[Developers] Question about the backend software and data

[Christopher R. Maden]

Jeff Thompson <jeff at thefirst.org> wrote:
> I understand Metaweb is planning to publish a white paper on the Freebase
> data model.  I of course can give my best answer after reading that.
> (Trying not to sit too close to the edge of my seat for this one.)
> 
> The reason I'm curious about the underlying data model is that, for a first
> pass on RDF export, the temptation will be just to give the "current value"
> of a property.

OK, that makes more sense.  The difficulty is that our data model is a new thing and there doesn’t really exist an obvious useful serialization.

Fundamentally, the data store is nodes and links; links have a type (which is the address of another node), and may also carry data.  So Bill Richardson is a node with an address; there is a link of type “name” connecting him to the node representing English, carrying the string “Bill Richardson.”  There’s also a link of type “key” connecting him to the /topic/en namespace, carrying the string “bill_richardson.”  There might also be a link of type “birth date” and the value “1947-11-15,” with no other end of the link.  There are links of type “type” that connect him to the node for the person type, the U.S. politician type, etc.

History is tracked by versioning the links; so a complete history could be serialized (e.g., an old birth date link with “1947” and a new one of “1947-11-15”).

That’s a little bit of a simplification, but it’s all just nodes, and links with type and a payload.  Does that help at all?

(Sorry for the repetition for those of you who were at the User Group meeting.)

~Chris
-- 
Christopher R. Maden
Data Architect
Metaweb Technologies, Inc.
<URL: http://www.metaweb.com/ >