Re: #rdfms-literals-as-resources in scope?

I will schedule time for discussion at this weeks telecon.

I suggest that this weeks email discussion has been useful.  I think we
now have a clearer understanding of the issue - at least I feel I do.

Let me try to do a little summing up.  I think we have identified
two questions.  Is this a change to M&S?  If it is, then are there
compelling reasons why we should make a change?

I have asked the question:

  o Does the formal model described in M&S have a distinguished 
    representation for literals.

I have seen that several people think that it does.  When Aaron says:

  Yes, there is a set of things in M&S called "Literals". Whether this 
  is a side-effect of the XML syntax, or of the abstract syntax is 
  not clear to me.

I take it that he is undecided.  It would be helpful Aaron if you could
come to view on this before the telecon, as I would like the WG to decide
this question.  It may be helpful to consider the following quote from
section 5 of M&S:

      and the corresponding triple (member of Statements) would be 

      {creator, [http://www.w3.org/Home/Lassila], "Ora Lassila"}

      The notation [I] denotes the resource identified by the URI I 
      and quotation marks denote a literal.

If the WG decides YES on the first question, then to represent literals 
as resources in the abstract model would be a change.  The second question
then is:

  Is there a compelling reason why we should make this change?

Compelling reasons might include - the current spec is unimplementable,
is not being implemented, contradicts some other part of M&S or
the change is needed to resolve some other issue.

Aaron I believe is suggesting that since literals have identity, they
satisfy the only requirement to be a resource.  It would thus simplify
both the abstract model and implementations to remove them as a
distingished entity from the abstract model.

Brian



Ron Daniel wrote:
> 
> A basic principle for working in groups is "the
> right of the minority to be heard, and the right
> of the majority to decide".
> 
> Can we have a straw poll on this issue Friday to
> see where the majority lies?
> 
> Thanks,
> Ron
[...]

Received on Thursday, 5 July 2001 09:29:47 UTC