draft response to LC comment 56/57, TC1, Taylor Cowan

The core of the comment

http://www.w3.org/mid/875991.79598.qm@web54106.mail.re2.yahoo.com

is, I believe, fairly identical to Jan Wielemarker's comment. I have
therefore made a draft for an answer along the same lines, see

http://www.w3.org/2007/OWL/wiki/LC_Responses/TC1

and reproduced below.

Cheers

Ivan

----

Unfortunately, your comment is based on our fault in not conveying the
message clearly enough. The technical fact is that there is _no_ change
whatsoever between OWL 1 and OWL 2 in terms of the role of RDF in the
structure of OWL 2.

Both in the case of OWL 1 and OWL 2 the structure of OWL is defined via
a generic syntax (referred to as "Abstract Syntax" in OWL 1, and
"Functional Syntax" in the case of OWL 2) and there is a standard
mapping on how the abstract structure can be mapped onto RDF and back.
The two available semantics for the OWL constructs are the direct and
RDF based semantics. This overall structure has _not_ changed from OWL 1
to OWL 2. Furthermore, section 2.1 of the Conformance and Test Cases[1]
document states that the only _required_ exchange syntax among OWL 2
tools is RDF, more specifically RDF/XML. The situation has not changed
compared to OWL 1 in this respect either.

The confusion may come from two facts:

1. the OWL/XML syntax, which was published as a note[2] for OWL 1, is
now on Recommendation track (although this does not change its role in
terms of exchange syntax)
2. the RDF based syntax was not _yet_ published as a Last Call document.
This was only a matter of timing; the plan is to have both semantics
(and all other documents) published as Recommendations together.

All that being said, the Working Group recognizes that this issue may
lead to confusion, as witnessed by a number of comments that expressed
the same concerns as yours. The group will take appropriate steps in
conveying this information better by, eg, including multi-syntax formats
into the structural specification and functional-style syntax document,
or making the situation clearer in the appropriate status sections.
Details of these steps are not yet decided at this time.

[1]
http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-owl2-test-20081202/#Conformance_.28Normative.29
[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/owl-xmlsyntax/



-- 

Ivan Herman, W3C Semantic Web Activity Lead
Home: http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/
mobile: +31-641044153
PGP Key: http://www.ivan-herman.net/pgpkey.html
FOAF: http://www.ivan-herman.net/foaf.rdf