Re: Proposed response to Golbeck regarding imports issue

Jim,

Sorry I don't have the practice writing responses that the rest of you
do. I'll get this right eventually :-). Anyway, I agree with your
suggestion to add some wording, and that Reference seems like the best
place to put it. Paraphrasing part of my proposed response, we could add
the following to the end of Section 7.3:

"Note that whether or not an OWL tool must load an imported ontology
depends on the purpose of the tool. If the tool is a complete reasoner
(including complete consistency checkers) then it must load all of the
imported ontologies. Other tools, such as simple editors and incomplete
reasoners, may choose to load only some or even none of the imported
ontologies."

Jeff

Jim Hendler wrote:
> 
> At 4:25 PM -0400 5/21/03, Jeff Heflin wrote:
> >Jim,
> >
> >I'll take your word that the ontology can't be divided into components
> >that aren't tightly intertwined. However, I did say in my proposed
> >response:
> >
> >"Even if this is not the case, and in effect, all files had to import
> >all
> >of the others, this should not matter for many tools. Imports only
> >really matters to reasoners, and even then only those that are concerned
> >with completeness. For example, an editor does not have to follow
> >imports links. Additionally, an incomplete reasoner (and many reasoners
> >may be incomplete in various ways, but still be valuable) might choose
> >not follow these links either."
> >
> 
> <Chair hat ON>
> 
> Where in the documents are you proposing we put this?  What of the
> documents are you quoting -- I remind you what Dan keeps pounding
> into us -- we're not just sending people answers, we're making sure
> our documents will address their comments.
> 
> >Maybe I should have led off with that and simply suggested she divide
> >the ontology along subject area (e.g., Anantomy, Disease, Drugs, etc.)
> >even though these areas still import each other.
> 
> again, she will figure out how to do her work - our response needs to
> say what she needs to read, or better, what we will put in so other
> people with her concerns will know what to do about it as well.
> 
> >
> >As far as the suggested rewordings go, you are right, my current wording
> >for Guide is still misleading. I had merely focused on the specific
> >problems Jennifer mentioned when discussing that passage. I didn't
> >consider how the rest of it related to her other issues. How about
> >changing
> >
> >"Importing another ontology brings the entire set of assertions provided
> >by that ontology into the current ontology."
> >
> >to:
> >
> >"If an ontology imports another ontology then it virtually includes the
> >meaning of the imported ontology."
> 
> I doubt that wording change would satisfy her - what is "virtually"
> (and the meaning concern you have below).  My suggestion is that
> something like what you wrote above (about the tools) needs to go
> somewhere in our documents (probably ref) to make this point clear.
> I would consider that likely to be an appropriate response.
> >
> >Hopefully our formalists like Peter and Pat won't have a fit with my use
> >of "meaning" here, or will suggest a better option. However, I don't
> >think we should throw around words like entailment, interpretation and
> >satisfaction in the Guide.
> >
> >Jeff
> >
> >p.s. I have a draft comment to Dave Becket too, but I am waiting for a
> >response from Peter on an apparent omission from S&AS before I complete
> >and post it.
> >
> 
> Again, remember that our goal is to make our documents better when we
> answer people, not just to address the particular concern of a
> particular issue raiser on a one-to-one basis
> 
>   -JH
> --
> Professor James Hendler                           hendler@cs.umd.edu
> Director, Semantic Web and Agent Technologies     301-405-2696
> Maryland Information and Network Dynamics Lab.    301-405-6707 (Fax)
> Univ of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742          240-731-3822 (Cell)
> http://www.cs.umd.edu/users/hendler

Received on Thursday, 22 May 2003 10:04:38 UTC