Re: Draft Minutes 2001-08-24

I was already convinced that it should be <= instead of <
i.e. that we should allow rdfs:subClassOf loops.
I can also backup that position with running code.

--
Jos De Roo, AGFA http://www.agfa.com/w3c/jdroo/





pat hayes <phayes@ai.uwf.edu>@w3.org on 2001-08-28 11:54:44 PM

Sent by:  w3c-rdfcore-wg-request@w3.org


To:   Brian McBride <bwm@hplb.hpl.hp.com>
cc:   w3c-rdfcore-wg@w3.org
Subject:  Re: Draft Minutes 2001-08-24

Brian, could we put this item on the agenda for the next telecon,
please.  I would like to get this issue settled before we publish the
model theory, if possible.

---------------

rdfs:subClassOf loops and consistency with DAML+OIL.

At the F2F we discussed a number of pieces of feedback from the
DAML+OIL JC. The only one that gave rise to any  significant
discussion was their recommendation that the M&S be modified to allow
subclass loops, ie that combinations such as

A rdfs:subclassof B
B rdfs:subclassof A

not be considered illegal, but be thought of as a way to assert that
A and B are the same class.  Two voices were raised against this
proposed change. One was the opinion that  disallowing subclass loops
was accepted practice in the OO community, the other was that it
would be incompatible with Java usage, and that if subclass loops
were permitted then Java-based RDFS engines would need to perform
expensive loop-detection checks to avoid syntax errors when mapping
RDFS to Java. (I hope I have this more or less right, it is based on
memory.) I was to report this feedback to the DAML JC and get their
reaction, which I did today and here it is, summary first and more
details later.

Summary
1. DAML+OIL absolutely requires subclass loops, and cannot operate
with the current rdfs:subclassof restriction.

2. Therefore, if RDFS retains its current no-loops restriction, the
only viable option for DAML+OIL would be to remove subClassOf from
the rdfs namespace and to adopt its own daml:subClassOf with the
DAML+OIL interpretation.

3. But this would have the unfortunate effect of breaking the only
remaining substantial link between RDFS and DAML+OIL, which would be
unfortunate for a number of reasons.

4. Therefore, DAML+OIL respectfully urges the RDFCore WG to
reconsider the matter more carefully.
------

Elaborations.
1. DAML+OIL requires subclass loops because:
1a. When merging information from several sources, one needs to be
able to discover during the reasoning process that two classes are
equal (even when nobody has explicitly said they are). This ability
is central to the class-heirarchy reasoning that is at the core of
DAML+OIL.
1b. In any case there is no effective way to limit the language so
that such conclusions (that one subclass is identical to another) are
somehow forbidden.
1c. It is also not feasible to consider the no-subclass-loops
restriction a syntactic wellformedness constraint (as it is in Java
and OO more generally) since to check it requires general inference
machinery. Since it can't be parse-time checkable in any reasonably
expressive class-inference language, there is no advantage to
imposing it as a semantic constraint.

2. If DAML+OIL introduces its own subClassOf, the only relationship
between daml:subClassOf and rdfs:subClassOf would be that the latter
entails the former. But this means that RDF/S engines would not be
able to make any use of DAML subclass information, in effect
rendering the  DAML class heirarchies invisible to RDFS. (DAML could
make use of rdfs:subClassOf information, but only by also using other
information which is not expressible in RDFS, eg that A is *not* a
subclass of B. ) It would set up a one-way flow of information from
RDFS into DAML. In practice, one would expect that DAML+OIL usage
would simply become detached, in practice, from information expressed
in RDFS, since the class heirarchy is the only nontrivial semantic
connection between DAML+OIL and RDFS.

3. The development of DAML+OIL was predicated on the assumption that
the languages would be 'layered' in some sense, so that each layer
provided more expressive functionality than lower layers. The
possible option in which DAML+OIL uses a more inclusive notion of
subclass but RDFS uses a more restictive notion would make this
'layering' so distant as to be effectively meaningless. Moreover,
this is not an arbitrary or capricious decision, since almost any
reasonably expressive extension of RDFS is going to have similar
properties.

5. As a postscript, the JC offers the following observations.

5a. In general, the ability to say that one class is identical to
another is valuable, and probably essential when putting together
information from several different sources. Allowing subclass loops
is an elegant way to anable the language to say this without
introducing any new primitives. (This was one of the main motivations
for the DAML+OIL usage, in fact, but the reasoning seems to apply to
RDFS with just as much force.)

5b. DAML+OIL inference engines would need to detect subclass loops
during their normal inference operations, and could (and indeed
currently often are) be required to flag such loops when detected,
allowing other engines, or users, to take aappropriate actions if
required. In other words, don't feel that all is lost if the language
allows subclass looping.

-----

Pat Hayes
---------------------------------------------------------------------
(650)859 6569 w
(650)494 3973 h (until September)
phayes@ai.uwf.edu
http://www.coginst.uwf.edu/~phayes

Received on Tuesday, 28 August 2001 19:31:43 UTC