RE: normative and non-normative references

>-----Original Message-----
>From: public-owl-wg-request@w3.org [mailto:public-owl-wg-request@w3.org]
>On Behalf Of Bijan Parsia
>Sent: Saturday, March 07, 2009 12:53 AM
>To: Michael Schneider
>Cc: Ian Horrocks; W3C OWL Working Group
>Subject: Re: normative and non-normative references
>
>On 6 Mar 2009, at 23:27, Michael Schneider wrote:
>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: public-owl-wg-request@w3.org [mailto:public-owl-wg-
>request@w3.org
>>> ]
>>> On Behalf Of Ian Horrocks
>>> Sent: Friday, March 06, 2009 11:54 PM
>>> To: W3C OWL Working Group
>>> Subject: normative and non-normative references
>>>
>>> Peter has updated Manchester Syntax to distinguish normative and non-
>>> normative references [1].
>>>
>>> Can other editors please do the same.
>>
>> Hi!
>>
>> I wonder if any of the references in the RDF-Based Semantics
>>
>>  <http://www.w3.org/2007/OWL/wiki/RDF-Based_Semantics#References>
>>
>> is non-normative. What are the criteria for normative vs. non-
>> normative
>> references?
>
>If a normative criterion of your spec depends on a reference, then the
>reference is normative.

I disagree. For me, references can never be normative or non-normative
themselves. Only the context they appear in can be. And since I have tagged
all non-normative parts of the RDF-Based Semantics clearly as such, I don't
see why I should put additional (redundant!) normativity statements to the
references list.
 
But even if I would agree, I really don't see that such a separation is easy
to produce in the RDF-Based Semantics. For example, you say:

>I found some mislabeled refs:
>	[OWL 2 Structural Spec]

(Thanks for this. Will fix them!)

>But otherwise, they seem normative to me.

While Peter says in his mail:

[[
Normative

CURIE
OWL 2 SS&FS - because of datatypes 
RDF Concepts - because of RDF graphs
RDF Semantic - duh!
RDF:Text
RFC 2119
RFC 3987

Non-normative

Direct Semantics !
RDF Mapping ! - because Section 7 is informative
OWL S&AS
RFC 2396
]]

And I cannot agree with both of you. 

For example, you both say that CURIE is normative. But I don't see why. I
could equally well use full-expanded IRIs everywhere in the document. But I
am not sure, because the RDF-Based Semantics makes heavy use of CURIEs
throughout the document.
 
I'm even less sure regarding OWL S&AS. Saying that OWL 1 Full is
non-normative, as Peter does, might be valid, but only for the very
technical fact that OWL 2 Full hasn't been spec'ed as a semantic extension
of OWL 1 Full. If it had, then I would be again unclear whether the RDF
Semantics is normative or not, since in this case it would have been fully
covered by OWL 1 Full.

So, there seems to be, at least, no obvious line of separation. 

Further, tagging OWL 1 Full as non-normative in the OWL 2 Full spec seems to
me at least highly unwise, because I can imagine certain people putting this
heavily into question. Not making an explicit distinction will save us from
such worries.

But I also have a principle concern: I don't want to play with normativity
statements without any necessity. I consider changing something from
normative to non-normative to be a change in design. Not saying anything,
again, will avoid such problems.

So is there any requirement to do this separation? Does W3C documents
require this? Otherwise, I don't see why I should change the RDF-Based
Semantics. I need to see a clear reason for this, and I haven't heard any so
far. The current state is perfectly fine for me, and I don't expect anyone
to formally object against /not/ having such a distinction. I'm not so
certain, however, about the other way around...

>Cheers,
>Bijan.

Cheers,
Michael

--
Dipl.-Inform. Michael Schneider
Research Scientist, Dept. Information Process Engineering (IPE)
Tel  : +49-721-9654-726
Fax  : +49-721-9654-727
Email: michael.schneider@fzi.de
WWW  : http://www.fzi.de/michael.schneider
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