[provenance-challenge] Early Success For The Fourth Provenance Challenge

[Luc Moreau]

Dear all,

Back at IPAW 2006, in Chicago, we discussed the needs for provenance
standardization. This discussion initiated the successful Provenance
Challenge series, with three editions PC1, PC2, and PC3 [1].  The
Provenance Challenge activity was instrumental in designing the Open
Provenance Model [2], a model for provenance with take-up well beyond
the original Provenance Challenge community.

Events at the World Wide Consortium Incubator on Provenance [3] have
taken over our initial move towards a last challenge PC4.  The
incubator group, including some of us, dedicated significant time
towards making the Incubator a success.  This resulted in the recent
creation of the W3C Provenance Working Group, several of us are also
involved in.

Since we all have a limited bandwidth for community activities, it is
not realistic to run both activities in parallel. Furthermore, the
inter-operability motivation of PC4 is being pursued by the W3C
Provenance Working Group, with the rigor of a standardization body.

Given this, we feel it would be best to end the Provenance Challenge
series, and declare its success in having set the agenda for
provenance inter-operability. This would not be the end of this
mailing list or the wiki. These facilities are welcome to be used for
continued community building, announcements, etc.

The success of the challenge is really a testament to the vitality and
dedication of this community.

Does it mean there is no more challenge related to provenance? Surely
not, but they will simply be tackled in a different form.

Obviously, we welcome any comments or questions.

Best regards,

Luc Moreau and Paul Groth


[1] http://twiki.ipaw.info/bin/view/Challenge/WebHome
[2] http://openprovenance.org/
[3] 
http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/prov/wiki/W3C_Provenance_Incubator_Group_Wiki
[4] http://www.w3.org/2011/prov/wiki/Main_Page

-- 
Professor Luc Moreau
Electronics and Computer Science   tel:   +44 23 8059 4487
University of Southampton          fax:   +44 23 8059 2865
Southampton SO17 1BJ               email: l.moreau at ecs.soton.ac.uk
United Kingdom                     http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~lavm