[profguid] Profile definition v Profile in profiles ontology

I don't know whether we want to re-open this, but I see a disconnect
between our current definition of profile and the graph structure for
profiles provided by the profiles ontology. Our definition was written
before we considered the profiles ontology as describing profiles, and
my impression is that we were considering "profile" to be a single
resource like DCAT-AP. Should we lean more toward the multi-resource
possibility of prof:Profile in ProfGui, and does that mean that we need
to have a definition of profile that looks more compatible with the
profiles ontology?

First, our definition states profile as a single thing:

"A named set ..."

which makes it compatible with prof:Profile. That's good. But then the
definition moves on to say:

"A named set of constraints ..."

And this is where I begin to have issues. At the moment our definition
goes on to say (in whole):

"A named set of constraints on one or more identified base
specifications, including the identification of any implementing
subclasses of datatypes, semantic interpretations, vocabularies, options
and parameters of those base specifications necessary to accomplish a
particular function."

However, the profiles ontology does not mandate the existence of a
resource with either the role ":fullConstraints" or
":partialConstraints", and it isn't clear to me if a prof:Profile with
only one resource that has the role ":guidance" would meet our
definition of profile. Therefore it may be necessary for the ProfGui
document to mandate certain content to meet the definition of "profile"
as we are using it.

In addition, nothing in our definition indicates that there can be more
than one resource in this "set". I don't think that the one-sentence
definition needs to do this but this becomes an issue for the guidance
document that so far is not included there. This could become text for
the section on Profile Description but I also think it needs to be
introduced earlier on in the document. This would be where Antoine's
revised diagram could be useful, and it may require a section in the
profiles definition area that talks about the multi-faceted nature of
profiles.

If we think we need to discuss this I will open a github issue.
-- 
Karen Coyle
kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
m: 1-510-435-8234 (Signal)
skype: kcoylenet/+1-510-984-3600

Received on Wednesday, 9 January 2019 16:42:43 UTC