Re: [Fwd: Comment on OWL 1.1] (came to webont-comment list, forwarding for archiving)

On Apr 4, 2008, at 6:22 AM, Ivan Herman wrote:

> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Comment on OWL 1.1
> Resent-Date: Fri, 04 Apr 2008 09:53:06 +0000
> Resent-From: public-webont-comments@w3.org
> Date: Thu, 03 Apr 2008 23:05:03 -0700
> From: David Poole <poole@cs.ubc.ca>
> To: public-webont-comments@w3.org
>
>
> Hi!
>
> Here are some random comments on the OWL 1.1 proposal. I am writing
> this with two roles: we are writing ontologies in OWL and we are
> writing an introductory AI textbook and want to include OWL. My main
> comments are with the second role. We want to keep it simple, but not
> oversimplify; which, as you know, is difficult.
>
> 1. Getting rid of "onProperty" is good (this is the main reason I
>    would rather use 1.1 than 1.0 in our book).

Hmm, still seems to be there - could you clarify? See http:// 
www.w3.org/2007/OWL/wiki/Mapping_to_RDF_Graphs
>
> 2. There is too much proliferation of terms. It is *much* better to
>    have just ObjectProperty and DatatypeProperty and use these
>    conjoined with the other class constructors or properties, rather
>    than duplicating virtually every class constructor. This is one
>    area where 1.1 is worse than than 1.0 for no apparent gain.

We have just resolved to do this in the recent F2F.

>    The 1.1 constructs are less expressive and more verbose than 1.0
>    constructs with no particular advantage. For example, I may want to
>    write an axiom that only depends on whether the property is
>    functional, and not care if it is an object property or a
>    functional property. In the 1.1 constructs it is a real pain to
>    do this.
>
> 3. You need to make up your mind what the elements of a class
>    are. They either should be "individuals" or "objects" (I don't care
>    which, but please be consistent), then use this terminology
>    consistently in OWL and in the documentation.
>   - If you want to use "object" then have "ObjectProperty" is a
>      property whose value is an object. But then you should have
>      "sameObject" not "sameIndividual".
>   - If you want to use "individual" then you should have
>    "IndividualProperty" is a property whose value is an individual.
>
>    At the moment you state in the http://www.w3.org/TR/owl11-syntax/
>    that "OWL 1.1 objects (ontologies, axioms, etc.)" but then
>    ObjectProperty is a property whose value is an individual. The
>    terminology should be consistent between the syntax and the
>    semantics documents and the language itself.

This is a point that I hadn't seen raised before, and is a good  
observation. We may be somewhat handicapped by backwards  
compatibility issues with the RDF vocabulary, but let's see what  
people think about the functional style syntax.

> Thanks for the work you have put into this!

And thanks for your comments! We have a new set of documents about to  
be released for public comment, and would certainly appreciate your  
feedback. I give you the wiki links below, but I expect the released  
versions to be out end of next week.

http://www.w3.org/2007/OWL/wiki/Profiles
http://www.w3.org/2007/OWL/wiki/Primer
http://www.w3.org/2007/OWL/wiki/XML_Serialization

-Alan

>
> David
>
> -- 
> David Poole,                      poole@cs.ubc.ca
> Department of Computer Science,   http://www.cs.ubc.ca/spider/poole
> University of British Columbia,   Office: +1 (604) 822-6254
> Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6T 1Z4   Fax:    +1 (604) 822-5485
>
>
>
> -- 
>
> Ivan Herman, W3C Semantic Web Activity Lead
> Home: http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/
> PGP Key: http://www.ivan-herman.net/pgpkey.html
> FOAF: http://www.ivan-herman.net/foaf.rdf

Received on Sunday, 6 April 2008 03:37:38 UTC