An HTTP-Based Versioning Mechanism for Linked Data

TL;DR

This paper presents a web-based versioning system for Linked Data using HTTP and datetime, enabling navigation among resource versions and supporting time-series analysis, aligned with the Memento framework.

Contribution

It introduces a datetime-based versioning mechanism for Linked Data that integrates with HTTP and the Memento framework, facilitating temporal navigation and analysis.

Findings

Demonstrated implementation on DBpedia for time-series analysis

Enabled navigation among resource versions using HTTP content negotiation

Aligned with Web architecture and Memento standards

Abstract

Dereferencing a URI returns a representation of the current state of the resource identified by that URI. But, on the Web representations of prior states of a resource are also available, for example, as resource versions in Content Management Systems or archival resources in Web Archives such as the Internet Archive. This paper introduces a resource versioning mechanism that is fully based on HTTP and uses datetime as a global version indicator. The approach allows "follow your nose" style navigation both from the current time-generic resource to associated time-specific version resources as well as among version resources. The proposed versioning mechanism is congruent with the Architecture of the World Wide Web, and is based on the Memento framework that extends HTTP with transparent content negotiation in the datetime dimension. The paper shows how the versioning approach applies to Linked Data, and by means of a demonstrator built for DBpedia, it also illustrates how it can be used to conduct a time-series analysis across versions of Linked Data descriptions.