Re: [dxwg] definitions clarifications of conforms to (#1130)

@bertvannuffelen I don't know your use case so I can only speak to the intention of the Dublin Core property. The object of the property should always be some standard, schema, or specification that is adhered to by the subject. Obviously this is somewhat open to interpretation, and perhaps the DCAT descriptions are not sufficient to explain what is intended in this context. But I think it is correct to say that it applies to the subject of the triple itself, not a resource that the content of the subject may be describing. So for the DCAT catalog record, the "conforms to" would have as its object the specification of the DCAT catalog record (presumably all or part of the DCAT standard). The distribution should be a data file, and if that data file is defined by a standard or specification it is that standard or specification that should be the object of the property. However, there is no reason why a particular subject cannot have multiple "conforms to" properties if that is what is needed to satisfy certain use cases.

I believe that your last comment: 

>Suppose I have a harvesting data-portal like the European Data Portal, then it would be nice to know which metadata profile the descriptions conform to. Each entity conforms-to a EU memberstate profile. But know I cannot know that for distributions, because that describes the ontology used by the actual data.

is what the [Content Negotiation by Profile](https://w3c.github.io/dxwg/conneg-by-ap/) intends to address, although that would require that you use that method for harvesting.

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Received on Friday, 1 November 2019 15:17:53 UTC