Re: Can a Product also be a Service or does it require a MTE?

On 03 Jun 2014, at 11:25, Jarno van Driel <jarnovandriel@gmail.com> wrote:

> After reading the description of http://schema.org/Product I got a bit confused. It says:
> "Any offered product or *service*. For example: a pair of shoes; a concert ticket; *the rental of a car*; *a haircut*; or an episode of a TV show streamed online."
> 
As for rental etc. of physical products: This is straightforward, since the bundle of rights offered by the offer is defined by the gr/schema:BusinessFunction. When you rent a car, you just obtain temporary usage etc. See the definitions at

http://www.heppnetz.de/ontologies/goodrelations/v1.html#BusinessFunction

	• gr:ConstructionInstallation
	• gr:Dispose
	• gr:LeaseOut
	• gr:Maintain
	• gr:ProvideService
	• gr:Repair
	• gr:Sell
	• gr:Buy


> The 'service' mentioned made twitch a bit since I thought we have http://schema.org/Service for this. Now I looked up ProductOrService on the Goodrelations site (http://wiki.goodrelations-vocabulary.org/Documentation/Product_or_Service) and this page mentions 3 types of Product entities specifically but doesn't mention Service.

schema:Product is equivalent to gr:ProductOrService. The reason for the naming difference is that schema:Product existed before GR was integrated.

The subtypes of schema:Product / gr:ProductOrService are for indicating more precisely whether you are talking of

- a concrete individual (e.g. a car with a VIN, a computer with a serial number, ...)
- a bag of anonymous products (a bit complicated to explain, I admit) and
- a product model, essentially a datasheet that defines properties for actualy products.

> 
> So if it's true that Product also can mean a service, than in which case is one supposed to use Service? 

In essence, being a product is a role that a thing can take by being the object of an offer. schema:Product is not disjoint with any other type, so you can also offer a company, a place, a CreativeWork, etc.

> 
> And if a Product also can be a Service, would one then only use a Multiple-Type-Entity like 'Product Service' when the Product needs properties that are part of Service (or inversed)? 

If you need properties from another type for describing the product, then a multi-typed entity is the proper way of modeling, yes.

Martin

> 
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Received on Tuesday, 3 June 2014 17:14:43 UTC