Re: A proposal for clarifying the definitions of datatype maps, take II

It might be worth adding that this was exactly the motivation for the  
clarification/cleanup. As things stood before, the concept language  
was precisely defined in Syntax/Profiles, and Conformance simply said  
that conformant systems had to support the concept language as  
defined in those documents; in contrast the datatype language was  
relatively loosely defined (or at least allowed for some  
variability), and Conformance "fixed" this by stating that conformant  
systems must support all OWL 2 datatypes. This was clearly  
undesirable -- important parts of the language specification should  
not be "hidden" in Conformance.

The result of the clarification is that Syntax/Profiles now precisely  
define the datatype part of the language just as for the concept  
part. Conformance can thus simply say that conformant systems must  
support the language as defined in Syntax/Profiles.

Ian


On 28 Jul 2009, at 07:43, Boris Motik wrote:

> Hello,
>
> While it is true that this sentence was removed, I don't think that  
> anything has
> been lost from the normative point of view.
>
> The Syntax document now defines in Section 4 the OWL 2 datatype map  
> as a fixed
> set of datatypes; then, in Section 5 it says that people can use  
> these datatypes
> in OWL 2 ontologies. Datatypes are now just like any other  
> construct: they are a
> fixed part of the language. Saying something like "an OWL 2 tool  
> must support
> all OWL 2 datatypes" is thus tantamount to saying "an OWL 2 tool  
> must support
> all OWL 2 class constructors".
>
> The sentence you refer to has been introduced because things have  
> not been like
> this earlier: the set of datatypes was not fixed and we initially  
> allowed for a
> pick-and-mix approach. Since this is now completely gone from all  
> parts of the
> Syntax document (as well as the other documents), I really don't  
> think anything
> special needs to be said about the support for datatypes: they need  
> to be
> supported in their entirety just like any other part of the language.
>
> Regards,
>
> 	Boris
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: public-owl-wg-request@w3.org [mailto:public-owl-wg- 
>> request@w3.org] On
>> Behalf Of Alan Ruttenberg
>> Sent: 28 July 2009 04:30
>> To: Ian Horrocks
>> Cc: OWL 1.1; Boris Motik
>> Subject: Re: A proposal for clarifying the definitions of datatype  
>> maps, take
>> II
>>
>> I may have missed something, however it appears that these changes,
>> while clarifying the meaning of the datatypes in the OWL 2 Datatype
>> map, also remove a strong constraint - namely that OWL 2 DL tools  
>> MUST
>> support all the types in that datatype map.
>>
>> In particular:
>>
>> "OWL 2 tools <em title="MUST in RFC 2119 context"
>> class="RFC2119">MUST</em> support the OWL 2 datatype map described in
>> the rest of this section. "
>>
>> has been removed.
>>
>> I don't believe that Boris' original note suggested this would be  
>> the case.
>>
>> I'd appreciate some clarification on this matter.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Alan
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Jul 26, 2009 at 4:52 PM, Ian
>> Horrocks<ian.horrocks@comlab.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
>>> As you will recall, the WG approved Boris's proposal during the  
>>> 1st July
>>> teleconf [1]. Completing the necessary work has taken a while --  
>>> entirely my
>>> fault for being slow to do the necessary work on Conformance.
>>>
>>> To summarise, Boris has clarified the definition of datatypes and  
>>> the OWL
>>> datatype map in Syntax. As a result, Conformance no longer needs  
>>> to specify
>>> constraints on datatypes and the datatype map (e.g., that  
>>> conformant tools
>>> must use the OWL 2 datatype map) -- the datatypes that can occur in
>>> (profile) documents and that must be supported by (profile) tools  
>>> are now
>>> explicitly defined in Syntax and Profiles. The relevant diffs are:
>>>
>>>
>> http://www.w3.org/2007/OWL/wiki/index.php? 
>> title=Syntax&diff=24783&oldid=24704
>>>
>> http://www.w3.org/2007/OWL/wiki/index.php? 
>> title=Syntax&diff=24850&oldid=24798
>>>
>> http://www.w3.org/2007/OWL/wiki/index.php? 
>> title=Conformance&diff=24942&oldid=2
>> 4877
>>>
>>> Please let us know ASAP if you have any comments w.r.t. these  
>>> changes.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Ian
>>>
>>> [1] http://www.w3.org/2007/OWL/meeting/2009-07-01#resolution_2
>>>
>>>
>>> On 29 Jun 2009, at 14:33, Boris Motik wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hello,
>>>>
>>>> In April I've sent around the following e-mail, in which I've  
>>>> proposed to
>>>> clarify certain definitions surrounding datatype maps:
>>>>
>>>> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-owl-wg/2009Apr/0454.html
>>>>
>>>> Please refer to my original e-mail for the details; in short,  
>>>> the idea is
>>>> to
>>>> remove certain discrepancies between Conformance and the rest of  
>>>> the
>>>> documents,
>>>> with Conformance being taken as a guideline.
>>>>
>>>> I haven't pushed this forward earlier because we were getting  
>>>> ready to go
>>>> into
>>>> CR. Since we've successfully reached that milestone, now seems  
>>>> like a
>>>> perfect
>>>> time for improving the spec. Therefore, unless someone objects,  
>>>> I would
>>>> make a
>>>> few editorial changes to the spec and inform the WG of the outcome.
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>>
>>>>        Boris
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>
>

Received on Tuesday, 28 July 2009 10:10:26 UTC