We've learnt a lot about durability from Fedora practice over the past fifteen years. Most importantly, we now know that to make durable resources, we have to separate the syntax of our data from the semantics thereof. We also know that a repository is only as durable as its data, but no more durable than its services. Part of the specification activity for Fedora 4 includes making a separation between the syntax and the semantics of repository services. RDF over HTTP (via the W3C's Linked Data Platform specification) gives us a strong basis for syntax. The ontologies we are now producing will give us the semantics. Combined, they will give us a really durable set of repository services to support our quest for durable information. |