The W3C has announced that eleven specifications of SPARQL 1.1 have been published as recommendations. SPARQL is the Semantic Web query language.  We caught up with Lee Feigenbaum, VP Marketing & Technology at Cambridge Semantics Inc. to discuss the significance of this announcement. Feigenbaum is a SPARQL expert who currently serves as the Co-Chair of the W3C’s SPARQL Working Group, leading the design of SPARQL.

Feigenbaum says, “SPARQL 1.1 is a huge leap forward in providing a standard way to access and update Semantic Web data. By reaching W3C Recommendation status, Semantic Web developers, vendors, publishers and consumers have a stable, well-vetted, and interoperable set of standards they can rely on for the foreseeable future.”

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The W3C SPARQL Working Group has published updated drafts of the following SPARQL 1.1 documents.

• SPARQL 1.1 Query adds support for aggregates, subqueries, projected expressions, and negation to the SPARQL query language.
• SPARQL 1.1 Update defines an update language for RDF graphs.
• SPARQL 1.1 Service Description defines a vocabulary and discovery mechanism for describing the capabilities of a SPARQL endpoint.
• SPARQL 1.1 Uniform HTTP Protocol for Managing RDF Graphs describes the use of the HTTP protocol for managing named RDF graphs on an HTTP server.
• SPARQL 1.1 Entailment Regimes defines conditions under which SPARQL queries can be used with entailment regimes such as RDF, RDF Schema, OWL, or RIF.

The current plans of the Working Group are to publish the so called “Last Call” Working Draft around the end of the year.

The W3C SPARQL Working Group has published a First Public Working Draft of SPARQL 1.1 Property Paths, which
defines a more succinct way to write parts of basic graph patterns and also extend matching of triple pattern to arbitrary length paths. The group also published six updates, namely:

• SPARQL 1.1 Query adds support for aggregates, subqueries, projected expressions, and negation to the SPARQL query language.
• SPARQL 1.1 Update defines an update language for RDF graphs.
• SPARQL 1.1 Protocol for RDF defines an abstract interface and HTTP bindings for a protocol to issue SPARQL Query and SPARQL Update statements against a SPARQL endpoint.
• SPARQL 1.1 Service Description defines a vocabulary and discovery mechanism for describing the capabilities of a SPARQL endpoint.
• SPARQL 1.1 Uniform HTTP Protocol for Managing RDF Graphs describes the use of the HTTP protocol for managing named RDF graphs on an HTTP server.
• SPARQL 1.1 Entailment Regimes defines conditions under which SPARQL queries can be used with entailment regimes such as RDF, RDF Schema, OWL, or RIF.

The W3C SPARQL Working
Group published the First Public Working Draft of six SPARQL 1.1
specifications. SPARQL is the query language of the Semantic Web, and
SPARQL 1.1 enhances the SPARQL landscape with:

• SPARQL 1.1
  Query – Adds support for aggregates, subqueries, projected
  expressions, and negation to the SPARQL query language.
• SPARQL 1.1
  Update – Defines an update language for RDF graphs.
• SPARQL 1.1
  Protocol – Defines an abstract interface and HTTP bindings for a
  protocol to issue SPARQL Query and SPARQL Update statements against a
  SPARQL endpoint.
• SPARQL 1.1
  Service Description – Defines a vocabulary and discovery mechanism
  for describing the capabilities of a SPARQL endpoint.
• SPARQL
  1.1 Uniform HTTP Protocol for Managing RDF Graphs – Describes the
  use of the HTTP protocol for managing named RDF graphs on an HTTP
  server.
• SPARQL 1.1
  Entailment Regimes – Defines conditions under which SPARQL queries
  can be used with entailment regimes such as RDF, RDF Schema, OWL, or
  RIF.

The W3C SPARQL Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of SPARQL New Features and Rationale. This document provides an overview of the main new features of SPARQL and their rationale. This is an update to SPARQL adding several new features that have been agreed by the SPARQL WG. These language features were determined based on real applications and user and tool-developer experience.

The W3C SPARQL Working Group (formerly known as RDF Data Access Working Group) has now been re-chartered. Quoting from the charter (available publicly):

The mission of the SPARQL Working Group [...] is to produce a W3C Recommendation that extends SPARQL. The extension is a small set of additional feature that

1. have been identified by the users as badly needed for applications, and
2. have been identified by SPARQL implementers as reasonable and feasible extension to current implementations

Note that a strict backward compatibility with existing SPARQL design should be mantained, and currently no radical redefinition of the SPARQL language is envisaged.

See further details in the charter for the types of extensions that are envisaged at this stage. The discussions of the group are publicly archived. W3C members are welcome to join the Working Group.