Re: Voting on a name for ssn this week in plenary

Dear all,

I have to admit that I am a frustrated and worried about the entire 
naming discussion.

To give you a brief history, when I proposed the current modularization, 
I suggested the name SSN-core [1]. This name was later changed because 
of arguments that SSN-core introduced new classes (such as Actuator) and 
thus cannot use the SSN name (at this time, we were told that nothing in 
SSN can be changed). Therefore, we changed the name to  SANDA and then 
to SOSA-core. Some time later, we were asked  to drop the 'core' part as 
it was not clear what it was a core of. So we changed to SOSA and this 
is the name we are using for the lightweight ontology for about one year 
now. SSN remained SSN for the entire time.

The name SOSA has been used in more than 600 emails, many, many wiki 
entries, github issues, w3c actions and issues, many presentation, 
figures, and so forth. For instance, trying to get implementation 
evidence, I talked to many people introducing the ideas behind and need 
for SOSA.

I would suggest, as strongly as I possibly can, not to change the names 
2 weeks before our draft is due and a few months before the end of the 
group's work. Let us use SSN as the name and prefix for SSN and SOSA as 
the name and prefix for SOSA. Everything else will cause a lot of work 
and confusion and will make it very difficult for others to track our 
work and the decisions we took over the last 18 months.

The name SOSA is important because it offers 'truth in labeling', 
something that SSN lacks (not only for the new work but also the initial 
ontology which does not really cover networks nor 'semantic' sensors). 
SOSA stands for the main parts of the lightweight ontology, namely 
Sensor, Observation, Sample, and Actuator. This is not only 
accurate,easy to remember, and intuitive, it also makes clear that this 
is a redefined version of the old SSO pattern within SSN, namely a 
lightweight vocabulary 'for the masses' . The fact that (new) SSN 
imports SOSA does not cause any trouble. SSN always had a core that did 
not share the its name. The original core was called SSO ( 
Stimulus-Sensor-Observation) and has received a lot of attention in its 
own rights. There was never a problem or complaint about SSN being based 
on SSO and SSO being able to stand on its own. It is entirely unclear to 
me why this should suddenly be a problem for SOSA and new-SSN. A fresh 
name for a new lightweight module would also lead to new attention and 
excitement (also by communities that rejected using SSN).

Please note that every name and label has its pros and cons and there 
will always be some language, community, acronym, or internet meme that 
one would hope to avoid. This is already the case for 'SSN'. Finally, 
please also note that we have introduced very substantial changes to the 
SSN.

The SOSA/SSN subgroup is in its last weeks and has tons of work to do 
and implementation evidence to collect. IMHO, the absolutely last thing 
we need is having to change all ontologies, documentations, figures, and 
all the outreach we have already done for a questionable name change.

Let us please stay with the names we used for a year now: SOSA for the 
lightweight vocabulary and SSN for the ontology that imports and greatly 
extends this vocabulary.


Thanks,
best,
Krzysztof.



[1] https://www.w3.org/2015/spatial/wiki/SSN_core_modules

On 04/03/2017 04:36 PM, Kerry Taylor wrote:
>
>  Dear SDW,
>
> As you recall, we have decided that the ssn/sosa ontologies will have 
> two separate namespaces, but not what those namespaces are. This will 
> be determined in the PLENARY meeting this week. If you cannot attend 
> the plenary, please make your opinion known by reply to this email 
> before the meeting.
>
> This issue can be separated into three:
>
> 1. STEM name
>
> Choose between
>
>                 (a) Sensor, Observation, Sample, and Actuator 
> ontology– sosa
>
>                 (b) Semantic Sensor Network ontology – ssn
>
> 2. SUFFIX name
>
> Choose between
>
>                 (a) “lite”
>
>                 (b) “simple”
>
>                 (c)  “full”
>
> 3. CONNECTOR symbol
>
> Choose between
>
>                 (a) “-“  hyphen
>
>                 (b) “_” underscore
>
>                 (c) “” nothing – juxtaposition only
>
> For example, choosing every (a) option  for 1, 2 and 3 would derive 
> “sosa-lite” and “sosa” as the suffixes for the namespace uris and also 
> the recommended namespace prefixes  for the simpler and fuller 
> ontologies respectively. Choosing 1b,2c,3c would derive “ssn“ and 
> “ssnfull”  for the simpler and fuller ontologies respectively.
>
> Please indicate your preference for each of the three questions 
> independently --- as the result will combine the preferred option from 
> each of the three questions.
>
> -Kerry
>


-- 
Krzysztof Janowicz

Geography Department, University of California, Santa Barbara
4830 Ellison Hall, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4060

Email: jano@geog.ucsb.edu
Webpage: http://geog.ucsb.edu/~jano/
Semantic Web Journal: http://www.semantic-web-journal.net