Draft minutes of 2008-10-14 telecon

http://www.w3.org/2008/10/14-awwsw-minutes.html

The abovenamed minutes were automatically generated from the IRC log.
The following is copy-from-browser-into-mail-client.  -Jonathan

W3C
- DRAFT -
AWWSW
14 Oct 2008

See also: IRC log
Attendees

Present
     DBooth, Jonathan_Rees, TimBL, Stuart, HarryH
Regrets
Chair
     Jonathan (jar)
Scribe
     dbooth

Contents

     * Topics
          1. How to determine if a document contains a word?
          2. Relation between HTTP 1.1 and RDF
          3. HTTP Vocabulary in RDF
     * Summary of Action Items




How to determine if a document contains a word?

jar: All you can observe are representations of that document.

<Stuart> zakim ?? is me

dbooth: If you view an IR as a function from request inputs to  
representations, then you can never be sure that a slightly different  
request input wouldn't return a rep that contains the word you were  
looking for. So without some other knowledge, it is not possible to  
definitively say that an IR does *not* contain a particular word  
(i.e., that it does *not* have a rep containing that word).

jar: Then what if some metadata says that the IR does NOT contain a  
word, but you do a GET and the rep does contain it? Which is wrong?

timbl & dbooth: The metadata is wrong. The 200 response is  
authoritative.

jar: So there is some info you can determine from a GET, but there's  
other info that is not determinable by GET experiments.

timbl: There is an HTTP VARY header that can say NONE, meaning that it  
is not affected by any of your headers, but not sure it also applies  
to time.

<jar> timbl: We can consider the Link header to be part of the protocol

<jar> timbl: We don't define what gets asserted, we only define what  
triples are implied. [? did scribe get this right?]

jar: when you have multiple sources of info there is redundancy, it  
should be consistent.
... So the info that is provided via the LINK header MUST be  
consistent with the 200 response.

<timbl> We don't generally prescribe what agents do, we define  
functions and mappings and give then names so people can in terms.

jar: The AWWW had a clear answer about authority: the URI owner gets  
to say the meaning of the URI.
... But if you're the URI owner and you serve info then the info you  
serve MUST not be inconsistent.
... And if it is inconsistent then it's like violating the protocol.

dbooth: No, it's a little different from violating the protocol. The  
protocol is robust wrt assertions in document that are not true.

tim: It's like trying to write a philosophy of the architecture, that  
I think is beyond the job of defining the arch. We could discuss it  
over lunch though.

<jar> timbl: The protocol is something you buy into, and the RDF hall  
of shame is not buying into the protocol.

<timbl> Timbl: When you run a server which is a negative test case  
then it is not pretending to be running the protoocl, it is  
deliberately not running the protocl properly.
Relation between HTTP 1.1 and RDF

jar: There are different schools of philos of mathematics. Three  
schools: intuitionist and formalist. Had an argument w Pat Hayes about  
what RDF was about. The app he had in mind for RDF was expert systems.  
I would make an analogy between that and a formalist school: The value  
is in the graph you built, and the relationships so fully specify your  
domain that they're the whole story.
... Any connection to things in the world is either obvious or .... ,  
well it's unproblematic.
... Contrast this w the other school that RDF is for communicating  
about real things, and even if RDF weren't there you'd still  
communicate about them. The value is in the rdf:comment properties,  
not in the graph itself, because the graph itself doesn't tell you much.

<timbl> jar: Two ways of using RDF, whether the value is in a big  
ontology (taxonomy) , and where the ontology (schema) is very small  
but the vlue is in the instances.

<timbl> Timbl: i would not say one or other was more about "real  
things".

jar: David and I had an argument a month ago: you can make an ont w  
terms like "resource", "rep", "authoritative", whatever. And you don't  
have to worry about what those terms w mean because the ontology w  
give them meaning. In that sense the ont is incomplete because it  
hasn't beeen tied to the real world.
... A different approach is anal to the intuitionist apprach in math,  
in which ont terms have defs that are good enough that they allow  
indep observers to argue about the truthe of assertions made w those  
terms.
... So in a med ont, TIA (tranient ...attack), two physicians can  
argue over wheather a patient has that condition. It's grounded in  
reality.
... Are we talking about making an ont for phys? Or a formal ont? I  
feel like the HTTP spec doesn't need to ground everything in reality  
because it's a formal comm mechanism -- just says what the comm is,  
not what it means.

<jar> timbl: heavyweight vs. lightweight ontologies

tim: These two ways of using RDF we've noticed before. Some call them  
big heavyweight versus light.
... If you're using OWL it actually contains the value, but that  
doesn't mean it's not about real things, if somebody has a headache  
and it specifies somethign about it.

<jar> timbl: 'A headache is about a head' [lightweight ontology] can  
be about the real world

tim: Other example is bank statemnets. The ont is just the schema for  
tying it into the real world.

