Re: clarification needed in a case of 'constraint of a rule' vs 'refinement of an action' ?

Hi Sridhar, there was discussion on this topic in April 2022:  https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-odrl/2022Apr/
(but not that much resolution…)

There is no unambiguous difference, but the Model (sort of) implies that Constraints are conditions for the Rule, and Refinements narrow the semantics of an Action.

So, in the examples you gave below, the first one says that the Permission (Rule) needs to be exercised before the specified date (irrespective of the Action).

The second one you gave then does not naturally fit that model, in that the “dateTime” refinement “narrows” the semantics of the “distribution”. 
So this means the Permission is always “active”, even though you may not be able to “distribute” since the date refinement stops you...

I think a good test for Refinements is to make sure that it naturally (and intrinsically) narrows the semantics of the Action.

If you look at Example 14: https://www.w3.org/TR/odrl-model/#constraint-action
and try to express the “resolution” as a Constraint, then you can see it does not feel right...

Cheers - R


> On 13 May 2024, at 18:51, Sridhar Krishnamurthy <ksridhar@amagi.com> wrote:
> 
> I beg to seek a clarification regarding
> How do we decide in some cases to choose between
> 'a constraint to a rule' vs 'refinement of an action' ?
> 
> ------------------------
> 
> Let us consider the example 13 in https://www.w3.org/TR/odrl-model/#constraint-rule
> 
> (A)
> 
> {
>     "@context": "http://www.w3.org/ns/odrl.jsonld",
>     "@type": "Offer",
>     "uid": "http://example.com/policy:6163",
>     "profile": "http://example.com/odrl:profile:10",
>     "permission": [{
>        "target": "http://example.com/document:1234",
>        "assigner": "http://example.com/org:616",
>        "action": "distribute",
>        "constraint": [{
>            "leftOperand": "dateTime",
>            "operator": "lt",
>            "rightOperand":  { "@value": "2018-01-01", "@type": "xsd:date" }
>        }]
>    }]
> }
> 
> ------------------------
> 
> what would be the reason that prevents us from expressing the same thing as
> 
> (B)
> 
> {
>     "@context": "http://www.w3.org/ns/odrl.jsonld",
>     "@type": "Offer",
>     "uid": "http://example.com/policy:6163",
>     "profile": "http://example.com/odrl:profile:10",
>     "permission": [{
>        "target": "http://example.com/document:1234",
>        "assigner": "http://example.com/org:616",
>        "action": [{
>           "rdf:value": { "@id": "odrl:distribute" },
>           "refinement": [{
>               "leftOperand": "dateTime",
>               "operator": "lt",
>               "rightOperand":  { "@value": "2018-01-01", "@type": "xsd:date" }
>           }]
>        }]
>    }]
> }
> 
> thanks and regards
> 
>