Re: Not GRDDL, but GRDDL-like (was Re: GRDDL and OWL/XML)

Bijan Parsia wrote:
>
> On 13 May 2008, at 15:56, Chimezie Ogbuji wrote:
>
[snip]
> I believe that everyone else agrees that the GRDDL spec does *not* 
> require an executable, downloadable specification of the 
> transformation at the namespace document.
That's a bit strong. I think agreement of most of the remaining active 
members (at least myself, Chime, David Booth, not sure about DanC and 
Jeremy) of the GRDDL WG is that executable code, in particular XSLT, 
would be useful, and there is no obvious use value in a non-executable 
version. Linking to a list of implementations from the namespace 
document using RDDL would be useful though. And having links to multiple 
types of transforms (distinguished by media types as mentioned by Norman 
Gray) could be useful as well. What is the use-case of a non-executable 
GRDDL transformaton?
> Looking at that text, it seems that if we apply your hermenutical 
> strategy we'd also end up with XSLT required ("XSLT result tree"), 
> however, it seems your view is not demanded even by that snippet. We 
> can easily speak of a non-computable function "being applied" in 
> various mathematical contexts. Also, the prior text makes clear that 
> this is a "should":
>
> """Developers of transformations should make available representations 
> in widely-supported formats. XSLT version 1[XSLT1] is the format most 
> widely supported by GRDDL-aware agents as of this writing, though 
> though XSLT2[XSLT2] deployment is increasing. While technically 
> Javascript, C, or virtually any other programming language may be used 
> to express transformations for GRDDL, XSLT is specifically designed to 
> express XML to XML transformations and has some good safety 
> characteristics; XQuery has similar characteristics to XSLT, though 
> use of XQuery in GRDDL implementation is less widely deployed at the 
> time of this writing."""
>
> So, I believe that my preferred strategy is supported by the spec and 
> is GRDDL, not merely GRDDLesque.

I could implemented an OWL-reasoner by writing it down an algorithm and 
then publishing it in HTML, would this count as an implementation? I 
think the answer would tend to be "no."
Generally, if you were selling someone an OWL 2 reasoner, they would 
expect code, no? Same with GRDDL.
> This is an important point to me since various pro-GRDDL people in the 
> WG have argued that without an executable we have failed according to 
> the spec and thus failed our charter requirements. I only endorsed the 
> charter (and encouraged others to so endorse) with the (weak) GRDDL 
> requirement because I read the above spec text and came to, what seems 
> to me, an obvious conclusion.

I think people have argued clearly that an executable one could be 
useful for RDF-consuming GRDDL-enabled agents that would like to "glean" 
some information from OWL 2. That's a use-case that I have yet to see an 
argument against that caching and warnings about normativity would not 
address.

> From a marketing perspective, it feels like a bait and switch. I feel 
> like I did due diligence and now am sandbagged. Proper specs *cannot* 
> require people to interview members of the community to determine what 
> conforming behavior is. That defeats the point!
No-one else in the community has ever brought up the point that the 
GRDDL transformation could be non-executable.  Thus, I think your 
reading of the specification is unique. I am glad you have brought this 
up, as no-one has thought this through before, and it is an intelligent 
if unusual point.

I think if you or others do not want an executable GRDDL transformation, 
or object to a RDF translation of OWL2/XML to RDF, that's fine. It is 
clear you believe an executable GRDDL is unnecessary or harmful and 
there is no reason to address RDF-consuming agents that may not have 
OWL2XML local transforms. I would be interested if other members of the 
OWL2 WG also think this is the case.



> Cheers,
> Bijan.
>
>
>

Received on Monday, 19 May 2008 23:38:27 UTC