Progress (was: What do the ontologists want)

Are we making progress?  I think so.

In a "previous life", I was involved with another standards group effort 
that necessitated bringing together two communities with quite different 
backgrounds.  Everybody thought the technology to be standardized was quite 
straightforward, but for about a year the discussion just went round in 
circles.  In hindsight, what we were experiencing was a process of mutual 
education.  Then suddenly (with a bit of judicious prodding from the chair) 
the first technical standard was produced at what was (by standards norms) 
a lighting-fast pace.  The resulting specification was technically very 
simple, trivial even, but it formed a basis of agreement for further progress.

We have had a period of "education" and the RDFcore group are working on a 
clarified specification.  There are still matters to be settled, but I 
sense that the language/points of debate are becoming more constructive.

Hope!

#g
--

At 08:00 AM 5/16/01 -0700, Charles F. Munat wrote:
>Peter F. Patel-Schneider wrote:
>
>The basic complaint of the first group is that people in the second group
>are going beyond what RDF is capable of.  People in the second group use
>the reification syntax, but have some extra meaning for it that is not
>shared by all interested in RDF.  It is the contention of the first group
>that the use of these extra meanings make RDF no longer be a true
>representation language, and thus ill suited for representing information
>in the WWW.
>
>Reply:
>
>Yes, that is pretty clear from the discussion. Also clear is that it isn't
>going anywhere anytime soon.
>
>Is there a document somewhere that explains the limitations (clearly) of RDF
>according to the first group? In other words, could I start using RDF, limit
>myself to the sorts of uses that the first group approves of, and avoid
>controversy while the second group makes its case?
>
>I'm just trying to pull something out of this that I can use right now while
>people who know a lot more than I do put together a "version 2" to solve
>these other problems.
>
>Any help appreciated...
>
>Sincerely,
>Charles F. Munat
>Seattle, Washington

------------
Graham Klyne
GK@NineByNine.org

Received on Thursday, 17 May 2001 05:40:20 UTC