Occurrences of "OWL 2 Full" in our documents

Hi all! 

Here is a sort of "Last Call". :) It's very late in the day, I know, but this is a last attempt to cope with the current "OWL (2) Full" naming situation. I'm still unhappy with it, and I am probably not the only one (see below).


Summary:
--------

I will propose a set of renamings that will reduce the number of occurrences of the term "OWL 2 Full" to a minimum in our documents, while at the same time will clarify things considerably and, I believe, will have the chance to satisfy all parties (inside and outside the WG) under the existing constraints. I also believe that it will give us, the WG, a stronger position in the next LC round (and afterwards), if further criticism arises. The implementation of the proposal can be performed rapidly, so there will be no risk for our publication schedule.


Some Background:
----------------

I recently saw Ian moan:

<http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-owl-wg/2009Apr/0089.html>
[[
I have updated the document to mention both 
OWL 2 datatype maps (as defined in SS&FS) 
and OWL 2 Full datatype maps (as defined in R-BS)
[...]
It is slightly unfortunate that this means more use 
of "Full" -- I wonder if OWL 2 Full datatype maps 
shouldn't have been called OWL 2 RDF-Based datatype 
maps, but that is another issue.
]]

And Ivan had a point when reviewing the RDF-Based Semantics, and apparently wasn't really perfectly happy with my answer:

<http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-owl-wg/2009Mar/0555.html>
[[
Michael Schneider wrote:
>
> Ivan Herman wrote:
>>
>> - there are some places where you refer to 
>> 'OWL 2 Full Interpretation/Satisfaction/Entailement'). 
>> Strictly speaking, this may not be 100% o.k.,
>
> I called them this way, because you will find 
> the analog names ("OWL Full XXX") in 
> Section 5.3 ("OWL Full") of the SAS:
>
>   <http://www.w3.org/TR/owl-semantics/rdfs.html#5.3>
>
True. But one of the discussion items we had in the 
past few days was based on the recognition that there 
was some sloppiness there...
]]

And I alway was (and am) disgusted by the current terminological chaos in the RDF-Based semantics document. There is a mixup of uses of "RDF-Based" and "OWL 2 Full", where "OWL 2 Full" is often used in a context when only the semantics is meant. There are actually more than 100 uses of "OWL 2 Full", but it never becomes clear what this "OWL 2 Full" is, and why it is used in the respective place.

Now, I'm really eager to make all of us happy(er)! :)

So let's see what I believe we can settle on, or what we already have settled on in the past:


Uses of "OWL 2 Full" that seem to be accepted
---------------------------------------------

(1) There are "OWL 2 Full ontology documents", as defined in the Conformance document [1]. This term has been used in that document for a long while now, and I don't remember that it has ever been put strongly in question.

(2) After some longish discussions, we seem to have settled on "OWL 2 Full" meaning the combination "RDF-Based Semantics + RDF Syntax", as it was (most probably) be meant in OWL 1 (although never precisely stated there). We have claimed this in a response to an LC comment [2], and it is actually said so in the Document Overview [3].

(3) The RDF-Based Semantics document introduces the term "OWL 2 Full ontology" [4] as a synonym for "RDF graph". It seems to me that this is fine (and straight forward), since we also use the term "OWL 2 Full ontology document" (see item (1)), which refers to a concrete RDF serialization, though.

If we agree that these uses of "OWL 2 Full [xxx]" are fine, then I am making the following proposals:


Concrete Proposal
-----------------

(A) Terms like "OWL 2 Full interpretation" and "OWL 2 Full datatype map", etc. (see the complete list below), are renamed into "OWL 2 RDF-Based interpretation" and "OWL 2 RDF-Based datatype map", respectively, since they all relate to the semantics only.

(B) Specifically, the term "OWL 2 Full vocabulary" [5] is renamed into "OWL 2 vocabulary". This is fine, since the RDF vocabulary terms are used in the RDF mapping as well, so they is not specific to the OWL 2 RDF-Based Semantics. I have only named it "OWL 2 /Full/ vocabulary" for naming consistency reasons. With proposal (A), these reasons will be removed.

(C) The name "OWL 2 Full" will be used in exactly one normative context in the RDF-Based Semantics, but is introduced as a terminological convention: In Section 2.1, which is about Syntax (RDF Graphs, aka "OWL 2 Full ontologies"), in the paragraph that sais what an "OWL 2 Full ontology" is ("A word on nomenclature") [6]. There, it will be said what "OWL 2 Full" is (according to Item (2) above).

(D) The (informative) "Introduction" section will also use the word "OWL 2 Full" exactly once, when it talks about Section 2.1 [7]. So, it's effectively the same use as in (C), but in a somewhat more prominent position.

(E) The "Changes from OWL 1 RDF-Compatible Semantics" section [8] concerning the new naming conventions will say a few words about the changes. This will primarily explain why a formerly "OWL Full interpretation" is now an "OWL 2 RDF-Based Interpretation": Because it makes sense and clarifies things. It will also be mentioned that the old spec was pretty vague in what "OWL Full" meant, and that this has now be clarified.


