Re: A proposed provenance wg draft charter

  On 10/15/2010 8:53 AM, Paul Groth wrote:
> Hi Deborah,
>
> Thanks for your response. This is exactly the sort of discussion we 
> wanted to start.
>
> Luc and I wrote the proposal with the notion that we wanted a fast 
> working group.
Fast working groups are good but I think we should focus on the outcome 
rather than fast.  it is not that fast precludes quality but we should 
not focus on fast and have that preclude other options that may be 
considered more representative of the broader provenance community.
> With that in mind we thought it would be good to start with something 
> already existing and not develop a whole new model. 
> Additionally, we think that OPM is already a subset of what's out 
> there already including PML. I think the DAML+OIL comparison is not so 
> apt because OPM was already developed through a community process. 
Actually I think the DAML+OIL model is quite apt.
DAML was developed by a large DARPA program over years with many 
participants.
OIL also was developed by a consortium of people as well over time (and 
actually there was a little bit of overlap in the authors but it was 
relatively small).
Both grew up at about the same time.
While this is looking back, I would venture to say that if either went 
in as a proposed standard without engaging the other community, either 
would have had a VERY hard time getting through a standards body DESPITE 
the fact that each had a significant community who had worked on them.
What happened was that  an adhoc US/UK working group self formed to put 
something together that reflected what the authors thought captured the 
essence of both.

OPM was emerging in approximately the same timeframe as some of the 
other contender provenance models.  I agree of course that it came out 
of a community but it did not include much participation from some other 
communities.

I think we need to look at what is out there now and determine what the 
starting point should be and I do not think that OPM reflects the 
starting point for some of the other communities.
> Furthermore, as we say in the draft, OPM is the starting point
My objection is to taking OPM  as the starting point.
I think there is too strong a bias when one starts with one and tries to 
shoehorn in the others.

Paulo in particular had raised a number of issues when he was trying to 
look more deeply at connections and embedded assumptions.

> and would change over the coarse of the working group.
>
> Anyway, since you have a lot of experience on these working groups, I 
> was wondering how you think we could design the charter to make 
> production of a recommendation as fast as possible with the approach 
> you have in mind?
I agree that having one starting point and refining may be considered to 
be a fast approach  but if one really thinks there may be significant 
changes, then that may not be the case.  I think though that it could 
easily be interpreted as biasing the outcome towards that starting point 
(and i would interpret it that way and would be unhappy).
I think though we need to be open to other starting points so i think we 
have to be open to other starting points.

I see two routes that could be taken (and of course there are more).
1 - write a charter now that takes starting points as input
2 - follow the owl model and form an adhoc working group whose aim it is 
to come up with a joint submission for the starting point.


>
> Also, at least from my reading, it seems that you would endorse having 
> a a working group work for a standard provenance model. Is that correct?
I  support a working group to come up with a recommended provenance model.
I  do NOT support a working group that takes a single starting point and 
aims to refine that one to come up with the recommendation.
>
> thanks,
> Paul
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Deborah McGuinness wrote:
>>  Greetings,
>> Thanks for the work on the draft charter.
>> I am sending this quickly because i just read the beginning and have 
>> a significant problem with the slant of the charter with the position of
>> "The goal of this working group is to refine the Open Provenance Model"
>> and thought I should air this immediately upon seeing the draft.
>>
>> I strongly believe that the charter of a working group that would end 
>> up with a provenance recommendation should start with the contender 
>> models and take the best aspects from many of them RATHER than 
>> starting with one model and refining it.  I strongly oppose the 
>> position that the charter should take any single model and work to 
>> refine it.  I would propose rather that this group would work like 
>> the recent RIF working group or others where contender starting 
>> points were submitted  or like the OWL working group where two 
>> contenders emerged - DAML and OIL and members from each side worked 
>> to create a submission - DAML+OIL that truly took elements from both 
>> languages and ended up with a joint proposal rather than this way 
>> that just takes a single model as a starting point.
>>
>> There was some disappointment in the group when we chose to map the 
>> other contender models to a single model, but most if not all 
>> understood that decision from the perspective of time.  I can not say 
>> though that i (or i expect others who were disappointed) could go 
>> along with this position in a proposed charter.
>>
>> I am sorry that this comes from someone who did not participate 
>> nearly as much as I had hoped to.
>> I had an extremely bad year with my mother's multiple 
>> hospitalizations and general overwhelming health problems and her 
>> subsequent passing.   I simply have had no choice but to put 
>> everything other than family health at a much lower priority.
>>
>> Deborah
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 10/15/2010 7:58 AM, Paul Groth wrote:
>>> Hi All,
>>>
>>> Today on the call we are scheduled to talk about preparations for 
>>> the final report. Luc and I feel that to write a compelling final 
>>> report we should be clear about exactly what the report should 
>>> recommend. There has been some consensus that a working group should 
>>> be formed around the recommendations extracted from the scenarios ( 
>>> http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/prov/wiki/Recommendations_for_scenarios).
>>>
>>> To that end, we have prepared a draft working group charter ( 
>>> http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/lavm/draft-charter.html ). We note this 
>>> is only *our own* proposal and we see this as a starting point for 
>>> discussion within the group.
>>>
>>> We look forward to any comments, questions, thoughts about this 
>>> proposal. We hope this helps the group to continue to coalesce 
>>> around a way forward.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Paul and Luc
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>

Received on Friday, 15 October 2010 13:34:10 UTC