Re: ISSUE-24, ISSUE-21: Versioning language

From: Alan Ruttenberg <alanruttenberg@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: ISSUE-24, ISSUE-21: Versioning language
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2008 01:21:07 -0400

> On Jun 18, 2008, at 9:11 PM, Peter F. Patel-Schneider wrote:

[...]

> >>>> I found I had to navigate to a number of places to collect the
> >>>> information I needed to understand what the policy is. In my
> >>>> previous mail I suggested it say something direct, like:
> >>>>
> >>>> 1) Import(u) means access the ontology at u.
> >>>> 2) If the accessed ontology has an ou, optional vu that one of them
> >>>> should be u.
> >>>
> >>> Sure, but what does this have to do with current versions, particularly
> >>> with a "must" wording?
> >>
> >> In my reading I couldn't figure where it said that it wasn't cool for
> >> a tool to access the current version of an ontology instead of the
> >> specified version. I could have tried to rewrite the whole section
> >> to be simpler and more direct. Instead I chose to patch the place I
> >> though there was hole with some language that said you can't do
> >> that.
> >
> > Well, why should the document say that if you want to access the current
> > version of an ontology then you must not use the version URI?  Isn't it
> > like saying that if you want an intersection then you must not use a
> > union?

> To be clear, the case you mention above isn't the one I'm worried
> about. It's the other way around - that if your import specifies a
> version URI then it shouldn't load the latest version. 
> 
> In any case, I'm not sure how to say this any clearer: I don't see
> anything definitive that makes it clear that if you say import(u), u
> (and only u) is the document you need to access. If I'm missing this,
> then please show me the text I should read and how to interpret
> it. The current text is just not clear enough, in my view. For
> example, we still have this: 
 
> > An ontology O directly imports an ontology O' if O contains an
> > import construct whose value is the ontology URI of O'. 
 
> Does this mean that O doesn't directly import an ontology O' if O
> contains an import construct whose value is the version ontology URI
> of O', (if the version URI isn't the same as the ontology URI)? 
 
> Here's what  I see a reader having to do to figure out what should
> happen: First one reads 3.4, where it says: 
 
> > Figure 1 presents the logical view of the import relation, which
> holds between two ontologies. In concrete syntaxes, however, the
> importing ontology only contains a URI identifying the location of the
> imported ontology. This location should be interpreted as specified in
> Section 3.2 in order to access the imported ontology. 
 
> Then in 3.2
> 
> > The ontology and the version URI, if present, determine the physical location of an ontology O according to the following rules:
> >  • If O does not contain an ontology URI (and, consequently, without a version URI as well), then O may be physically located anywhere.
> >  • If O contains an ontology URI ou but no version URI, then O should be physically located at the location ou.
> >  • If O contains an ontology URI ou and a version URI vu, then O should be physically located at the location vu and may, in addition, be physically located at the location ou.
> >
> > Thus, the most recent version of an ontology series with some URI ou should be accessed from ou using a suitable (Internet) protocol. To access a particular version of ou, one must know that version's version URI vu; then, the ontology should be accessed from vu using a suitable (Internet) protocol. If the document accessed from u contains an ontology URI and optionally, if it contains a version URI, and neither is u, then the importing ontology should be considered syntactically invalid.
 
> This is better than it was when I reviewed it last, but it still has
> two different sorts of descriptions of what to do: One having to do
> with physical locations, and one having to do with access. Rather than
> coming straight out and saying, in the figure 1 caption that import(u)
> means access u, end of story, it says: "You have import(u) that
> identifies the location of the imported ontology and that location
> should be interpreted in the following way, and that if O has both an
> ou and vu than it can be located at either place, ... 
 
> I would simply like to have this all cleaned up. I don't *think* we
> disagree about what is supposed to happen but I can't tell except by
> us both reading the spec and saying "yup, it says what I understand
> should be the case". If at the end of the cleanup things are clear
> without saying "must not" anywhere that will be perfectly fine with
> me. 
> 
> -Alan

Well, sure, I would like to get this all cleaned up, but I don't think
that the recent changes are all going in the right direction.  If you
want, I would put together a proposal.

peter

Received on Friday, 20 June 2008 12:07:53 UTC