Re: [SE] Ontology Driven Architecture Note





Jim,

I understand your point and think we may well have a compromise – Ill ask
Jeff Pan to update the document to read “Semantic (Intra) Web’s”, if that’s
OK with you?

You raise another interesting and important point though. I personally know
of a good handful for applications for RDF, OWL and even SWRL that do not
directly relate to any ‘Web’, or intranet,  context, so should such
practices be discouraged from a standards perspective, or even for the sake
of preserving an absolute reference description of the Semantic Web? I
guess the only real answer is “no” given that the same could be said of
older Web technologies like HTML. Nevertheless I do think it is important
to point out somewhere that Sem Web technologies can be extremely powerful
if applied properly, and equally so in cases of misapplication.

As for your point on Sem Web use cases not incorporating RDF or OWL etc, I
think I agree but am not quite sure yet….In the Software Engineering
Workshop at ISWC, for example, we had a guy point out that the latest
version of Java is capable of consuming/using ‘metaobjects’ (forgive me for
being vague as I have not looked up the specifics yet and am just referring
to the raw concept here) and I guess that as long as such objects used URI
conventions based around some triple-based graph scheme, regardless of the
nomenclature in which they were instantiated, I can already see a potential
for the creation of some powerful ‘interfaces’ to the Sem Web world without
the use of any of its base language set – I guess my point is that if the
architecture of a use case is correct, the implementation technologies
behind it become less important (but I have never been too sure about such
philosophical matters! ;0)). I know that this is not the same as saying
that something is applicable to the Semantic Web even if it does not
contain any trace of its heritage (for example I saw a presentation at ISWC
on logic compression that I did not consider to be overly relevant), but I
do think that there are some issues here that we may have to think about.

Again your thoughts would indeed be valued.

Best Regards,

Philip Tetlow
Senior Consultant (Certified Technical Architect)
IBM Business Consulting Services

Mail: IBM United Kingdom Limited, 1175 Century Way, Thorpe Park, Colton,
Leeds, LS15 8ZB
Current Assignment: DWP BPRP (Metadata)
Mobile: +44 (0)7740 923328
Email: philip.tetlow@uk.ibm.com


                                                                           
             Jim Hendler                                                   
             <hendler@cs.umd.e                                             
             du>                                                        To 
                                       Phil Tetlow/UK/IBM@IBMGB            
             15/11/2005 02:37                                           cc 
                                       Tim Berners-Lee <timbl@w3.org>,     
                                       "best-practice list"                
                                       <public-swbp-wg@w3.org>,            
                                       danbri@s3.org                       
                                                                   Subject 
                                       Re: [SE] Ontology Driven            
                                       Architecture Note                   
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           




Phil - it wasn't the concept that bothered me -
it was the terminology - the idea of Semantic
Intra-Webs doesn't bother me, the idea of
"Semantic Webs" (with an S) is what I think we
need to avoid because it gives people the wrong
idea - for example, I saw a couple of things at
ISWC that claimed to be Semantic Web, but didn't
use RDF, OWL, any kind of URI scheme, or anything
that would allow linking into the Semantic Web...
doesn't seem to me that that is a good thing to
promote
  -JH
p.s. FWIW, I thought this note would be a good
one for SWBP, in fact better than many of the
things turned out that are sort of "ontologies
for experts" instead of "why use the Semantic
Web" -- if the SW CG does start a Sem Web
Outreach WG, then I hope this document will go
there.

