RE: [LC response] To Jonathan Rees

Dear Jonathan,

Thanks for your latest comments. We have made some changes to the introduction;
the following diff summarizes our changes:

http://www.w3.org/2007/OWL/wiki/index.php?title=Syntax&diff=20157&oldid=20006

Please let us know whether this addresses your concerns.

Regards,
Boris Motik
on behalf of the W3C OWL Working Group

> -----Original Message-----
> From: public-owl-comments-request@w3.org [mailto:public-owl-comments-
> request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Jonathan Rees
> Sent: 20 March 2009 21:20
> To: Boris Motik
> Cc: public-owl-comments@w3.org
> Subject: Re: [LC response] To Jonathan Rees
> 
> 
> On Mar 18, 2009, at 4:08 PM, Boris Motik wrote:
> 
> > Dear Jonathan,
> >
> > Thank you for your comment
> >     <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-owl-
> comments/2009Jan/0040.html
> > >
> > on the OWL 2 Web Ontology Language last call drafts.
> >
> > We indeed wanted to say that entities are one of the three syntactic
> > categories,
> > and not IRIs. To understand why this is so, consider, for example, the
> > ObjectHasValue class expression defined in Section 8.2.3 and the
> > accompanying
> > UML diagram shown in Figure 8. The UML association "individual" of
> > the UML class
> > "ObjectHasValue" does not point to the UML class "IRI"; instead, it
> > points to
> > the UML class "Individual". As shown in Figure 2, the UML class
> > "Individual" is
> > a UML subclass of the UML class "Entity". Finally, note that the UML
> > class
> > "Entity" in Figure 2 has the UML association "entityIRI" to the UML
> > class "IRI".
> > Thus, the Syntax document defines OWL 2 ontologies as consisting of
> > "entities
> > identified by IRIs", rather than "IRIs that identify entities". This
> > view is
> > reflected in the document's introduction, as well as all the other
> > documents.
> 
> I guess it didn't occur to me that OWL would use the words "class,"
> "property," and "individual" at variance with the way they're
> ordinarily used in logic, mathematics, and ordinary language, not as
> related to the domain but merely as syntactic entities. Nor did it
> occur to me that "identifies" would be a relation between an IRI
> (syntactic) and an entity (syntactic), since most of the time is means
> what you call "represent", a relation between syntactic entities and
> domain elements.
> 
> Now that I understand all this the document makes much more sense.
> 
> > We agree with your comment about "can be thought of as primitive
> > terms", and
> > have changed the text slightly.
> 
> The new text says:
> 
> ''Entities'', such as classes, properties, and individuals, are
> identified by IRIs. They define the set of primitive ''terms'' of an
> ontology and can be used to represent the basic elements of the domain
> being described.
> 
> This still needs wordsmithing. It says that entities define terms,
> which is nonsense. The entities (or the IRIs) *are* the terms. And
> "the basic elements of the domain" is nonsense - the domain doesn't
> inherently have "basic elements"; rather it is the ontology that
> selects or defines domain elements for "representation" by entities. A
> rewrite is needed here.
> 
> > We have also replaced "formal conceptualization" with "formal
> > specification". We
> > would prefer not to use "conceptual model" because it contains the
> > word "model",
> > which seems to be susceptible to misinterpretation.
> 
> The text you have is still not true, in my opinion:
> 
>      An OWL 2 ontology is a formal specification of a domain of
> interest.
> 
> In what sense can an ontology specify a domain of interest? Ordinarily
> ontologies are descriptive or predictive, not prescriptive. The most
> accurate statement would be
> 
>      An OWL 2 ontology is a formal axiomatization of a domain of
> interest.
> 
> but I can understand if you think this is too stuffy. One finds
> "formal model" in the literature (in the sense of formalism-as-model-
> of-reality), but that's dissonant with the use of "model" in model
> theory (which has the opposite sense). Elsewhere in this document you
> talk about "description", and this might work:
> 
>      An OWL 2 ontology is a formal description of a domain of interest.
> 
> > The following URI can be used to inspect the changes introduced in
> > the Syntax
> > document in order to address your comments:
> >
> >
> http://www.w3.org/2007/OWL/wiki/index.php?title=Syntax&diff=19729&oldid=19723
> >
> > Please acknowledge receipt of this email to <mailto:public-owl-
> comments@w3.org
> > >
> > (replying to this email should suffice). In your acknowledgment
> > please let us
> > know whether or not you are satisfied with the working group's
> > response to your
> > comment.
> 
> I think these editorial problems need to be fixed.
> 
> > Regards,
> > Boris Motik
> > on behalf of the W3C OWL Working Group
> >
>

Received on Monday, 23 March 2009 12:21:34 UTC