<jar> timbl: They're just ways of using RDF

tim: Thesee things connect together, they're not different  
philosophies, they're just different ways of using the tech.
... They

<jar> timbl: The large ontologies area always chaning, the small ones  
are stable

tim: They're both about the real world.

jar: The point about it being a matter of degree is to the point.  
Where do we draw the eline between an acceptable def and one that  
isn't good enough for an app?

tim: They're design patterns.

<jar> timbl: Large & small are two design patterns

<jar> timbl: The http headers form a lightweight ontology

tim: You can define an ont linked to HTTP headers, and hence to the  
standards, etc.

<jar> timbl: There is a standard process for defining what the http  
headers mean - system for arguing is formalized

<hhalpin> I tend to think that usually "natural language" comments,  
i.e. rdf:labels, are *necessary* to map the terms to the world using  
natural language.

<jar> dbooth: Let's ground in real artifacts, code etc

harry: How much attecntion should be paid to the comments and labels?  
A lot! You need something besides the abox data itself.
... Shadi said they haven't had any help or input from SWIG

jar: I agee w much of what Tim said, though I'm not sure i would call  
it Large or Small. How much of the meaning is determined through  
definition and how much through use?
... In natural language, everything is defined through use.

Tim: It's by definition.

dbooth: I agree, it's by def, not by use.

jar: defs vary in quality and specificity.
... e.g., "resource" and "rep" in HTTP 1.1 spec. You can sort of  
figure out what they mean by reading the spec, and that's okay, and if  
they're used implicitly in a large number of places then you don't  
need such careful def.
... But http 1.1 is not an ont. You cannot tell indepe if something is  
true or not. The RDC doesn't say how to determine if a particular  
resource is an IR.

Tim: The http spec defines messages sent, state transitions, etc. The  
only area in which it's weak is in describing the philosphy and how it  
fits to the AWWW, because it was taken for granted.
... Whereas the difference between a cough and a cold is much fuzzier.

dbooth: I agree it is a relevant question. But I think we can make the  
most progress by looking at real code, examples, etc.

<jar> timbl: The medical area is fuzzy compared to http (e.g.  
resource, representation)

harry: One exmaple is the owl:sameAs exampel. It's a clear case where  
the community of web hackers doing linked data is using a term that is  
not precisely in conformance w the def of the term.
... It seems that these problems w terms always happen when different  
communities meet. One community has an intuitive understanding of the  
term, but another community doesn't. They don't share the same  
background assumptoin, more dialog is needed.

<timbl> TimbL: Got an example of improper use of sameAs?
HTTP Vocabulary in RDF

dbooth: should we give more concerted feedback on http://www.w3.org/TR/HTTP-in-RDF/ 
  ?

tim: we made a wiki page last time to collect comments

<jar> http://esw.w3.org/topic/AwwswHttpVocabularyInRdfComments

dbooth: Looks like we never got our minutes out from last meeting.

<jar> ACTION on jar to recover minutes from last time

<trackbot> Sorry, couldn't find user - on

<jar> ACTION jar to recover minutes from last time

<trackbot> Created ACTION-11 - Recover minutes from last time [on  
Jonathan Rees - due 2008-10-21].

dbooth: Why did they use rdf collection for #MessageHeader?

<timbl> Headers ar ein fact UNordered in HTTP

<jar> http://www.w3.org/TR/HTTP-in-RDF/

dbooth: I'm looking in the RDF in http://www.w3.org/2006/http#

<jar> t = 10:00

<timbl> There are two separate levels to model a header in 2.6

<timbl> They are modeling two levels at once

tim: A MesageHeader has properties. One is that it has a name. Another  
is that it has a value (fieldValue), w a microformat. Also is the  
parse tree from the fieldValue. So HeaderElement is a ...(scribe  
missed)...

<timbl> Which i s not bad ... useful to be able to express either

Stuart: I won't be hear in two weeks.

<Stuart> "Parsetype=Collection" generates and ordered list... so their  
model is maintaining the order of headers as they were observed

<jar> 2 weeks is ISWC conflict

<jar> rrsagent. pointer
Summary of Action Items
[End of minutes]
Minutes formatted by David Booth's scribe.perl version 1.133 (CVS log)
$Date: 2008/10/14 14:47:41 $
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[Delete this section before finalizing the minutes.]

This is scribe.perl Revision: 1.133  of Date: 2008/01/18 18:48:51
Check for newer version at http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/~checkout~/2002/ 
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Guessing input format: RRSAgent_Text_Format (score 1.00)

Succeeded: s/by experimentation/by GET experiments/
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No ScribeNick specified.  Guessing ScribeNick: dbooth
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Default Present: DBooth, Jonathan_Rees, TimBL, Stuart, HarryH
Present: DBooth Jonathan_Rees TimBL Stuart HarryH
Got date from IRC log name: 14 Oct 2008
Guessing minutes URL: http://www.w3.org/2008/10/14-awwsw-minutes.html
People with action items:


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Received on Wednesday, 15 October 2008 18:28:54 UTC