Re: PER for POWDER

Hi, Phil.

On Fri, Nov 5, 2010 at 6:24 PM, Phil Archer <phil@philarcher.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Through a discussion on another list, I have realised that there is an
> error in the way we have defined the wdrs:describedby property: we give
> two conflicting definitions of the same thing. This has come to light
> when I've followed up on comments that people have made about the
> property that amount to "we can't use wdrs:describedby because it's
> specific to POWDER"
>
> No!! It isn't - or at least, it shouldn't be. So here's the problem in
> detail.
>
> [snip]

The issue you are pointing out is clearly a typo - and I have my share
of fault for having missed it while editing the spec. So, yes, I agree
that wdrs:describedby MUST NOT have any predefined range.

> Proposal
> ========
>
> 1. Edit Section 4.1.4 of the DR doc to replace:
>
> "We define the RDF property wdrs:describedby with a domain of
> rdf:Resource and a range of wdrs:Document. This is the class of POWDER
> documents and is a sub class of owl:Ontology. The meaning of
> wdrs:describedby is identical to the describedby relationship type
> defined above so that:"
>
> with
>
> "We define the RDF property wdrs:describedby, the meaning of which is
> identical to the describedby relationship type defined above so that:"
>
> 2. Edit the namespace document at
> http://www.w3.org/2007/05/powder-s#describedby so that wdrs:describedby
> has no defined range.

I totally agree with your proposal. I can take care of revising the
POWDER-S ontology and namespace document.

> [snip]
>
> Does removing the range restriction on wdrs:decribedby affect
> conformance? The two conformance statements in the DR doc are not
> affected. However, unlikely as it may be, it is possible that someone
> has built an implementation that reasons that a wdrs:describedby
> property links to a POWDER document. Removing the restriction could
> conceivably have an adverse effect therefore. I believe this to be
> highly unlikely but it remains a possibility. Aside from that, the
> change is entirely backwards compatible.

I agree. IMHO, the existence of POWDER implementations assuming that
wdrs:describedby links to a POWDER document should not prevent us from
fixing this error in the specs, but it is important that their authors
are aware of that. I wonder how we can give this revision the widest
visibility.

> In terms of the W3C process document I think we may come under 3.3 which
> says that:
>
> "clears up an ambiguity or under-specified part of the specification in
> such a way that an agent whose conformance was once unclear becomes
> clearly conforming or non-conforming."
>
> Conformance doesn't come into it but even so, an erratum may be
> insufficient and we may well have to seek a review for a "Proposed
> Edited Recommendation."
>
> Incidentally, while we're at it, we could incorporate the existing
> erratum [5] which will help get the MIME type registered (this is still
> outstanding).

+1

Cheers,

Andrea

-- 
Andrea Perego. Ph.D. - http://andrea-perego.name

Dipartimento di Informatica e Comunicazione
Università degli Studi dell'Insubria
Via Mazzini, 5 - 21100 Varese, Italy

--

Received on Sunday, 7 November 2010 21:53:00 UTC