Re: [OK?] Re: comments on "SPARQL Query Language for RDF"

On 22 Mar 2006, at 18:19, Dan Connolly wrote:
>>>>  From section 2.5.2:
>>>>
>>>> "A pattern solution can then be defined as follows: to match a  
>>>> basic
>>>> graph pattern under simple entailment, it is possible to proceed by
>>>> finding a mapping from blank nodes and variables in the basic graph
>>>> pattern to terms in the graph being matched; a pattern solution is
>>>> then a mapping restricted to just the variables, possibly with  
>>>> blank
>>>> nodes renamed. Moreover, a uniqueness property guarantees the
>>>> interoperability between SPARQL systems: given a graph and a basic
>>>> graph pattern, the set of all the pattern solutions is unique up to
>>>> blank node renaming."
>>>
>>> This is a claim, not a theorem (with proof).
>>
>> Sure :-)
>> Stay tuned for the explicit proof.
>
> Enrico, you do not mean to imply that the RDF Data Access Working  
> Group
> plans to deliver a proof, do you? I'm not aware of any such plans.
>
> Please keep in mind that this public-rdf-dawg-comments@w3.org mailing
> list is a place for responses on behalf of the RDF Data Access Working
> Group; it's best to be very clear when you're acting not on behalf
> of the WG but on your own behalf, lest readers get the wrong  
> impression.

I personally believe that whatever I write, or subscribe to, should  
be provably correct - as a general rule of my public working life.

That's also why I believe that it is a terrible mistake pretending  
from a body meant to produce standards (like the W3C-DAWG) to do  
novel research, and to pretend to standardise the outcome of such  
research.
In fact, the mechanisms of a body whose purpose is to produce  
standards are about creating consensus by means of votes, or by means  
of 'empirical' evidence (the infamous test-cases), to reach a  
"standard" (or recommendation or whatever). These mechanisms are  
clearly inadequate for the kind of job that eventually the DAWG  
undertook, and I am surprised - among other things - that the W3C  
didn't realise this yet.
I am also shocked that the members of the WG didn't ask for a proof  
earlier, and that they are ready to subscribe something of which they  
don't have (apparently) a clear evidence.

--e.