versioning in NF&R

LCC J4 mentions that versioning is good and asks for a place where users
can find out about it.  However, NF&R doesn't mention this.

I propose to add something like the following to NF&R.  If there is no
problem, I'll just go ahead and do it.

peter






2.6.3: Locating and Versioning OWL 2 Ontologies

In OWL 1 ontologies can be stored as Semantic Web documents, and
ontologies can import other ontologies.  In OWL 2 this is slightly
cleared up, making it clear that ontology importing is by location.

OWL 2 also clears up the relationship between an ontology name (IRI) and
its location and, in response to several requests, provides a simple
versioning mechanism by means of version names (IRIs).  Each OWL 2
ontology may have an ontology IRI, which is used to identify the
ontology. OWL 2 ontologies may also have version IRIs, which are used to
identify the version of the ontology.

An OWL 2 ontology should be retrievable by using its version IRI, if it
has one.  One of the OWL 2 ontologies that share an ontology IRI (the
ontology versions) should be retrievable at the ontology IRI - this
ontology is the current one of the versions.  If it doesn't matter which
of the versions is desired then importing can use the ontology IRI, but
if a particular version is desired then the version IRI is used when
importing.

Example:

The ontology 

  Ontology(:OI :VI ...)

is supposed to be retrievable from :VI.  If it is also retrievable from
:OI then it is the current version.

Received on Thursday, 14 May 2009 14:44:15 UTC