Re: interoperability (was Re: isolating shapes in named graphs)

* Peter F. Patel-Schneider <pfpschneider@gmail.com> [2014-11-26 07:20-0800]
> On 11/26/2014 05:46 AM, Eric Prud'hommeaux wrote:
> >* Peter F. Patel-Schneider <pfpschneider@gmail.com> [2014-11-26 05:11-0800]
> >>One usually uses an external URI, like foaf:mbox, because one wants
> >>interoperability of meaning.  However, I do not believe that
> >>complete interoperability of URI meaning should be mandated.  I also
> >>do not believe that complete interoperability of URI meaning is
> >>possible.
> >>
> >>Further, I believe that effective interoperability can be achieved
> >>without mandating use of defining definitions.  For example, I may
> >>decide that I don't want to use the "static" part of the definition
> >>of foaf:mbox. Interoperability should remain for most purposes.
> >>
> >>Particular commmunities can, if they want,  require stronger
> >>conditions on shared meaning.  Perhaps it would be possible to set
> >>up a community that achieves complete interoperability of meaning.
> >>However, I very strongly believe that "the web" cannot be such a
> >>community, and thus that W3C recommendations should never mandate
> >>it.
> >
> >It sounds like if I'm not feeling lucky, I should never consume data
> >from anyone with whom I've not written up some contract. What would
> >that contract say? "I agree to use the vocabularies according to their
> >documented semantics. I will not use terms if I don't understand their
> >semantics."
> 
> I don't think that you have to have a direct contract with that
> other party. There could be some out-of-band information about that
> other party, for example that they are a participant in some
> community.  There could also be information in documents, such as
> the use of logical properties, like rdf:type or owl:imports.  Sure a
> particularly perverse player could use these properties differently
> than you expect, either intentionally or inadvertently, but using
> logical properties in a non-standard fashion is something that
> should only be done, in my view, with great trepidation.
> 
> (Of course, I'm actually going against web practice here somewhat.
> There are many situations where logical properties are not used
> correctly.  Consider owl:sameAs, for example.)
> 
> >>Merging data from different sources can be problematic even if the
> >>use of defining definitions is mandated.  Data can be incorrect,
> >>after all.
> >
> >I suspect you are being a bit provocative here,
> 
> Not at all, I've held this position from the very beginning of my
> involvement with the semantic web.  I and others have forcefully
> argued it at various meetings, and have affected W3C recommendations
> thereby.
> 
> >and I'm playing along
> >nicely. Surely we needn't jettison this fine bathwater just because
> >it's slightly sullied by a baby. It's quite practical to say that I
> >will respect, or at least not contradict, the properties of foaf:mbox
> >even if there's an assertion elsewhere in that ontology that the moon
> >is a subclass of Things made of green cheese. What's the actual
> >screw-case if I use <http://dbpedia.org/resource/Moon>?
> 
> Well, you do commit to lots of unusual things in this case.  For
> starters, there are several minimum and maximum temperatures.
> 
> If you commit to the DBpedia ontology you get a number of unusual
> consequences, like Berlin being a mountain and Lambeau Field being a
> city. You also commit to unusual definitions of many categories.
> For example, all windmills are buildings, all libraries are
> educational institutions, chess players are athletes, saints are
> clerics, baronets are british royalty, professors are scientists.

OK, let's take a fairly pessimal case and utter
  dbp:Deep_Blue :wonAgainst dbp:Garry_Kasparov .
and this peculiarly entails that Deep Blue is a dbp:Athlete.
  dbp:Deep_Blue a dbp:Athlete .

No one will have any problems consuming our little assertion unless
their logic somehow interacts with the wikipedia hierarchy, in which
case they're already marrying an ontology with known bugs.


> I care about this sort of thing because I want to use the
> consequences of web information in my systems.  I don't want to have
> to commit to too much, however.  I also want to be able to commit to
> some things and see when the sources that I do use have committed to
> other things.  I certainly don't want to have to commit to the
> entire web to use any of it.
> 
> peter

-- 
-ericP

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Received on Wednesday, 26 November 2014 22:36:12 UTC