Re: GRDDL and OWL/XML

On May 13, 2008, at 5:09 PM, Jeremy Carroll wrote:
> Dan Connolly wrote:
>
>>> People are reading the SHOULD as a MUST.
>> Really? I am not. I just haven't seen a good reason to make
>> an exception in this case.
>
> +1
>
> (the definition of SHOULD is very good in my view, see RFC 2119,  
> which I am sure Bijan knows ...)

Sure.

It would help me if I could see a hypothetical circumstances what you  
think the case is successfully made to go against the SHOULD.

In the OWL/XML case we have:
	1) an existing specification (at the W3C) for a format closely  
identified with semweb
	2) widely available (in multiple ways) implementations
	3) a culture of manually invoked translation (e.g., between Turtle  
versions and OWL/RDF, etc.)
	4) no clear use case for other sorts of user programs wherein they  
would have grddl but not be able to manage other ways of getting  
translation
		And no clamor from users of those tools who are also OWL users.  
Alan Ruttenberg *is* an OWL user, but my understanding is that he's  
concerned more with legacy OWL oriented tools that only consume RDF/XML.
	5) a somewhat complex transformation

(And let us presume there is an existing, seemingly decent, XSLT to  
hand. Or two!)

I think without a thumb on the scale (i.e., that we have a default to  
override via a SHOULD) that the case is clear. (Do we agree?) With  
the thumb on the scale, I also think it's clear, but evidently you  
and Dan don't agree. (i.e., there are problems, and no clear upsides,  
and the downsides of not doing it are easily mitigated.)  What other  
facts (or sorts of fact) would tip the scale for you? If there are  
none, or they are outlandish (e.g., space aliens say we shouldn't),  
then you and dan are treat this SHOULD as a  de facto MUST. Or, at  
least, I cannot discern the actual difference.

If it's a de facto should, you should make it an actual should. It's  
really misleading and confusing otherwise.

Cheers,
Bijan.

Received on Tuesday, 13 May 2008 16:06:28 UTC