed to roll out my contribution which is now in production on packages.qa.debian.org. See a later post I’ve made on the subject, and beware that the generated RDF has changed a bit also.

ADMS.SW proposes specifications for description of software present in software catalogues.

I’ve tried and apply it to the contents of the Debian Package Tracking System (PTS), using transformation of the information known by the PTS to RDF+XML.

The result is not yet in production, but here’s an example of what can be done, using the Turtle syntax (more readable) :
Continue reading “Generating RDF description of Debian package sources with ADMS.SW”