[LC response] To Marko Luther

Dear Marko,

Thank you for your comment
     <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-owl-
comments/2009Oct/0011.html>
on the OWL 2 Web Ontology Language last call drafts.

As you rightly point out, the current writing of prefix names in the examples 
of the Primer conforms to the technical specification of the OWL/XML syntax 
[1] and thus is correct. Changing the OWL/XML serialisation to require colons 
at this point would be a non-editorial change that affects implementations, so 
the Working Group has decided against this change.

However, it is true that different syntactic conventions in different 
serialisations might be a source of confusion, and we therefore have added an 
explicit remark to point out this difference in the respective section of the 
Primer. See [2] for a diff.

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.

Regards,
Markus Krötzsch
on behalf of the W3C OWL Working Group 

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/PR-owl2-xml-serialization-20090922/
[2] 
http://www.w3.org/2007/OWL/wiki/index.php?title=Primer&diff=26039&oldid=26038


On Samstag, 17. Oktober 2009, Marko Luther wrote:
> I got confused by the examples given in the PR OWL 2 Primer at
>
> <http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/PR-owl2-primer-20090922/>
>
> regarding the exact syntax for prefix names.
>
> According to the PR OWL 2 Structural Specification at
>
> <http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/PR-owl2-syntax-20090922/#IRIs>
>
> the last character should always be a colon (see also the PNAME_NS
> production in <http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/REC-rdf-sparql-query-20080115/
>
>  >). This is also the case for all examples given in Functional Style
>
> Syntax, e.g. those in
> <http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/PR-owl2-primer-20090922/#Appendix:_The_Complete_
>Sample_Ontology
>
>
> Prefix(:=<http://example.com/owl/families/>)
> Prefix(otherOnt:=<http://example.org/otherOntologies/families/>)
> Prefix(xsd:=<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#>)
> Prefix(owl:=<http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#>)
> ..
>
> However, the corresponding example in OWL/XML Syntax has the following
> entry
>
>    <Prefix name="otherOnt"
> IRI="http://example.org/otherOntologies/families/ "/>
>
> which complies with the OWL 2 XML Schema. Note that here the name of
> the prefix does not contain a colon. I would have expected the
> following:
>
>    <Prefix name="otherOnt:"
> IRI="http://example.org/otherOntologies/families/ "/>
>
> What is the correct way to specify a prefix in OWL/XML Syntax? Would
> the empty prefix be defined with name="" or name=":"?
>
> Best regards,
> Marko Luther


-- 
Markus Krötzsch
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Institute AIFB
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