proposal for resolving deadlock

Gang:

We have been deadlocked on a number of issues, including class hierarchies,
equality, named arguments in predicates, with no end in sight.  We have
wasted a lot of time in email conversations and F2Faces and still have not
reached a solution.

We need to move on with our work, so let me reiterate in a more articulate
form what I believe is a way out of this deadlock.

1. Define BLD to include the features that make technical sense (free of
   political considerations). This should include everything that we have
   right now: equality, frames, classification, slotted terms.

   This dialect makes perfect sense not only technically but also
   pragmatically. One feature (equality) is a bit challenging to implement,
   but not insurmountable.

2. Use the profile mechanism to define the core and other dialects (if
   necessary).

   I already explained that profiles give us a simple mechanism to define
   subdialects. The dual approach advocated by some people, i.e.,
   developing an extensibility mechanism, is currently pie in-the-sky. It
   is a research issue, which is very interesting, but we have nothing
   concrete and we should not base our decisions on a **very remote** (IMO)
   possibility that a useful extensibility mechanism will become available
   in the future.

3. The CORE would be essentially a Datalog profile of BLD, plus or minus.
    - not sure if function symbols will be allowed (I think yes)
    - no equality
    - no slotted predicates/functions
    - frames? Do not know - either way is fine
    - classification: I am fine with not including it in the core
    - this minus function symbols is also probably acceptable as a core of PRD


Benefits:
   - it is technically well-founded
   - accommodates most of the preferences, which were expressed by the
     various people in this group
   - once these issues are off the table, we will be able to
      o save a lot of time
      o our telecons will become shorter
      o we will be able to accomplish much more during our face-2-faces
      o we will be able to move on and think about cool stuff like
      	extensibility, modules, OWL compatibility.
      o we will be friends again :-)

Drawbacks:
   - none that I can see


Am I too naive to think that this is acceptable to everyone?


	--michael

Received on Tuesday, 11 December 2007 19:48:02 UTC