- From: Luc Moreau <L.Moreau@ecs.soton.ac.uk>
- Date: Tue, 15 May 2012 16:17:00 +0100
- To: public-prov-wg@w3.org
Sorry, for the confusing message. The text currently says: An agent MAY be a particular type of entity. Instead, I am proposing that we write: An agent MAY be a particular type of entity OR ACTIVITY. Regards, Luc On 05/15/2012 04:03 PM, Luc Moreau wrote: > Hi all, > > Agents are no longer a subclass of entity. > > > The text currently says: > An agent MAY be a particular type of entity or activity. > > > Instead, I am proposing that we write: > An agent MAY be a particular type of entity or activity. > > > In other words, the proposal is that Agent and Activity are not > disjoint classes. > This offers flexibility to asserters. I don't think there has been a > strong case > for making those classes disjoint. > > Thoughts? > > Luc > > > On 04/02/2012 10:53 PM, Provenance Working Group Issue Tracker wrote: >> PROV-ISSUE-337 (agent-and-entity): agent should not be a subclass of >> entity [prov-dm] >> >> http://www.w3.org/2011/prov/track/issues/337 >> >> Raised by: Luc Moreau >> On product: prov-dm >> >> Currently, prov-dm defines agent as follows: >> >> An agent is a type of entity that bears some form of responsibility >> for an activity taking place. An agent is a particular type of >> Entity. This means that the model can be used to express provenance >> of the agents themselves. >> >> While it is nice to be able to express the provenance of agents, it >> is not obvious to me that agents should always be entities. In fact, >> they could be activities. >> >> Consider a collaboration activity, to which several agents ag1, ag2, >> ..., agn are associated. Why can't we see it as an agent too? >> activity(collaboration) >> wasAssociatedWith(collaboration,agi,contract) >> >> agent(collaboration) >> wasAttributed(nice-piece-of-work,collaboration) >> >> >> So, I would propose the following alternative definition: >> >> >> An agent is something that bears some form of responsibility for an >> activity taking place. >> >> A given agent may be a particular type of Entity or Activity. This >> means that the model can be used to express provenance of the agents >> themselves. >> >> >> Looking at prov-o, I notice that they have already defined an agent >> as subclass of owl:Thing. >> >> >> >> > -- 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
Received on Tuesday, 15 May 2012 15:17:40 UTC