Re: issues to be resolved before last call (rdfms-assertion)

On Fri, 2003-01-17 at 08:15, Peter F. Patel-Schneider wrote:
[...]
> I would prefer it if the OWL documents could be silent on this issue, and
> let usage, convention, etc., determine social meaning, as they have always
> done.

The risks associated with doing that are unacceptably high, to me.

Namely, that people will claim that offers for sale, privacy
and security policies, etc. *do not* have their usual
social meaning (i.e. that their authors can be held accountable
for thier contents) when written in OWL.
This risk has already materialized for P3P.

For an elaborate rationale, see TimBL's essay...

"Bits mean something."
 -- The Stack of Specifications
 Tim Berners-Lee Date: 2002/05,
 last change: $Date: 2003/01/06 19:40:09 $ 
 Status: personal view only. Editing status: rough..
 http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/Stack

For reference, the RDF Core issue most closely related to
what Peter and Lynn are discussing is
  http://www.w3.org/2000/03/rdf-tracking/#rdfms-assertion

>   However, the RDF Concepts document normatively states that the
> entire social meaning of an RDF document is a part of the RDF meaning of
> that document.

Yes, that's as it should be. The RDF and OWL WGs are
in the W3C Technology and Society domain for a reason:
to see that the technologies are properly connected
to the social systems around them.

>   Therefore I believe that the OWL documents must explicitly
> disavow this view.

That's unacceptable to me.

> peter

-- 
Dan Connolly, W3C http://www.w3.org/People/Connolly/

Received on Friday, 17 January 2003 10:18:54 UTC