Re: [OWLWG-COMMENT] Example why current RDF mapping for QCRs might hurt OWL-1.1-Full

On Dec 17, 2007, at 1:55 PM, Jim Hendler wrote:

> Matthew, I agree -
> I don't have any objection to QCRs, and agree w/you that it is the  
> ecnoding we should fix
>
> <flame on - but not at Matthew>

In the very first telecon we discussed "tone" in the group and  
flaming was supposed to be strenuously avoid. Might I suggest waiting  
a day before sending a flame, esp. as it's clear that this wasn't in  
the heat (evidenced by the "<flame on" bit).

> -but  I note also that there are many widely used KR features lefts  
> out of OWL because the WG either does not have consensus on how to  
> define, or apparently, now things are left out if they aren't  
> decidable in OWL DL (I note the most used OWL feature of any  
> ontology to date, the inversefunctional email sha-sum of FOAF,  
> would not have been accepted under this rule)

Actually, that's not true on several fronts. To mention just a two:  
1) IFDP are decidable, just  not particularly implementable in the  
general case and 2) the WG decided at the F2F to explore "easy keys"  
to address exactly the foaf sort of case:
	http://www.w3.org/2007/OWL/wiki/F2F1_Minutes#Datatypes

A fuller presentation of the proposal:
	http://code.google.com/p/owl1-1/wiki/EasyKeyProposal

Long thread about it on public-owl-dev:
	http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-owl-dev/2007JulSep/0211.html

BTW, not being able to attend the F2F or telecons does not relieve  
you of the duty to review the minutes. That is, of course, a major  
reason for keeping them.

> -- there are lots of such examples Part/whole being the obvious -  
> it is used in the gene and OBO ontologies, and in most of the  
> scientific ontologies I've seen for physics, astronomy, and geology  
> - but the OWL 1.0 WG punted on it and the OWL 1.1 hasn't even  
> considered it.

Complex role inclusions were included precisely to provide better  
support for partonomic relations...which follows in the general OWL  
style of not building in explicit partonomy support, but to provide  
the building blocks for it. Partonomy is a tricky area (there are  
many part-whole relations and ways of modeling with them). I've not  
heard the glimmer of a proposal for some more specific built-in support.

>  I'd like to see the WG being a bit more consistent with respect to  
> deciding what will and will not be used.  I see the current 1.1  
> design as something of a hodgepodge,

I have no idea why you would think that...almost every feature is a  
natural generalization of existing features. (QCRs, negative  
assertions, property disjointness, etc. etc. etc.)

> with KR considerations being far more weighted than other issues -  
> decidability has become a requirement (without any rewrite of the  
> requirements document that I ca find)
[snip]

I would say that lack of consensus (or even major support) within the  
group and strong lack of support from implementors are driving this.  
As such, it doesn't need formal documentation. If you can't win  
support for a feature, you can't. I face this on several features  
I've championed (e.g., rich annotations, mustUnderstand, n-ary  
datatype predicates, punning).

Cheers,
Bijan.

Received on Monday, 17 December 2007 15:12:09 UTC