Re: proposed second reply to Jeremy's comment about named graphs

Peter,

I think this is a fair and concise summary of the debate; +1 from me. 
BTW I just raised an issue to track this comment (ISSUE--142).

Editorial suggestions:
- start with a "thank you" sentence
- end with something like "Please let us know whether you can live with 
this approach."
- pls use issue number in the subject for archiving

Guus


On 11-09-13 22:28, Peter Patel-Schneider wrote:
>
> Dear Jeremy:
>
> This is a second official response to your comment about named graphs in
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rdf-comments/2013Jul/0021.html and
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rdf-comments/2013Sep/0005.html
>
>
> The RDF Working Group believes that there are several ways in which RDF
> graphs and datasets are and will be used.  These include ways that fit into
> your use cases, where the graph names denote the graph they name or some
> other formal graph-related construct and where you would indeed say
> something like
>
> jjc:graph {
>    jjc:graph dc:creator "Jeremy J. Carroll" .
> }
>
> However, there are also ways that do not fit into your use cases, for
> example where the graph names are IRIs that denote some other entity, such
> as
>
> jjc:jjc {
>    jjc:jjc rdf:type foaf:Person .
>    jjc:jjc foaf:lastName "Carroll" .
>    jjc:jjc foaf:knows jjc:pfps .
> }
>
> If the RDF semantics required that all graph names denote graph-related
> constructs this would interfere with these other use cases.  Therefore
> the RDF
> Working Group decided to not so require.
>
> Further the RDF Working Group was unable to agree on even a weak theory of
> named RDF graphs, such as one conditioned on explicit typing.  Even the
> nature of what graph names might denote was problematic: does the name of an
> RDF graph denote the graph itself, does it denote some other construct that
> is related to the graph, or does it even denote the semantic meaning of the
> graph?
>
> Therefore the working group has produced a very minimal specification for
> RDF datasets and named graphs that does not depend on denotation.
>
> This approach produces maximally compatability, but does not produce
> inferences that might be desirable in some use cases.  If you do want
> certain inferences to be part of your approach, such as the first example
> above entailing
>    jjc:graph rdf:type jjc:Graph.
> you can define and implement a particular RDF entailment regime that
> sanctions these inferences.
>
> The RDF Working Group believes that this minimal approach will allow
> different approaches to named graphs to coexist some allowing what you want
> and others incompatible with what you want.  The flourishing approaches can
> then be considered for standardization at a later time.
>
>

Received on Wednesday, 11 September 2013 20:57:03 UTC