Re: RDF concepts

[Patrick Stickler, Nokia/Finland, (+358 40) 801 9690, patrick.stickler@nokia.com]


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "ext Brian McBride" <bwm@hplb.hpl.hp.com>
To: "Patrick Stickler" <patrick.stickler@nokia.com>; "Jeremy Carroll" <jjc@hplb.hpl.hp.com>; <w3c-rdfcore-wg@w3.org>
Sent: 25 October, 2002 12:57
Subject: Re: RDF concepts


> At 12:42 25/10/2002 +0300, Patrick Stickler wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> >[Patrick Stickler, Nokia/Finland, (+358 40) 801 9690, 
> >patrick.stickler@nokia.com]
> >
> > > We were influenced largely by the desire not to rule Nokia's data
> > > illegal.  Despite that, the majority were in favour of not having the lang
> > > code on the literal, but Nokia's willingness to dissent carried the
> > > day.  Since then we have learned that Nokia's data is illegal anyway
> >
> >No. It's not illegal anyway insofar as language tags are concerned. Only
> >that we will need to use typed literals rather than inline literals.
> 
> 
> When I wrote that, my understanding was that either the data has to change 
> or you have to fix it up in the processing stream somewhere, right?  And if 
> you have to do that, you could switch to a bnode idiom for representing the 
> language at the same time.

And as I pointed out, if we have to start using our own idioms that
are not supported elsewhere for something that has been a feature
of M&S then RDF loses a great deal of benefit with regards to
portability of our content between arbitrary systems and tools.

> 
> > > and
> > > Patrick has said:
> > >
> > >    [[So I guess the WG can omit lang tags from literals entirely.
> > > It's looking like it won't matter to us one way or another.]]
> > >
> > >    http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-rdfcore-wg/2002Oct/0277.html
> > >
> > > Which I take to be a withdrawing of that dissent.
> >
> >The dissent is not withdrawn. I meant simply that it wouldn't matter
> >one way or another if we stopped using RDF. We're not yet at that
> >point. Not yet.
> 
> I had understood the reason for the dissent was so that Nokia did not have 
> to change existing data.  

That was not a correct understanding.

It was that we rely on the attribution of literals for both datatype
and language tag and removing the language tag from typed literals
forces us to find some other *non-standardized* means of providing
for language qualification.

> Please could you explain the dissent, noting that dissent is a weighty 
> tool, not to be used lightly.

We do not use it lightly. We are not interested is causing others grief.
It is as much an issue of how we presently use RDF as how we feel RDF
should be used.

We are in the process of preparing a statement regarding our dissent
to the decision for string-based over value-based semantics. I would
prefer for us to not have to include this issue in that or another statement
if that can be avoided.

Patrick

Received on Friday, 25 October 2002 06:04:25 UTC