Re: proposal to close (as RESOLVED) ISSUE-90 (class and property deprecation)

Alan - with due respect, I do not believe I have any obligation to  
"bolster support" for not deleting features - see my actual argument  
in the email --
  I'm very troubled that this WG somehow thinks we know every  
implementation and project in OWL and what is in it?  How arrogant!   
What rules are we playing by?  I remind me there are a lot more  
implementations of OWL out there than the few complete reasoners  
people know about, that there are OWL projects behind firewalls,  
there are OWL projects you won't know about with an NDA, there are  
projects interacting with OWL in the enterprise.
  Let me suggest that if an open web Google search for  
"DeprecatedClass" finds 2,340 hits (as of this morning), and that  
doesn't include anything behind firewalls and such - maybe there are  
some users.
  OK. now that I've flamed and pointed out that even if I couldn't  
identify any we would still be duty bound not to change -- I actually  
do indeed know some users of this - in at least one project I know, a  
software development group in a company I worked with is using OWL to  
track software - they created subclasses of deprecatedClass that they  
use to represent software from version to version - this allows them  
to issue warnings from a code analyzer when a user has use of a piece  
of code (they have classes representing various aspects of code).
  Swoogle also finds about 180 uses, most of them from a project at  
one of the Netherlands
  I also know several DoD projects that are using OWL and do use  
this, as it was intended, for ontology developers to let other  
ontology developers know that a particular class or property is  
intended not to be used.  I believe they are (or were when I heard)  
using Protege-owl which supported these -- Oh look, here's one - top  
hit for "deprecatedClass Protege" - as of a year ago the National  
Cancer Institute Thesaurus (which I believe several of the people on  
this list claim to track) was using it -- https:// 
mailman.stanford.edu/pipermail/protege-owl/2007-January/001080.html
  Hmm, at this point I'm finding them using just Google - didn't  
anyone else feel compelled to look before asserting that there were  
no users?
  -JH


On Jan 23, 2008, at 11:49 PM, Alan Ruttenberg wrote:

>
> On Jan 23, 2008, at 10:42 PM, Jim Hendler wrote:
>
>> So for what it is worth, as usual, I have exactly the opposite  
>> opinion on this as Peter - I think we should close this by leaving  
>> deprecateion as it is -- yes it is little used, but we did have  
>> support from it from some developers in OWL 1.0
>
> Hi Jim,
>
> It would be of interest to be able to cite actual support and  
> usage. In the meeting none present could remember seeing any, which  
> is why we suggested that Peter write up the proposal (we suggested  
> his option 1 so as to not add insult to injury by having it be that  
> someone who happened to have the non-semantic use of deprecation  
> wouldn't be dunned with a push into OWL Full solely for this offense).
>
> But if you could dig up some evidence of actual use, it would  
> bolster the case that there is indeed someone who would be affected  
> by this.
>
> Regards,
>
> -Alan
>
>> , it has no semantic impact (and should continue to have none) --  
>> basically, it is a human-readable way of indicating the intent for  
>> new versions to  overwrite old.  It does no harm that I can find.   
>> The charter makes it clear that "Backwards compatibility with OWL  
>> is of great importance" and mandates that we don't add new  
>> features that break compatibility if there is any doubt of the  
>> need, I'd suggest that this implies we should also not remove any  
>> old features unless we can show real need to do so.
>>   So I propose we close Issue-90 as resolved by saying that no  
>> change is made from OWL 1.0 to OWL 1.1 to owl:DeprecatedClass and  
>> owl:DeprecatedProperty.
>> Syntax: no change
>> Semantics: no change
>> RDF mapping: no change
>> backward compatibility: maintained
>>   -JH
>>
>>
>> On Jan 23, 2008, at 2:20 PM, Peter F. Patel-Schneider wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> As I mentioned in the teleconference on 23 January 2008,  I  
>>> propose to
>>> close ISSUE-90 by deprecating deprecation.
>>>
>>> This requires the following changes:
>>>
>>> Syntax: Add a note to the Differences section saying that  
>>> deprecation of
>>>  	classes, datatypes, and properties is deprecated and is not a
>>>  	part of the functional syntax or structural specification.
>>>
>>> 	No other change.
>>>
>>> Semantics: No change.
>>>
>>> RDF Mapping: Add a new section at the (that will be much expanded  
>>> later,
>>>     	     probably) to mention that owl:DeprecatedClass and
>>>     	     owl:DeprecatedProperty are not part of OWL 1.1.
>>>
>>>    OPTION 1: Add a paragraph to Section 3 saying that triples of the
>>>  	     form x rdf:type owl:DeprecatedClass where Type(x) contains
>>>  	     owl:Class or rdfs:Datatype, or of the form x rdf:type
>>>  	     owl:DeprecatedProperty where Type(x) contains
>>>  	     owl:ObjectProperty or owl:DatatypeProperty or
>>>  	     owl:AnnotationProperty are removed
>>>
>>>    OPTION 2: No change to Section 3, which means that use of
>>>    	     owl:DeprecatedClass or owl:DeprecatedProperty is not in OWL
>>>    	     1.1.
>>>
>>> I much prefer OPTION 2.
>>>
>>>
>>> peter
>>>
>>
>> "If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research,  
>> would it?." - Albert Einstein
>>
>> Prof James Hendler				http://www.cs.rpi.edu/~hendler
>> Tetherless World Constellation Chair
>> Computer Science Dept
>> Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY 12180
>>
>>
>>
>>
>

"If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would  
it?." - Albert Einstein

Prof James Hendler				http://www.cs.rpi.edu/~hendler
Tetherless World Constellation Chair
Computer Science Dept
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY 12180