Re: A proposed provenance wg draft charter

It is a shame indeed.

> Shame that we have had public discussion for 1 year, and you have
> written a document, in private, and you only release now, despite
> our continuously asking for your input.

It took me forever to understand OPM enough to be comfortable to talk 
about it as I am now. It would be much easier for me to discuss about 
OPM if I had more inputs regarding how OPM compares to PML.

Regarding the fact of doing it privately, I please ask you to see this 
as an initial effort of coming up with something more substantial than 
just a superficial mapping between the languages. Otherwise, we would 
end up where we are right now in terms of truly understanding each other 
approaches.

Many thanks,
Paulo.

> I am afraid I don't have time to read it before today's call!
>
> Luc
>
> On 10/15/2010 03:33 PM, Paulo Pinheiro da Silva wrote:
>> Dear Luc el at.,
>>
>> I like the work that has been done at the incubator. Like Deborah, I
>> regret not participating as much as I would like -- for different
>> reasons than Deborah I have also had a difficult year.
>>
>> Concerning the bias mentioned in Deborah's message, I see that our PML
>> group has put a lot of effort to understand OPM and I cannot see a
>> similar effort from the OPM group to understand work that has been done
>> at the PML side. For example, I put together a collection of PML papers
>> together with some highlights that are related to the first scenario and
>> the response was that previous work was done in the OPM side as well.
>> Well, I read all the documents that were cited as a response that
>> similar work was done with OPM (and OPM predecessors) and my conclusion
>> is that some of the unanswered questions (referred to as provenance
>> gaps) are still open questions in the OPM side of the world.
>>
>> Anyway, I do not see OPM as a subset of PML and my response to this is
>> in the form of an article submission to the JWS special edition on
>> provenance run by Yolanda and Paul.
>>
>> http://www.cs.utep.edu/paulo/papers/PinheirodaSilva_JWS_2010.pdf
>>
>> Anyway, I am releasing this article submission as a tech report as a way
>> to substantiate my claim the URI for the tech report is above. Please
>> note that this report is just my opinion and not an opinion of the PML
>> group. I recognize that further effort needs to be done to fully
>> understand the mapping between OPM, PML, and the many other important
>> provenance notations out there and that is why I cannot understand this
>> suggestion of us of recommending OPM as in the draft put out by Paul
>> Groth.
>>
>> Many thanks,
>> Paulo.
>>
>>> Deborah,
>>>
>>> I think we should not forget the work that the incubator has done.
>>> I do not understand your statement "there is strong a bias when one
>>> starts with one
>>> and tries to shoehorn in the others."
>>>
>>> Let's be concrete, I suppose you are talking about PML,
>>> - what is the bias in OPM that makes it difficult to shoehorn PML
>>> concepts
>>>
>>> (ditto for other provenance languages).
>>>
>>> The mapping exercise, to my knowledge, did not identify any.  Please
>>> correct me if
>>> I am wrong.
>>>
>>> This issue needs to be nailed down. I am happy to have a teleconference
>>> at some other
>>> mutually convenient time. But, we need to be able to justify our
>>> position.  It's important
>>> to do it soon, because we can't write a final report properly with
>>> knowing what the conclusions
>>> are.
>>>
>>> Regarding the "fast" aspect, I think it is crucial too. Otherwise,
>>> somebody else
>>> will do it, de-facto way!
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Luc
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 10/15/2010 02:33 PM, Deborah McGuinness wrote:
>>>>    On 10/15/2010 8:53 AM, Paul Groth wrote:
>>>>> Hi Deborah,
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks for your response. This is exactly the sort of discussion we
>>>>> wanted to start.
>>>>>
>>>>> Luc and I wrote the proposal with the notion that we wanted a fast
>>>>> working group.
>>>> Fast working groups are good but I think we should focus on the
>>>> outcome rather than fast.  it is not that fast precludes quality but
>>>> we should not focus on fast and have that preclude other options that
>>>> may be considered more representative of the broader provenance
>>>> community.
>>>>> With that in mind we thought it would be good to start with something
>>>>> already existing and not develop a whole new model. Additionally, we
>>>>> think that OPM is already a subset of what's out there already
>>>>> including PML. I think the DAML+OIL comparison is not so apt because
>>>>> OPM was already developed through a community process.
>>>> Actually I think the DAML+OIL model is quite apt.
>>>> DAML was developed by a large DARPA program over years with many
>>>> participants.
>>>> OIL also was developed by a consortium of people as well over time
>>>> (and actually there was a little bit of overlap in the authors but it
>>>> was relatively small).
>>>> Both grew up at about the same time.
>>>> While this is looking back, I would venture to say that if either went
>>>> in as a proposed standard without engaging the other community, either
>>>> would have had a VERY hard time getting through a standards body
>>>> DESPITE the fact that each had a significant community who had worked
>>>> on them.
>>>> What happened was that  an adhoc US/UK working group self formed to
>>>> put something together that reflected what the authors thought
>>>> captured the essence of both.
>>>>
>>>> OPM was emerging in approximately the same timeframe as some of the
>>>> other contender provenance models.  I agree of course that it came out
>>>> of a community but it did not include much participation from some
