Re: shapes and classes: different

There is an existing definition for what "open world" and "closed world" mean. Basically, open world means that one doesn't make any conclusions based on the absence of data. For example, a min cardinality constraint on a property can't cause an error because no triples with that predicate are found - they may exist, we just don't know it yet. Obviously, from the data validation perspective this is not very useful.

Another set of terms is now being introduced: open systems, closed systems and semi-closed systems.

I believe these terms need to be defined so that we could use them consistently on this forum and, where appropriate, in the working group deliverables.

Irene

Sent from my iPhone

> On Feb 5, 2015, at 11:16 AM, Karen Coyle <kcoyle@kcoyle.net> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>> On 2/5/15 7:32 AM, Richard Cyganiak wrote:
>> You make it sound like attaching shapes to classes is something that
>> one would only want to do in closed systems. I disagree with this. I
>> expect that ontologies designed for use in open systems will also
>> include shapes in their definitions. I know I would have liked to
>> include some in several ontologies that I’ve worked on.
>> 
>>>> - […] we should not force future systems to couple shapes with
>>>> classes when they don't need to be coupled.
>> We should also not force future systems to decouple shapes and
>> classes when they don’t need to be decoupled.
> 
> The way that the Dublin Core community sees this working is through
> published application profiles. For data which I want to share, and
> which I want to be shared widely even with folks outside of my immediate
> community, I want two things:
> 
> 1) a minimally constrained ontology that is designed for re-use
> ("minimally constrained semantics" - T Gruber). This doesn't mean "no shapes" but it may well mean "insufficient for closed world validation needs"
> 
> 2) a profile through which I express (in a machine-actionable form) MY
> view of MY data (which may not be how others see or choose to use the
> data I provide). This profile is what I validate against.
> 
> This serves both those who may wish to make use of my data, but who are
> not likely to engage in a data exchange agreement with me, as well as my
> community partners, who wish to do some alignment of their data with
> mine for inter-system linking.
> 
> The ability for different users to have different "views" of the data is
> key to the success of a heterogeneous community of users. Even within
> closed or semi-closed systems different views must be possible because there are different materials being described and a variety of users and uses. It seems obvious that the same data may be re-used even within closed systems, and I think this is what Peter P-S was referring to in his response to Holger's example. And, btw, we've been doing this in databases for decades, haven't we?
> 
> I promised to find some documentation. This article has some diagrams
> that may suffice, even if folks don't have time to read the text:
> 
>     http://dlib.org/dlib/january10/hillmann/01hillmann.html
> 
> I don't know that this is the best way to accomplish this, but it is one
> idea that is circulating.
> 
> kc
> 
> -- 
> Karen Coyle
> kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
> m: 1-510-435-8234
> skype: kcoylenet/+1-510-984-3600
>

Received on Thursday, 5 February 2015 16:37:26 UTC