comment on proposed policies for vocabularies

I just read http://isegserv.itd.rl.ac.uk/VM/http-examples/ and I have a number
of concerns.

These concerns mainly center around whether it is generally possible to, "[f]or
each HTTP URI denoting an RDFS/OWL class, property or individual" there is a
general notion of "a set of RDF statements constituting the definitive RDF
description of that class, property or individual".

First, some simple concerns.  Shouldn't it be an RDFS description, at least?
How can one distinguish between (non-OWL DL) RDFS classes, properties, and
individuals to determine just what to return?

Second, an OWL class, property, or individual should have an OWL description
instead of an RDF(S) description.  (Unless, of course, you really mean to get a
projection of an OWL description onto RDF(S).)   

Third, there could be several "definitive" descriptions.  I might have one; you
might have one; George W. Bush might have one.  What makes my or your
description more definitive than the one used by George W. Bush?  I don't see
how this potential multiplicity can be resolved.

Fourth, is there any way to limit what is in the "definitive" description?
To take an extreme viewpoint, *every* use of dc:author would be part of its
"definitive" description.


I have similar concerns with "... the most relevant item of human-readable HTML
content documentation for that class, property or individual".  This is making
a *very* strong statement that relevance can be determined for each particular
request.  How can a piece of software know what I consider to be most relevant?


Note that I am *not* saying that there is nothing that can or should be done
along these lines.  It is just that the desiderata in the document are, in my
opinion, impossible to satisfy.


Peter F. Patel-Schneider
Bell Labs Research

Received on Tuesday, 15 November 2005 11:01:31 UTC