FeatureMatrix Wikidata vs. SMW – An experience report

FeatureMatrix Wikidata vs. SMW – An experience report

Wikidata – An experience report

FeatureMatrix Wikidata vs. SMW – An experience report

Wikidata – An experience report

Wikidata – An experiment report

• What is BlueForge? What is a Software Feature Matrix?

• Requirements

• Proposed data model

• Showcase

• Implementation experience

• Wrap-up

experience Get to know what we know

1 2 3 4 5 6

• Software directory, focus on

business software

• Target audience

• User/enthusiast

• Decision makers

• Vendors

• Consultants

• Basis for making informed decisions

What is BlueForge? Mapping Software for Professionals

1 2 3 4 5 6

What is a Feature Matrix? Comparing Software Products

• Tool to compare two

or more software

products

• 2-d matrix of

available /

documented features

• Quick visual overview

1 2 3 4 5 6

What tool is best? Requirements

Specifics of

software features

• there are variants and

forks (e.g. "free" vs.

"professional version")

• there are versions with

new features or different

implementations of the

same feature

• features are not binary,

they differ in quality

Feature

comparison

• There are groups /

categories of software

(Schema)

• Features can be added /

evaluated within the wiki

/ wikidata via UI (API)

State of knowledge

Claims (Wikidata) vs.

propositions (SMW)

The vendor says this

feature is well

implemented

1 2 3 4 5 6

Arguments for Wikidata:

• Propositions can be qualified

• Interaction is API-based

• There is already a UI for entering data

• ...

Wikidata Decision was made for the Wikimedia tool

1 2 3 4 5 6

… and we were curious

• An article represents a piece of software, all versions, all

variants

• A category represents a group of software. A piece of

software can be in multiple categories

Proposed data model Unstructured data within Client (BlueForge) Wiki

1 2 3 4 5 6

i.e. „Joomla“

i.e. „Category: Content Management“

1 2 3 4 5 6

i.e. "Joomla!" i.e. "Category:Content

Management"

Proposed Data Model Structured data within Repo Wikibase

A piece of software (= article on

client)

item

A feature

• features have qualifiers

(since version, user rating, ...)

• features have sources (vendor, user)

• features have (custom) data types

Groups (= category on client)

property

item

Features of a group property of property

(aka schema)

Naming is consistent between client and repo link is by convention

=

=

= =

1 2 3 4 5 6

showcase

1 2 3 4 5 6

showcase There are two systems

stage.blueforge.biz

(MediaWiki + BlueSpice,

role "client")

http://stage.blueforge.biz/wiki/

Special:Version

stage-data.blueforge.biz

(MediaWiki + Wikibase,

role "repo")

http://data-stage.blueforge.biz/index.php/

Special:Version

"stage-data" is currently used as

a backend, user interaction only

on "stage"

1 2 3 4 5 6

Implementation experience

Data model can be implemented in Wikidata. Philosopy seems to overlap

Schema via UI / tool support

Officially not ready for 3rd party use: we are very early adopters :)

Architecture seems to be flexible enough

1 2 3 4 5 6

Implementation experience

Hard to set up, we tried using vagrant but ended with a custom/hacked

setup.

Value autocomplete seems to be resource intensive without additional

data stores

Custom value types were hard to implement

PHP dependency: do not use <= 5.3.2:Caution, this one is used on

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS

1 2 3 4 5 6

Wrap-up

• Wikidata has great potential as a foundation for

custom developments

• Most troubles we had where because of the very

early version we used

• Some concepts of Wikidata ("snaks") are hard to

understand in the first place

1 2 3 4 5 6

Wrap-up

• Development of FeatureMatrix will continue on base

of Wikidata. But we consider developing the frontend

first and ...

• ... updating the backend when Wikidata and it's API is

more stable.

• Are there any other 3rd party users of Wikidata?

Are Wikidata people interested in exchange of ideas /

code?

1 2 3 4 5 6

http://stage.blueforge.biz/wiki/Spezial:Vergleiche/PrestaShop,Magento

Hallo Welt! – Medienwerkstatt GmbH

Residenzstr. 2

93047 Regensburg

Tel. +49 (0) 941 – 660 800

Markus Glaser

Robert Vogel