- From: Bernard Vatant <bernard.vatant@mondeca.com>
- Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 12:14:06 +0200
- To: <www-rdf-logic@w3.org>, <public-webont-comments@w3.org>
Somehow a follow-up of my previous question about "things" ... I'm currently trying to figure how OWL can interoperate with legacy in other languages and formats, in particular DAML libraries, Topic Maps Published Subject Indicators, and in general any format using URIs to name-define "things" (or RDF resources, or Topic Maps subjects). Could be as well plain on-line HTML thesaurus or glossary, Dewey Classes, LoC Subject Headings ... Seems to me that one important aim of OWL (the main one?) should be to use those URIs to achieve the "colocation objective", which is also the main objective of Topic Maps and Published Subjects. The colocation objective in the distributed Web environment means being able to assert that two "things" are identical. owl:sameAs allows to achieve that it seems. But what is not clear to me is if the URI referenced by owl:sameAs has to define an OWL resource, or if it could be another kind of resource. In the example given in http://www.w3.org/TR/owl-ref/ <owl:Class rdf:ID="FootballTeam"> <owl:sameAs rdf:resource="http://sports.org/US#SoccerTeam"/> </owl:Class> Is "http://sports.org/US#SoccerTeam" supposed to reference an OWL element? What if it reference a DAML legacy for instance? Or an XTM topic element? Should it be converted into OWL before being used that way? IOW, will owl:sameAs ensure backward compatibility with DAML+OIL libraries? Or support XTM subject indicators? Or UDDI, XRI ... whatever. Otherwise said, will one be able to use owl:sameAs with the same flexibility as XTM <subjectIndicatorRef> which has basically the same semantics? The above example would read in XTM : <topic id="FootballTeam"> <subjectIdentity> <subjectIndicatorRef xlink:href="http://sports.org/US#SoccerTeam"/> <subjectIdentity> </topic> <subjectIndicatorRef> does not assume any particular format for the resource at "http://sports.org/US#SoccerTeam". Could be an XML fragment, could be HTML, could be OWL or any other relevant syntax. The recommendation on Published Subjects somehow give clues on what kind of resource should be used that way. BTW this recommendation is currently in the same final draft status than OWL. See http://www.ontopia.net/tmp/pubsubj-gentle-intro.htm Bottom line: OWL elements can be used as Published Subject Indicators, provided the OWL ontology contains some specific information (like publisher identity, human-readable definitions ...) that can be expressed in OWL. So OWL should be IMO (the most) recommended format for Published Subject Indicators. Please note that so far it's only a personal view, that I will try to push of course on the table of Published Subjects TC ASAP (next week). But to achieve the round trip, it would be cool if through owl:sameAs, one could reference a Published Subject Indicator using e.g. XTM syntax. Being able to ensure that round trip would be IMO a giant step towards semantic integration. Feedback much welcome. Bernard Vatant Senior Consultant Knowledge Engineering Mondeca - www.mondeca.com bernard.vatant@mondeca.com
Received on Monday, 28 April 2003 06:14:30 UTC