Re: PROV-ISSUE-117 (general-comments-on-formal-model-document): General Comments On Ontology Document [Formal Model]

Hi Tim,
It can be closed, thanks,
Luc

On 04/16/2012 02:23 PM, Timothy Lebo wrote:
> Luc,
>
> The current PROV-O HTML document has de-emphasized the extensibility 
> discussions.
>
> Is it satisfactory to close this issue? If not, what concern remains?
>
> Thanks,
> Tim
>
> On Mar 5, 2012, at 11:43 AM, Luc Moreau wrote:
>
>> Hi Daniel,
>>
>> I am aware the html document is being designed.
>> The spirit of this issue still holds, though.  I think we shouldn't close
>> it just now, but only after we have seen the next provo html draft.
>>
>> Luc
>>
>> On 05/03/2012 16:33, Daniel Garijo wrote:
>>> Hi Luc,
>>> the ontology document is being reestructured (Khalid just sent an 
>>> email with the proposed
>>> structure of the html), and the possible extensions have been 
>>> separated in a best practices document.
>>>
>>> Can we close this issue?
>>> Thanks,
>>> Daniel
>>>
>>> 2011/10/6 Provenance Working Group Issue Tracker 
>>> <sysbot+tracker@w3.org <mailto:sysbot%2Btracker@w3.org>>
>>>
>>>
>>>     PROV-ISSUE-117 (general-comments-on-formal-model-document):
>>>     General Comments On Ontology Document [Formal Model]
>>>
>>>     http://www.w3.org/2011/prov/track/issues/117
>>>
>>>     Raised by: Luc Moreau
>>>     On product: Formal Model
>>>
>>>
>>>     Comments about the document
>>>     ---------------------------
>>>
>>>     Assuming the ontology issues described above are solved, then
>>>     there is the question
>>>     of how the specification document should present the ontology.
>>>
>>>     My *key* concern is that the document's motivation is *not aligned*
>>>     with the charter.
>>>
>>>     The ontology document says:
>>>
>>>     - This ontology specification provides the foundation for
>>>      implementation of provenance applications
>>>     - The PROV ontology classes and properties are defined such that
>>>     they
>>>      can be specialized for modeling application-specific provenance
>>>      information
>>>     - The PROV ontology is specialized to create domain-specific
>>>      provenance ontologies that model the provenance information
>>>     specific
>>>      to different applications.
>>>     - The PROV ontology consists of a set of classes, properties, and
>>>      restrictions that can be used to represent provenance information.
>>>     - The PROV Ontology is conceived as a reference ontology that can be
>>>      extended by various domain-specific applications to model the
>>>      required set of provenance terms
>>>
>>>     But the charter says:
>>>     - The idea that a single way of representing and collecting
>>>     provenance
>>>      could be adopted internally by all systems does not seem to be
>>>      realistic today.
>>>     - A pragmatic approach is to consider a core provenance language
>>>     with
>>>      an extension mechanisms that allow any provenance model to be
>>>      translated into such a lingua franca and exchanged between systems.
>>>     - Heterogeneous systems can then export their provenance into such a
>>>      core language, and applications that need to make sense of
>>>      provenance in heterogeneous systems can then import it and reason
>>>      over it.
>>>
>>>     So, it seems that there is a mismatch in motivation.  The
>>>     standardization effort is about *exchanging provenance information*
>>>     and not on how to represent it internally into systems.
>>>
>>>     Section "4. Specializing Provenance Ontology for Domain-specific
>>>     Provenance Applications" provides examples of how to specializa the
>>>     ontology for specific applications. Are we saying this is normative?
>>>     Is it the only way do it? My view is that this is purely
>>>     illustrative
>>>     and non normative.  The document should make this clear.
>>>
>>>     I would even suggest that it needs to be presented differently. The
>>>     focus should not be on how to specialize the ontology. Instead, it
>>>     should demonstrate how applications, with specialized
>>>     ontologies, can
>>>     still interoperate.
>>>
>>>     I thought that coming up with a series of normative MUST/SHOULD
>>>     requirements would have been useful to establish interoperability
>>>     criteria.  What should we see in the RDF serialization to ensure
>>>     serializability?
>>>     e.g. prov:Agent/Entity/ProcessExecution must be explicitly
>>>     visible ...
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>

-- 
Professor Luc Moreau
Electronics and Computer Science   tel:   +44 23 8059 4487
University of Southampton          fax:   +44 23 8059 2865
Southampton SO17 1BJ               email: l.moreau@ecs.soton.ac.uk
United Kingdom                     http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~lavm