Re: [LC response] To Jonathan Rees -- a proposal for responding to Johnatan's latest comments

+1

Ivan

Boris Motik wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I have made some editorial changes to the Introduction in response to Jonathan's
> comments. I propose to respond to him by sending him the following e-mail.
> Please let me know whether this is OK with everyone.
> 
> Regards,
> 
>  Boris
> 
> -------------------------------------------------
> 
> Dear Jonathan,
> 
> Thanks for your latest comments. We have made some changes to the introduction;
> the diff showing our changes is here:
> 
> http://www.w3.org/2007/OWL/wiki/index.php?title=Syntax&diff=20157&oldid=20006
> 
> Please let us know whether this addresses your concerns.
> 
> Regards,
> Boris Motik
> on behalf of the W3C OWL Working Group
> 
> -------------------------------------------------
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: public-owl-comments-request@w3.org
> [mailto:public-owl-comments-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Jonathan Rees
> Sent: 20 March 2009 21:20
> To: Boris Motik
> Cc: public-owl-comments@w3.org
> Subject: Re: [LC response] To Jonathan Rees
> 
> 
> On Mar 18, 2009, at 4:08 PM, Boris Motik wrote:
> 
>> Dear Jonathan,
>>
>> Thank you for your comment
>>     <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-owl-comments/2009Jan/0040.html
> 
>> on the OWL 2 Web Ontology Language last call drafts.
>>
>> We indeed wanted to say that entities are one of the three syntactic  
>> categories,
>> and not IRIs. To understand why this is so, consider, for example, the
>> ObjectHasValue class expression defined in Section 8.2.3 and the  
>> accompanying
>> UML diagram shown in Figure 8. The UML association "individual" of  
>> the UML class
>> "ObjectHasValue" does not point to the UML class "IRI"; instead, it  
>> points to
>> the UML class "Individual". As shown in Figure 2, the UML class  
>> "Individual" is
>> a UML subclass of the UML class "Entity". Finally, note that the UML  
>> class
>> "Entity" in Figure 2 has the UML association "entityIRI" to the UML  
>> class "IRI".
>> Thus, the Syntax document defines OWL 2 ontologies as consisting of  
>> "entities
>> identified by IRIs", rather than "IRIs that identify entities". This  
>> view is
>> reflected in the document's introduction, as well as all the other  
>> documents.
> 
> I guess it didn't occur to me that OWL would use the words "class,"  
> "property," and "individual" at variance with the way they're  
> ordinarily used in logic, mathematics, and ordinary language, not as  
> related to the domain but merely as syntactic entities. Nor did it  
> occur to me that "identifies" would be a relation between an IRI  
> (syntactic) and an entity (syntactic), since most of the time is means  
> what you call "represent", a relation between syntactic entities and  
> domain elements.
> 
> Now that I understand all this the document makes much more sense.
> 
>> We agree with your comment about "can be thought of as primitive  
>> terms", and
>> have changed the text slightly.
> 
> The new text says:
> 
> ''Entities'', such as classes, properties, and individuals, are  
> identified by IRIs. They define the set of primitive ''terms'' of an  
> ontology and can be used to represent the basic elements of the domain  
> being described.
> 
> This still needs wordsmithing. It says that entities define terms,  
> which is nonsense. The entities (or the IRIs) *are* the terms. And  
> "the basic elements of the domain" is nonsense - the domain doesn't  
> inherently have "basic elements"; rather it is the ontology that  
> selects or defines domain elements for "representation" by entities. A  
> rewrite is needed here.
> 
>> We have also replaced "formal conceptualization" with "formal  
>> specification". We
>> would prefer not to use "conceptual model" because it contains the  
>> word "model",
>> which seems to be susceptible to misinterpretation.
> 
> The text you have is still not true, in my opinion:
> 
>      An OWL 2 ontology is a formal specification of a domain of  
> interest.
> 
> In what sense can an ontology specify a domain of interest? Ordinarily  
> ontologies are descriptive or predictive, not prescriptive. The most  
> accurate statement would be
> 
>      An OWL 2 ontology is a formal axiomatization of a domain of  
> interest.
> 
> but I can understand if you think this is too stuffy. One finds  
> "formal model" in the literature (in the sense of formalism-as-model- 
> of-reality), but that's dissonant with the use of "model" in model  
> theory (which has the opposite sense). Elsewhere in this document you  
> talk about "description", and this might work:
> 
>      An OWL 2 ontology is a formal description of a domain of interest.
> 
>> The following URI can be used to inspect the changes introduced in  
>> the Syntax
>> document in order to address your comments:
>>
>> http://www.w3.org/2007/OWL/wiki/index.php?title=Syntax&diff=19729&oldid=19723
>>
>> Please acknowledge receipt of this email to <mailto:public-owl-comments@w3.org
> 
>> (replying to this email should suffice). In your acknowledgment  
>> please let us
>> know whether or not you are satisfied with the working group's  
>> response to your
>> comment.
> 
> I think these editorial problems need to be fixed.
> 
>> Regards,
>> Boris Motik
>> on behalf of the W3C OWL Working Group
>>
> 
> 
> 
> 

-- 

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