Re: Fwd: stability of foaf:Organization

Resending from my main account; apologies for duplicates.

BTW I should also mention that the new DC classes will be amongst those 
we map to, as they stabilise.

cheers,

Dan

> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: "Dan Brickley" <danbrickley@gmail.com>
> To: "Shadi Abou-Zahra" <shadi@w3.org>
> Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2007 09:57:55 +0000
> Subject: Re: stability of foaf:Organization
> OK, let's do this the simple way.
> 
> I believe, in practical terms, both these classes are stable, and that
> the spec should be updated to reflect this.
> 
> The current spec description of Agent says:
> {{{
> Class: foaf:Agent
> Agent - An agent (eg. person, group, software or physical artifact).
> Status:         unstable
> in-range-of:    foaf:maker foaf:member
> in-domain-of:   foaf:mbox foaf:mbox_sha1sum foaf:gender foaf:jabberID
> foaf:aimChatID foaf:icqChatID foaf:yahooChatID foaf:msnChatID
> foaf:weblog foaf:tipjar foaf:made foaf:holdsAccount foaf:birthday
> 
> The foaf:Agent class is the class of agents; things that do stuff. A
> well known sub-class is foaf:Person, representing people. Other kinds
> of agents include foaf:Organization and foaf:Group.
> 
> The foaf:Agent class is useful in a few places in FOAF where
> foaf:Person would have been overly specific. For example, the IM chat
> ID properties such as jabberID are typically associated with people,
> but sometimes belong to software bots.
> }}}
> 
> Note that each term described in the FOAF spec has its formal aspects
> (label, comment, range, domain details etc) as well as typically a few
> sentences of accompanying XHTML. By declaring something "stable" we
> are not freezing all of this in ice for eternity. But we do signal an
> intent that any subsequent change to the class or property definitions
> would have to be very well motivated, very widely aggreed, etc.
> 
> In the case of Agent, the more formal data is as follows:
> 
>  <rdfs:Class rdf:about="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/Agent"
> vs:term_status="unstable" rdfs:label="Agent" rdfs:comment="An agent
> (eg. person, group, software or physical artifact).">
>    <rdf:type rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#Class"/>
>    <rdfs:subClassOf><owl:Class
> rdf:about="http://xmlns.com/wordnet/1.6/Agent-3"/></rdfs:subClassOf>
>    <owl:disjointWith rdf:resource="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/Document"/>
>  </rdfs:Class>
> 
> I am happy amending vs:term_status to "stable". The same with
> Organization, see http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/#term_Organization
> 
> {{{
> Class: foaf:Organization
> Organization - An organization.
> Status:         unstable
> 
> The foaf:Organization class represents a kind of foaf:Agent
> corresponding to social instititutions such as companies, societies
> etc.
> }}}
> 
> 
> There is a "health warning" note on Organization, which I added in
> recognition that there was apparent scope-overlap between Organization
> and Group. It reads as follows:
> 
> {{{
> This is a more 'solid' class than foaf:Group, which allows for more
> ad-hoc collections of individuals. These terms are rather roughly
> defined, and further work is needed to clearly specify their
> inter-relationships.
> }}}
> 
> I propose to integrate this into the description of Organization as 
> follows:
> 
> Edit to say
> 
> """This is a more 'solid' class than foaf:Group, which allows for more
> ad-hoc collections of individuals. These terms, like the corresponding
> natural language concepts, have some overlap, but different emphasis.
> """
> 
> We can flesh this out in the wiki if needed. Both concepts are useful,
> both have been used, and no huge problems emerged for us by having
> both. So let's move things along...
> 
> One other point: in the RDFS, we use a version of Wordnet to annotate
> the classes by reference to a class hierarchy derrived from natural
> language. That particular namespace is currently offline, but will be
> restored. I should also note that we can add in other such
> relationships to classes (eg. to vcard work) at a later date. Being
> "stable" shouldn't restrict us from the ability to clarify and improve
> the description of how our terms relate to those used by others.
> Rather, it is a way of stating that we think usage practices and
> intended meaning have settled down...
> 
> So, in that light - if there are no objections posted as followups in
> this thread, within a week, I'll go ahead and change the status of
> Agent and Organization to "stable".
> 
> cheers,
> 
> Dan
> 
> 
> 
> On 26/02/07, Shadi Abou-Zahra <shadi@w3.org> wrote:
>> Hi Phil, Danbri,
>>
>> Both foaf:Agent [2] and foaf:Organization [3] are marked unstable in the
>> currently published FOAF Vocabulary Specification. ERT WG is requesting
>> the FOAF folks (Danbri et al) to change the formal status of these terms
>> if they deem this appropriate. It would help us to normatively reference
>> (and depend!) on these terms in the EARL 1.0 Schema:
>>   - <http://www.w3.org/TR/EARL10-Schema/>
>>
>> [2] <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/#term_Agent>
>> [3] <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/#term_Organization>
>>
>>
>> Regards,
>>    Shadi
>>
>>
>> Phil Archer wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Yes, I believe it is stable. It's a subclass of foaf:Agent which is
>> > itself stable. Unless I hear screams to the contrary, I think
>> > foaf:Organization will appear in the POWDER recs [1].
>> >
>> > Cheers
>> >
>> > Phil.
>> >
>> > [1] http://www.w3.org/2007/powder/
>> >
>> >
>> > Charles McCathieNevile wrote:
>> >> Hi,
>> >>
>> >> it seems that foaf:Organization is actually pretty stable. It has been
>> >> around a long time, and we would like to recommend it (and foaf:Agent
>> >> and foaf:Person) as a preferred term in EARL [1]. But it would be
>> >> easier if it were formally marked as stable...
>> >>
>> >> any chance?
>> >>
>> >> cheers
>> >>
>> >> Chaals
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >

Received on Monday, 26 February 2007 11:15:35 UTC