Decentralized Evolution and Consolidation of RDF Graphs

TL;DR

This paper introduces a decentralized framework for evolving and consolidating RDF graphs, inspired by Git, enabling distributed collaboration on Semantic Web data beyond central solutions.

Contribution

It presents a novel Git-based system for decentralized RDF graph evolution, formalizing synchronization and consolidation processes for distributed datasets.

Findings

Framework supports distributed RDF data collaboration

Formal methods for dataset synchronization and consolidation

Enables decentralized Semantic Web data management

Abstract

The World Wide Web and the Semantic Web are designed as a network of distributed services and datasets. In this network and its genesis, collaboration played and still plays a crucial role. But currently we only have central collaboration solutions for RDF data, such as SPARQL endpoints and wiki systems, while decentralized solutions can enable applications for many more use-cases. Inspired by a successful distributed source code management methodology in software engineering a framework to support distributed evolution is proposed. The system is based on Git and provides distributed collaboration on RDF graphs. This paper covers the formal expression of the evolution and consolidation of distributed datasets, the synchronization, as well as other supporting operations.