Re: draft responses for four JC LC comments

On 13 May 2009, at 14:16, Michael Schneider wrote:
[snip]
>> On 13 May 2009, at 12:32, Michael Schneider wrote:
>> [snip]
>>> * Reification Comment: I'm happy with this draft. And I agree that
>>> a lot more could be said. If this should become necessary, I will
>>> be happy to volunteer to say more on this. The WG may take me as a
>>> champion for *not* (re|ab)using RDF reification as OWL's annotation
>>> vocabulary.
>>
>> I don't care one way or the other. This is a bone I'd be prepared to
>> throw them.
>>
>> Michael, as the champion, would it bug you terribly to give in on
>> this point?
>
> Yes, really! And I also do not see any need for action.
>
> Before this comment of TQ, I remember only two typical stances of  
> parties:
> Either people did not care about this topic at all, or they were
> (emotionally at least) strongly against using RDF Reification.

That's not correct. I recall, for example, at the F2F where you raise  
this, Ian, for example, being very frustrated that we could not use  
the built-in vocabulary as it was apparently intended. I also felt  
that way, though not as strongly as Ian. (I'm largely indifferent  
now, but that's a shift.)

> So the
> current state seems to be fine for all these parties.

There's no new information, for sure. But that's not the same as some  
people being made happier.

Also, as I recall, in the WG, only you were strongly (emotionally)  
against it and primarily on the ground that "RDF people don't like  
it". Not the *strongest* endorsement.

> Now, this mail by TQ is strange: It states that even at TQ there is no
> consensus on RDF reification for annotations, but at least using RDF
> reification is considered semantically problematic, but, anyway, we  
> are
> requested to change back to RDF reification. Huh?

I agree that the comment is strange. All of them are strange! I  
merely was wondering if changing (which I think has almost no real  
consequences) would bug you. I'm not sure if throwing TQ a bone is  
necessary, but if we can, great.

> The only real argument I can see here is that of "duplication of
> vocabulary", but, sorry: It's just that the localnames of the three  
> OWL-URIs
> are the same as those of the three RDF-URIs. So maybe we should  
> rename the
> terms? I would agree with this, but nothing else. But, really, I do  
> not see
> any real reason to change anything at all.

I agree that there's no technical reason. The "real" reason is that  
they want it changed :)

> My favorite argument against a change is the one Peter mentions: RDF
> Reification and OWL annotation vocabulary have different purposes.  
> So, TQ's
> argument that by default one should reuse existing vocabulary  
> simply doesn't
> apply here IMHO: there isn't any RDF vocabulary to be reused here.  
> Axiom
> annotations are a specific OWL 2 language feature, and they should be
> handled specifically by OWL; we shouldn't try to find "similar  
> looking" URIs
> from other vocabularies, just because there are any around.  
> Otherwise, I
> propose to change owl:hasValue to rdf:value. :-]

I think this is six of one, half a dozen of the other. Sure, you can  
make this case, but meh. This is a camel we're making. That  
infelicity doesn't bother me. And it's obviously not generalizable in  
the way you suggest. So I don't think there's a huge technical  
problem in reusing that vocabulary. So if it bugs people not to use  
it, great. If it bugs people to *use* it, great. I'm wondering if it  
really bugs you enough to use it to override whatever political  
advantage we get to letting TQ have that one.

Note that many of us yielded to similar non-arguments in order to  
make progress: to wit, data and object property punning. Now, I'm not  
sure if the gain is worth it here, but it might help us with the  
*rest* of the situation if  we let them save a bit of face by giving  
in on this one. I'd really really like you to consider it seriously  
in this light, i.e., in the political. The gain might be marginal,  
but it does seem like a real game. We can at least block the  
(spurious) claim, now and in the future, that we mindlessly or  
prejudicially rejected everything they said.

In other words, accepting this little bit of relative spec crappiness  
might make the  whole boat move easier. Maybe :)

Cheers,
Bijan.

Received on Wednesday, 13 May 2009 13:52:56 UTC