The Webdamlog System Managing Distributed Knowledge on the Web

Abstract: We study the use of WebdamLog, a declarative high-level lan- guage in the style of datalog, to support the distribution of both data and knowledge (i.e., programs) over a network of au- tonomous peers. The main novelty of WebdamLog compared to datalog is its use of delegation, that is, the ability for a peer to communicate a program to another peer. We present results of a user study, showing that users can write WebdamLog programs quickly and correctly, and with a minimal amount of training. We present an implementation of the WebdamLog inference engine relying on the Bud dat- alog engine. We describe an experimental evaluation of the WebdamLog engine, demonstrating that WebdamLog can be im- plemented efficiently. We conclude with a discussion of ongoing and future work.