Re: refining closure text for rdfs-isDefinedBy-semantics

In opening this discussion at the last telecon, I wanted to get a quick
sense from this group if this was an easy issue to scope and tackle, or
not... My quick assessment after a couple minutes was more on the 'not'
side :)

I'm hopeful however the problem is with scope. The scope (that I suggest
we rdfcore take) is to stay away from issues of best cataloging
practice. That means, that we stay away from issues of what is
'correct', 'true', 'the one', etc.

As both Frank and Patrick have correctly identified, information about
terms can and will be found in many different resources. But this is no
different than descriptions of books, errata, reviews, etc. all being
different resources and different communities binding this information
together in their respective ways. 

So the simple suggestion that we rdfcore might take wrt to this issue is
to define rdfs:isDefinedBy to relate a term to a schema resource.  Thats
it... Wording that doesn't over commit what isDefinedBy is and how more
accurately schema resources and namespaces relate is still needed but
thats the gist of it.

btw, here is an example of this limited view in practice...

http://wip.dublincore.org:8080/dcregistry/queryServlet?reqType=schemas
->
http://wip.dublincore.org:8080/dcregistry/queryServlet?reqType=sdetail&item=http%3A%2F%2Fpurl.org%2Fdc%2Felements%2F1.1%2F

(isDefinedBy in this case is useful as well in identifying terms defined
by a schema resource)

A couple of open issues come to mind...

- do we formally give a name to a schema resource rather than let
different communities define them (this request has surfaced from the DC
community working on Registries).  As was mentioned on the telecon, this
approach may be useful for clarifying the relationship between rdf
Schemas and Web Ontologies (e.g. rdfs:Schema subclassof web:Ontology)

my suggestion would be 'yes'

- do we formalize the range rdfs:isDefinedBy to be one of these schema
resources 

my suggestion would be 'yes'

Now that i'm back online, I see Patrick's suggestion...

On Fri, 2002-06-07 at 11:15, Patrick Stickler wrote:

> My specific recommendations are:
> 
> 1. Leave the definition of rdfs:isDefinedBy as is, though removing
> the incorrect language about namespaces, allowing any instance
> of rdf:Resource and multiple statements.
> 
> 2. Qualify objects of rdfs:isDefinedBy by class, in the case of
> RDF/XML instances, by the proposed rdfs:Schema class. This permits
> those who want/need to, to be explicit about the nature of the
> defining resource.
> 
> 3. Clearly state that there is no functional relationship between
> the URI of a term and the namespace URI used in its RDF/XML
> serialization -- that the RDF model is based on URIs, not
> qnames, and as such, namespaces have no significance whatsoever.

yep, i believe we're saying similar things.

Patrick, have you taken a crack at this rewording?

-- 
eric miller                              http://www.w3.org/people/em/
semantic web activity lead               http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/
w3c world wide web consortium            http://www.w3.org/

Received on Monday, 10 June 2002 10:59:09 UTC