>>>> other communities.
>>>>
>>>> I think we need to look at what is out there now and determine what
>>>> the starting point should be and I do not think that OPM reflects the
>>>> starting point for some of the other communities.
>>>>> Furthermore, as we say in the draft, OPM is the starting point
>>>> My objection is to taking OPM  as the starting point.
>>>> I think there is too strong a bias when one starts with one and tries
>>>> to shoehorn in the others.
>>>>
>>>> Paulo in particular had raised a number of issues when he was trying
>>>> to look more deeply at connections and embedded assumptions.
>>>>
>>>>> and would change over the coarse of the working group.
>>>>>
>>>>> Anyway, since you have a lot of experience on these working groups, I
>>>>> was wondering how you think we could design the charter to make
>>>>> production of a recommendation as fast as possible with the approach
>>>>> you have in mind?
>>>> I agree that having one starting point and refining may be considered
>>>> to be a fast approach  but if one really thinks there may be
>>>> significant changes, then that may not be the case.  I think though
>>>> that it could easily be interpreted as biasing the outcome towards
>>>> that starting point (and i would interpret it that way and would be
>>>> unhappy).
>>>> I think though we need to be open to other starting points so i think
>>>> we have to be open to other starting points.
>>>>
>>>> I see two routes that could be taken (and of course there are more).
>>>> 1 - write a charter now that takes starting points as input
>>>> 2 - follow the owl model and form an adhoc working group whose aim it
>>>> is to come up with a joint submission for the starting point.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Also, at least from my reading, it seems that you would endorse
>>>>> having a a working group work for a standard provenance model. Is
>>>>> that correct?
>>>> I  support a working group to come up with a recommended provenance
>>>> model.
>>>> I  do NOT support a working group that takes a single starting point
>>>> and aims to refine that one to come up with the recommendation.
>>>>>
>>>>> thanks,
>>>>> Paul
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Deborah McGuinness wrote:
>>>>>>    Greetings,
>>>>>> Thanks for the work on the draft charter.
>>>>>> I am sending this quickly because i just read the beginning and have
>>>>>> a significant problem with the slant of the charter with the
>>>>>> position of
>>>>>> "The goal of this working group is to refine the Open Provenance
>>>>>> Model"
>>>>>> and thought I should air this immediately upon seeing the draft.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I strongly believe that the charter of a working group that would
>>>>>> end up with a provenance recommendation should start with the
>>>>>> contender models and take the best aspects from many of them RATHER
>>>>>> than starting with one model and refining it.  I strongly oppose the
>>>>>> position that the charter should take any single model and work to
>>>>>> refine it.  I would propose rather that this group would work like
>>>>>> the recent RIF working group or others where contender starting
>>>>>> points were submitted  or like the OWL working group where two
>>>>>> contenders emerged - DAML and OIL and members from each side worked
>>>>>> to create a submission - DAML+OIL that truly took elements from both
>>>>>> languages and ended up with a joint proposal rather than this way
>>>>>> that just takes a single model as a starting point.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> There was some disappointment in the group when we chose to map the
>>>>>> other contender models to a single model, but most if not all
>>>>>> understood that decision from the perspective of time.  I can not
>>>>>> say though that i (or i expect others who were disappointed) could
>>>>>> go along with this position in a proposed charter.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I am sorry that this comes from someone who did not participate
>>>>>> nearly as much as I had hoped to.
>>>>>> I had an extremely bad year with my mother's multiple
>>>>>> hospitalizations and general overwhelming health problems and her
>>>>>> subsequent passing.   I simply have had no choice but to put
>>>>>> everything other than family health at a much lower priority.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Deborah
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 10/15/2010 7:58 AM, Paul Groth wrote:
>>>>>>> Hi All,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Today on the call we are scheduled to talk about preparations for
>>>>>>> the final report. Luc and I feel that to write a compelling final
>>>>>>> report we should be clear about exactly what the report should
>>>>>>> recommend. There has been some consensus that a working group
>>>>>>> should be formed around the recommendations extracted from the
>>>>>>> scenarios (
>>>>>>> http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/prov/wiki/Recommendations_for_scenarios).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> To that end, we have prepared a draft working group charter (
>>>>>>> http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/lavm/draft-charter.html ). We note
>>>>>>> this is only *our own* proposal and we see this as a starting point
>>>>>>> for discussion within the group.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> We look forward to any comments, questions, thoughts about this
>>>>>>> proposal. We hope this helps the group to continue to coalesce
>>>>>>> around a way forward.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>>> Paul and Luc
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>

Received on Friday, 15 October 2010 15:15:26 UTC