Re: ISO 3166-1 codes for the Semantic Web Re: [Fwd: Geonames enters the Semantic Web]

Just to throw another geo proposal into the mix - and related to this 
discussion - check out the attached.

Carl

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bernard vatant" <bernard.vatant@mondeca.com>
To: <public-xg-geo@w3.org>
Cc: "Marc" <marc@geonames.org>; "Earle Martin" <earle@downlode.org>
Sent: Monday, October 30, 2006 6:44 AM
Subject: ISO 3166-1 codes for the Semantic Web Re: [Fwd: Geonames enters the 
Semantic Web]


>
> Folks
>
> Following Dan's announce we had a lot of feedback from the SW community, 
> thnks to which some notable improvements have been brought to both 
> ontology and Web service
> Stay tune at http://www.geonames.org/ontology/
>
> But there is still a lot to do, and Marc is not happy so far with using 
> geonames namespace for definition of countries in the RDF descriptions, 
> e.g. http://www.geonames.org/countries/#GB
>
> Says Marc :
>> I am not yet completely satisfied with our country codes, there should be 
>> a more standardized way of referring to iso 3166-1 country codes in the 
>> semantic web.
> Neither am I. In OASIS Published Subjects GeoLang Technical Committee, 
> back in 2002, we tried to show the interest in providing stable URI for 
> countries and languages, based on ISO codes. What we thought at the time 
> was that at some point, relevant ISO committees should take care of that, 
> and provide codes URI in the ISO namespace. But nothing of the like has 
> happened.
> We have still this provisional GeoLang page and URIs (called PSIs by topic 
> maps folks) at http://psi.oasis-open.org/geolang/iso3166/.
> The problem is that ISO has never shown, AFAIK, any intention to provide 
> its codes as identifiers for the semantic web. I would be happy to be 
> proven wrong.
>
> So we have a few private initiatives such as 
> http://downlode.org/rdf/iso-3166/ developed by Earle in cc. But nothing 
> endorsed either by W3C or by ISO.
> My view of that is that any set of stable URIs including the ISO codes is 
> a good provisional approach.
> What one can do is provide a mapping between existing instances using 
> owl:sameAs
> like e.g.,
> http://downlode.org/rdf/iso-3166/countries#GB    owl:sameAs 
> http://www.geonames.org/countries/#GB
> http://psi.oasis-open.org/geolang/iso3166/#826    owl:sameAs 
> http://www.geonames.org/countries/#GB
>
> And whenever, if ever, ISO or W3C or any relevant authority provides URIs 
> in its own namespace, map back the above provisional URIs to the 
> authoritative list using owl:sameAs again, or rdfs:isDefinedBy - whatever 
> is recommended at the time by the publishing authority.
>
> Bottom line : Would it be in the scope of this group to pave the way 
> towards publication of authoritative ISO codes URIs?
>
> -- 
>
> *Bernard Vatant
> *Knowledge Engineering
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>
>