Semantic Web Technologies As The Foundation For The Information Infrastructure
Frank van Harmelen · 2008
The Semantic Web is arising over the pas few years as a realistic option for a world wide Information Infrastructure, with its promises of semantic interoperability and serendipitous reuse. In this paper we will analyse the essential ingredients of semantic technologies, what makes them suitable as the foundation for the Information Infrastructure, and what the alternatives to semantic technologies would be as foundations for the Information Infrastructure. We will make a survey of the most important achievements on semantic technologies in the past few years, and point to the most important challenges that remain to be solved. 3.1 Historical trend towards increasing demands on interoperability When Thomas Watson, the founder of IBM, was asked for his estimate of how many computers would be needed worldwide, his reply is widely claimed to have been: ‘about five ’ 2 1. Of course, this presumed reply was given in 1943, but it shows the enormous shift in perspective that has taken place since the very early days of computing. Right until the late 1970's, the dominant perspective on computing was that of mainframe computing: large machines that provided centralised means of computing and data storage. In such a centralised perspective, interoperability is not the main concern: data are locked up in a centralised location,