- From: Michael Schneider <schneid@fzi.de>
- Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2007 18:14:37 +0100
- To: "Jim Hendler" <hendler@cs.rpi.edu>
- Cc: "Owl Dev" <public-owl-dev@w3.org>, <boris.motik@comlab.ox.ac.uk>, <pfps@research.bell-labs.com>, <ian.horrocks@comlab.ox.ac.uk>, <dlm@ksl.stanford.edu>, <hans.teijgeler@quicknet.nl>, "Alan Ruttenberg" <alanruttenberg@gmail.com>
Hi Jim! I'm interested: In all those OWL ontologies which use 'rdfs:Class' instead of 'owl:Class', do you remember whether these ontologies also use 'rdfs:Resource' instead of 'owl:Thing'? If these ontologies were created mostly by people having an strong RDF(S) background, it would look natural to me when these people use 'rdfs:Resource' to specify the set of all individuals. And, btw., this would also be consistent with OWL-Full semantics, because in OWL-Full the class 'owl:Thing' is identified with the class 'rdfs:Resource' according to http://www.w3.org/TR/owl-semantics/rdfs.html#5.3 "IOT = R_I" Regards, Michael >-----Original Message----- >From: Jim Hendler [mailto:hendler@cs.rpi.edu] >Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2007 3:46 PM >To: Michael Schneider >Cc: Owl Dev; boris.motik@comlab.ox.ac.uk; >pfps@research.bell-labs.com; ian.horrocks@comlab.ox.ac.uk; >dlm@ksl.stanford.edu; hans.teijgeler@quicknet.nl; Alan Ruttenberg >Subject: Re: [OWLWG-COMMENT] ISSUE-55 (owl:class) > >Mike - this is what I was responding to - while I think >recommending everyone use owl:class is fine, and we >essentially did it in OWL 1.0, the point is lots of people are >using rdfs:class in a lot of large ontologies - OWL tools >generally seem happy with this (making the change or reporting >something to the user), however, there isn't a great deal of >effort that I can see being made on the part of, for example, >the FOAF community, to change to owl:class, and I don't see >the motivation for them to do so, since they are in OWL Full >anyway. I believe most rdfs users would see little >difference if they used OWL class, with the exception that in >some cases it would mean bringing in the OWL namespace, and in >other cases it would mean a lot of cleanup or reverse >engineering w/o a lot of perceived gain. > Your second suggestion (that OWL tools just make the fix) is >okay by me, and actually I think it is the status quo, but >doesn't really fix the problem for the user starting to create >a new model - there's still confusion as to which to use. >What I hoped in this issue was that we could find a way to >make owl:class owl:equivalentTo rdfs:class, but wishing for >that didn't make it so, and the semantics of OWL DL 1.1 seem >to make it impossible to go there. > So while it's great that OWL tools could be able to handle >rdfs:class, although Peter and Carsten seem to disagree (which >I think is what you and Alan are trying to fix), I was just >wishing there was a way to make it all come together - the >rifts between OWL DL and OWL Full, and between RDFS and OWL, >seem to me to cause a lot of confusion in new users - I meet >way too many people who think they "have to" use one thing or >another, often for a wrong reason, and anywhere there is >confusion in these things it means we increase a learning >curve and lose some potential users > -JH >p.s. I should be clear I am not actually making a technical >point here, I'm just bemoaning a state of the world. -- Dipl.-Inform. Michael Schneider FZI Forschungszentrum Informatik Karlsruhe Abtl. Information Process Engineering (IPE) Tel : +49-721-9654-726 Fax : +49-721-9654-727 Email: Michael.Schneider@fzi.de Web : http://www.fzi.de/ipe/eng/mitarbeiter.php?id=555 FZI Forschungszentrum Informatik an der Universität Karlsruhe Haid-und-Neu-Str. 10-14, D-76131 Karlsruhe Tel.: +49-721-9654-0, Fax: +49-721-9654-959 Stiftung des bürgerlichen Rechts Az: 14-0563.1 Regierungspräsidium Karlsruhe Vorstand: Rüdiger Dillmann, Michael Flor, Jivka Ovtcharova, Rudi Studer Vorsitzender des Kuratoriums: Ministerialdirigent Günther Leßnerkraus
Received on Tuesday, 11 December 2007 17:14:50 UTC