At 21:00 +0000 11/14/05, Phil Tetlow wrote:
>Jim,
>
>I fully appreciate your point and indeed agree in part, but I don't
>necessarily believe that the note is as dangerous, divisive or naïve as
you
>indicate (but I am hoping you will correct me further). As the preceding
>paragraph to the section in question states "it is important to be
>pragmatic" and also mentions that the two cases presented relate to a
>"relational standpoint".
>
>This section was, in fact, included following some considered and valued
>input from Alan Rector and I personally think that it adds great value.
For
>me, it helps break down a number of barriers for many "traditional"
>practitioners who IMHO have a somewhat esoteric view of the Semantic Web
as
>a holistic reality.
>
>The main purpose of the note is to encourage take up in new communities,
>"bridge building" if you will. As such, even though, we all know this side
>of the bridge that linking "islands" of the Semantic Web will be important
>in the future, I think there is another, equally important point we should
>not forget - if the islands are not constructed in the first place, the
>idea of linking them together into higher orders of ontology is merely
>fanciful. Just because such islands choose to exist in the same
referenable
>ocean of HTTP URI space does not preclude them from being located over the
>visible horizon, nor does it suggest that they have to be quarantined from
>the rest of the world to prevent infection (please forgive my somewhat
>forceful analogy here). Furthermore, I think it is important to note that
>less experienced practitioners may well be more comfortable with island
>building, than continent construction right now.
>
>There is also a question of purpose here. This note was deliberately
>written within the Best Practices Working Group to undergo hard review
(and
>it has indeed undergone a baptism of fire so far), so what exactly do we
>mean by "Best Practice" here? Is it about the betterment of the notion of
>"a Semantic Web" as you appear to suggest, or is it more to do with the
>application of current technologies created under the Semantic Web banner?
>If the latter is more relevant, then as an industrial practitioner using
>such technologies in the field right now, the significant feedback I am
>getting from "corporate" adopters is that they have purely selfish reasons
>for adoption, wanting to address specific problems in their own specific
>domains. Hence do we want to refer to such practices using "intra-based"
>terminologies? My feeling is not for exactly the reasons you mention. Many
>users deliberately adopt global namespaces from which to build their own
>isolated understandings for good reason, and so these understandings may
>well be blended into the wider community of the Semantic Web at some point
>in the future (as indicated in the second bullet in the list). Therefore,
>at present, they are neither totally isolated nor totally integrated; they
>are merely invisible web fragments of an early and sporadic semantic
whole.
>Is this bad practice? Is this misconceived? I think not. It may not be
>pure, but it is practical and it is helping to solve a number of serious
>and significant real world problems right now; hence the need for best
>practice guidance in this area. To marginalise such types of application
>would, in my "naïve" mind, be counterproductive, but I wholeheartedly
agree
>with your opinion that it is important to send out the most appropriate
>guidance to an eagerly awaiting audience at this time. Any further advice
>you might have would indeed be appreciated, in what is undoutably a
>contentious area.
>
>I think that it is also important to reiterate that many of the
>applications of Sem Web technologies we are now seeing are less concerned
>with AI and more to do with formality of description and transformation
>potentials.
>
>Ranting over. I must apologise!  ;0)
>
>Best Regards,
>
>Philip Tetlow
>Senior Consultant (Certified Technical Architect)
>IBM Business Consulting Services
>
>Mail: IBM United Kingdom Limited, 1175 Century Way, Thorpe Park, Colton,
>Leeds, LS15 8ZB
>Current Assignment: DWP BPRP (Metadata)
>Mobile: +44 (0)7740 923328
>Email: philip.tetlow@uk.ibm.com
>
>
>
>              Jim Hendler
>              <hendler@cs.umd.e
>              du>
To
>                                        Phil Tetlow/UK/IBM@IBMGB,
>              14/11/2005 16:44          danbri@w3.org
>
cc
>                                        "best-practice list"
>                                        <public-swbp-wg@w3.org>, Tim
>                                        Berners-Lee <timbl@w3.org>
>
Subject
>                                        Re: [SE] Ontology Driven
>                                        Architecture Note
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>FWIW, I was planning to raise some objections when this went out - I
>can do it now -- basically, I think we should remove the discussion
>of "a collection of semantic webs" which is both naive and misleading
>(section 3.4 of [1]) -- rather, if you wish to refer to something
>like "Semantic intra-nets" or such I could live with that -- the
>point is this content all lives in the same exact address space (the
>http URI space) and separate documents within corporations or the
>like, may be protected by firewalls, or by lack of linking, but since
>they still participate in this same universal space (and via same
>protocols, standards, etc;) saying "Semantic Webs" is as wrong as
>referring to separate "Webs" -- the WWW has intranet/intraweb
>components which are walled-off from others, and this was crucial to
>early Web development, but it is exactly that these could eventually
>be linked to others that we have a (singular) World Wide Web, and
>conveying the idea that somehow the Sem Web is different is both
>misleading and wrong -- if someone totally foolish wanted to create
>their own, unregistered URI scheme, keep their ontologies against
>that scheme (and I guess copy the owl namespace into that space or
>else they link via owl: concepts), and make sure nothing every
>touched the rest of the Web it could be a separate Semantic Web, but
>it seems like an odd and vicious idea to do so.   Linking "islands"
>of the Semantic Web will eventually be very important to its success,
>and it is VERY important that we don't convey the idea that these
>islands are somehow separate -- if we do, then much of the Sem Web
>technology "degrades" back to the traditional, unlinkable, AI stuff,
>which is what we are trying to avoid.
>   Tim BL and I had a fight with one of the EU funders who kept trying
>to refer to multiple Semantic Webs, and seeing SWBP feed into this
>foolish misconception would not be a good thing
>   -Jim Hendler
>    AC Rep
>   MIND Lab
>
>[1] http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/BestPractices/SE/ODA/

>
>
>At 8:47 +0000 11/14/05, Phil Tetlow wrote:
>>Dan,
>>
>>How do you suggest we go about SWIG review of the ODA note?
>>
>>It can be found at http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/BestPractices/SE/ODA/

>>
>>Best Regards,
>>
>>Philip Tetlow
>>Senior Consultant (Certified Technical Architect)
>>IBM Business Consulting Services
>>
>>Mail: IBM United Kingdom Limited, 1175 Century Way, Thorpe Park, Colton,
>>Leeds, LS15 8ZB
>>Current Assignment: DWP BPRP (Metadata)
>>Mobile: +44 (0)7740 923328
>>Email: philip.tetlow@uk.ibm.com
>
>--
>Professor James Hendler                                  Director
>Joint Institute for Knowledge Discovery
301-405-2696
>UMIACS, Univ of Maryland
301-314-9734
>(Fax)
>College Park, MD 20742
>http://www.cs.umd.edu/~hendler

>(New course: http://www.cs.umd.edu/~hendler/CMSC498w/)

--
Professor James Hendler                                  Director
Joint Institute for Knowledge Discovery                        301-405-2696
UMIACS, Univ of Maryland                                       301-314-9734
(Fax)
College Park, MD 20742
http://www.cs.umd.edu/~hendler
(New course: http://www.cs.umd.edu/~hendler/CMSC498w/)

Received on Tuesday, 15 November 2005 08:57:55 UTC