- From: Graham Klyne <GK@NineByNine.org>
- Date: Thu, 05 Dec 2002 12:14:40 +0000
- To: Brian McBride <bwm@hplb.hpl.hp.com>
- Cc: pat hayes <phayes@ai.uwf.edu>, Jeremy Carroll <jjc@hplb.hpl.hp.com>, w3c-rdfcore-wg@w3.org
At 10:41 AM 12/5/02 +0000, Brian McBride wrote: >At 16:56 04/12/2002 +0000, Graham Klyne wrote: > >[...] > > >>Ah, I see your point. This suggests a slight rearrangement; the general >>case, leading in to the 'significant' concerns: >> >>[[ >>When making statements that use terms defined by a third party, one >>should take care that the third party definition is consistent with ones >>intended meaning, or the statements may have unintended consequences. >> >>In particular, when publishing a statement with potentially significant >>legal or social consequences, use only vocabulary whose meaning is >>well-defined, stable and known to correspond to the intended >>commitment. For important documents, such as contracts, this may mean >>that use of third-party vocabulary is restricted to terms defined by >>legislature, recognized standards bodies or other reputable >>organizations, or that otherwise have socially well-established meanings. >>]] > >I suggest dropping the last sentence, "For important documents ...". > >It doesn't add any normative value. The point has already been made in >the previous sentence, but it does potentially open a whole new can of >worms. Perhaps someone will ask us for a normative example of using RDF >as a contract. Lets not go there in this document. What the previous text does not say, and concerning which there was a comment on the Concepts document, is that even though third-party vocabularies are generally unconstrained by opthers who may use them, there may yet be some that are sufficiently well-trusted for serious use. If you don't want to go into legal territory, the final sentence might be pared down to, say: [[ For important documents this may mean that use of third-party vocabulary is restricted to terms defined by reputable organizations (e.g. recognized standards bodies), or that otherwise have socially well-established meanings. ]] #g ------------------- Graham Klyne <GK@NineByNine.org>
Received on Thursday, 5 December 2002 07:10:43 UTC