YQL as a Platform for Linked-Data Wrapper Development

摘要

Linked-Data Wrappers (LDWs) have been proposed to integrate Open APIs into the linked-data cloud. A main stumbling block is maintenance: LDWs need to be kept in sync with the APIs they wrap. Hence, LDWs are not single-shot efforts, but sustained endeavors that developers might not always afford. As a result, it is not uncommon for third-party LDWs to stop working when their underlying APIs upgrade. Collaborative development might offer a way out. This requires a common platform and a community to tap into. This work investigates the suitability of the YQL platform for this job. Specifically, we look into two main properties for LDW success: effectiveness (i.e. the capability of YQL to enable users to develop LDWs) and scalability (i.e. graceful time degradation on URI dereferencing). The aim: moving LDW development from in-house development to collaborative development as promoted by YQL, on the hope of increasing LDWs' lifespan.