Discussion
----------

This set of proposals will reduce the number of "OWL 2 Full" occurrences from more than 100 to exactly 4 in the RDF-Based Semantics, and all of them essentially in the same context. Further, in the Conformance document, there will at least be no "OWL 2 Full datatype map" anymore. 

No one can accuse us then that we try to somehow circumvent the use of "OWL 2 Full", or make it fuzzy, or whatever. It's just that the RDF-Based Semantics document most of the time talks about, well, semantics, hence the rare use of the name. But there *IS* one place where it explicitly sais what "OWL 2 Full" is, and this will (must) satisfy people.

The only problem that might occur in LC is that there are people insisting on the reuse of the legacy terms such as "OWL 2 Full entailment". But we can answer that there was a tradeoff between clarity and legacy (enforced by LC1 !), and we decided for clarity, since our job is to write a spec. I would even offer to take such an LC response up to myself! :)


Complete list of renamings in the RDF-Based Semantics:
------------------------------------------------------

* "OWL 2 Full ontology": NO CHANGE!
* "OWL 2 Full vocabulary" --> "OWL 2 vocabulary"
* "OWL 2 Full datatype map" --> "OWL 2 RDF-Based datatype map"
* "OWL 2 Full interpretation" --> "OWL 2 RDF-Based interpretation"
* "OWL 2 Full (satisfaction|satisfies)" --> "OWL 2 RDF-Based (satisfaction|satisfies)"
* "OWL 2 Full (consistency|consistent)" --> "OWL 2 RDF-Based (concistency|consistent)"
* "OWL 2 Full (entailment|entails)" --> "OWL 2 RDF-Based (entailment|entails)"
* "OWL 2 Full semantic conditions" --> "OWL 2 RDF-Based semantic conditions"


(Potentially) Other Affected Documents:
---------------------------------------

* Document Overview: NO CHANGE, AFAICS! :) The only occurrence of "OWL 2 Full" in Section 2.3 will just fit my proposal.

* Conformance:
** No change concerning "OWL 2 Full ontology document".
** Rename "OWL 2 Full datatype map" to "OWL 2 RDF-Based Datatype Map". Then, the OWL 2 XXXXX Datatype Map corresponds to the OWL 2 XXXXX Semantics, which is fine.
** Somewhat unclear about "OWL 2 Full entailment checker", since this term is never used in the RDF-Based Semantics. My first idea was to rename it, since it is about entailment checking, i.e. is semantics related. However, then the other checkers would consequently also need to be renamed, and this would lead to three "different" "OWL 2 Direct entailment checkers" (for DL, EL, QL), and another "OWL 2 RDF-Based entailment checker" (RL). Also, there is also a direct correspondence between an OWL 2 XX entailment checker and an OWL 2 XX ontology document. This looks quite useful to me. So I suggest to keep the name as it is.

* NF&R: Looks to me that nothing has to be done there. There is only a reference to "OWL 1 Full", and this looks harmless to me [FIXME].

* Primer: I can see treatment of "OWL (2) Full", but I'm not yet familiar with the Primer, and we still have some time for it, so lets defer the treatment to later times.

* No other document talks about OWL (2) Full.


Estimated Effort: 
-----------------

All changes are technically easy to perform (renamings, and a little bit of explanation in the RDF-Based Semantics). I think that the changes to the RDF-Based Semantics will take me about 2 hours. The effort for Conformance will take hardly 15 minutes. Even less for NF&R, if any. So there will not be any risk for our publication schedule.


References
----------

[1] <http://www.w3.org/2007/OWL/wiki/index.php?title=Conformance_and_Test_Cases&oldid=21446#Syntactic_Conformance>
[2] <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-owl-comments/2009Mar/0077.html>
[3] <http://www.w3.org/2007/OWL/wiki/index.php?title=Document_Overview&oldid=21428#Semantics>
[4] <http://www.w3.org/2007/OWL/wiki/index.php?title=RDF-Based_Semantics&oldid=21711#topic-ont-ontology>
[5] <http://www.w3.org/2007/OWL/wiki/index.php?title=RDF-Based_Semantics&oldid=21711#Vocabulary_Terms>
[6] <http://www.w3.org/2007/OWL/wiki/index.php?title=RDF-Based_Semantics&oldid=21711#topic-ont-ontology>
[7] <http://www.w3.org/2007/OWL/wiki/index.php?title=RDF-Based_Semantics&oldid=21711#topic-intro-ontologies>
[8] <http://www.w3.org/2007/OWL/wiki/index.php?title=RDF-Based_Semantics&oldid=21711#Appendix:_Changes_from_the_OWL_1_RDF-Compatible_Semantics_.28Informative.29>


Please let me know (soon!) what you think of this proposal!

Regards,
Michael

--
Dipl.-Inform. Michael Schneider
Research Scientist, Dept. Information Process Engineering (IPE)
Tel  : +49-721-9654-726
Fax  : +49-721-9654-727
Email: michael.schneider@fzi.de
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