- From: Ian Horrocks <ian.horrocks@comlab.ox.ac.uk>
- Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 13:49:55 +0000
- To: Jim Hendler <hendler@cs.rpi.edu>
- Cc: Sandro Hawke <sandro@w3.org>, Christine Golbreich <cgolbrei@gmail.com>, Ivan Herman <ivan@w3.org>, public-owl-wg@w3.org
The hope is obviously that the profiles will *encourage* OWL uptake. It may well be the case that the current set of documents don't do a good enough job of explaining what they are good for, but I'm sure that it is possible (even easy) to remedy this -- Sandro's paragraph was certainly going in the right direction, and Bijan already pointed to the relevant section in the primer. I would also like to point that, while some comments did raise questions about profiles, others (including several from industry) said that profiles were of crucial importance to them -- see, e.g., [1], [2]. I take this as being a pretty strong endorsement of profiles when one considers that comments can naturally be expected to focus on criticism rather than praise. I would also say that this whole discussion on profiles is more or less a re-run of the discussions that we had in the early days of the WG when we decided on the existing set of profiles and at the last F2F when we resolved to move profiles to last call [3]. I don't see that we have any significant new information that would justify re- opening this discussion. Ian [1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-owl-comments/2009Jan/ 0013.html [2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-owl-comments/2009Jan/ 0025.html [3] http://www.w3.org/2007/OWL/meeting/ 2008-10-24#Profiles_Document__2f__OWL_RL On 17 Feb 2009, at 06:24, Jim Hendler wrote: > My point is exactly that the folks who know about this stuff and > care about Sem Web will indeed know about the profiles (whether > note or Rec), but the greater world, who will see what beomes a Rec > (and the AC that decides what becmes a Rec), will not get so much > to try to understand in one fell swoop - so it's really about > messaging to the outside world - and I think that is very important > at this point where we're finally seeing some uptake on OWL, but it > is still fragile. > -JH > > > > On Feb 17, 2009, at 12:07 AM, Sandro Hawke wrote: > >> >>> Sandro- >>> Feel free to read the process document [1] what confusion would >>> there be with the process - the whole idea of WG and review includes >>> deciding what to move forward and what not. So I repeat I'd like to >>> NOT move profiles to CR at this time. Just as we currently are >>> discussing publishing the Manchester syntax as a note, we could >>> do the >>> same for the Profiles. Why in the world would that confuse >>> people as >>> to the process (esp. when the document is publicly available) >>> I don't think the problem is with implementation in this case, I >>> think it is with the confusion of releasing too much at the same >>> time. >>> -JH >>> [1] http://www.w3.org/2005/10/Process-20051014/tr.html#cfi >> >> Sorry, I misread and thought you were proposing leaving profiles >> *at* CR >> instead of leaving it before CR. >> >> It doesn't really change my point. My experience suggests that it's >> already too late. OWL EL and QL and RL exist. If we never publish >> another draft of Profiles (or publish it as a Note or whatever), >> they'll >> still be out there on the web, and people will still be talking and >> thinking about them. The fact that they are in a Note vs a Rec is >> not a >> distinction that matters all that much. (Of course it DOES >> matter, but >> it's a confusing difference to most folks, ... just like QL vs >> RL. My >> point is it's better to help people with the latter confusion >> instead of >> the former.) >> >> -- Sandro >> >>> >>> On Feb 16, 2009, at 8:53 PM, Sandro Hawke wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> Jim Hendler writes: >>>>> Frankly, in practice I'm finding it extremely hard to explain why >>>>> three profiles are needed, and I would again propose that we >>>>> consider >>>>> moving the other documents to CR, but hold back the profiles >>>>> document >>>>> for further work on explanations and to avoid confusion that could >>>>> lead to less adoption of DL/Full, which still seems to me to be >>>>> where >>>>> the most important OWL 2 extensions currently live. >>>> >>>> FWIW, I think it's easier (and more useful) to explain the >>>> difference >>>> between QL and RL [1] than the difference between CR and Rec >>>> [2]. It >>>> seems to me like this "hold back" strategy would leave people >>>> (rightly) >>>> confused about W3C process instead of trying to understand the >>>> differences between the profiles. >>>> >>>> -- Sandro >>>> >>>> >>>> [1] They are both ways to make queries of a database and have >>>> some OWL >>>> inferencing done to give you additional query results. With QL, >>>> the >>>> data is left as-is, and the queries are re-written to also return >>>> OWL inferences. With RL, the *queries* are left as-is, but a >>>> process is run to add more data (the OWL inferences) to the >>>> database. The choice between the two depends on which inferences >>>> you care about (some can only be implemented with one approach, >>>> some >>>> with the other), and the resource/performance demands of your >>>> application. [This is off the top of my head, trying to be clear >>>> and simple.] >>>> >>>> [After writing that, I (as a user) want a clear and simple >>>> table of >>>> which OWL features are in each, making it easy to see which >>>> are in >>>> both. That doesn't have to come from OWL-WG.] >>>> >>>> [2] A "Candidate Recommendation" (CR) is a W3C specification >>>> that is >>>> mature enough that people should try to implement it, but the W3C >>>> has not yet determined whether it has been sufficiently >>>> implemented >>>> to demonstrate that it *can* be implemented. [This is off the >>>> top of >>>> my head, trying to be simple and clear. Since I expect QL and RL >>>> to >>>> be easy to implement, I don't really see how they could >>>> legitimately >>>> be stuck in CR.] >>>> >>>> >>> >>> "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 > > > > >
Received on Tuesday, 17 February 2009 13:50:43 UTC