Re: SPARQL DESCRIBE (Personal comments) [OK?] [objection]

On Mon, 2006-01-09 at 20:50 +0100, Jacco van Ossenbruggen wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I've made some comments on DESCRIBE [1,2]
> [1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swbp-wg/2005Dec/0103.html
> [2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swbp-wg/2005Dec/0112.html

Yes, your comments seem to be similar to arguments that
the WG considered in discussion of our issue on describe:

[[
DanC argued that the expectations around DESCRIBE are very different
from CONSTRUCT and SELECT, and hence it should be specified in a
separate query language, but others were comfortable having it in the
same language. There was some question as to whether a trivial
implementation, that always returned an empty graph, was correct. This
does seem to be as designed. Further discussion did not seem likely to
persuade anyone; we RESOLVED: to keep the DESCRIBE syntax from SPARQL
Query 10.3, over an objection from DanC, with KendallC, SteveH, and
DaveB abstaining..
]]
http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/DataAccess/ftf4.html#item14
 <- http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/DataAccess/issues#DESCRIBE

Note that in the end, we did not reach consensus.

That means that this issue will be reviewed by the W3C Director
when the WG requests advancement beyond working draft
(i.e. to Candidate Recommendation or Proposed Recommendation)
per 3.3.2 Recording and Reporting Formal Objections
http://www.w3.org/2005/10/Process-20051014/policies.html#WGArchiveMinorityViews

> It all boils down to this: I think that although the functionality of 
> DESCRIBE is useful, it does not belong the core functionality of the 
> first version of the first W3C RDF Query Language.

I have added your name to the issues list among the objections
for that review.

Meanwhile, there is a critical mass of support for this feature.

If, after reviewing the DESCRIBE item in the issues list, you can
think of any arguments that the WG hasn't considered, please let us
know and perhaps we'll reconsider.


> Note that all these comments should be taken as PERSONAL: they do NOT 
> represent any W3C working group.
> 
> Regards, Jacco

-- 
Dan Connolly, W3C http://www.w3.org/People/Connolly/
D3C2 887B 0F92 6005 C541  0875 0F91 96DE 6E52 C29E

Received on Wednesday, 11 January 2006 18:28:28 UTC