Re: new semantics initiative

><snip>
>>  Maybe we are using 'namespace' in different senses?? I just mean a
>>  set of URIs that belong to someone (in this case, the W3C).
>
>But what is the formal connection between a term and that collection
>of terms?

Why does there have to be one?

>Where in the graph do we see that relation? Where is
>that collection explicitly denoted in the graph as produced by
>*every* conformant RDF parser?

It isn't. I don't WANT this connection to be in the graph. If it 
were, then putting it there or not putting it there would be an 
option;  and as soon as it is an option, someone is going to change 
it in a graph somewhere, and then things go nonmonotonic.

>You seem to be missing some pieces to your puzzle, Pat.
>
>Yes, the W3C defines a functional vocabulary called RDF, and
>another called RDFS, and yes, the terms of those vocabularies
>are grounded in the same XML namespace for each vocabulary,
>and yes, the namespace URI is taken to denote those functional
>vocabularies,

Fine. That is all we need.

>  *BUT* in the graph itself, there is *no* explicit
>representation of the relationship between term and vocabulary
>which is accessible to any RDF application.
>
>Show me where I'm wrong.

You aren't wrong, but it doesn't matter. I don't want this to be 
represented in the graph. It should be *impossible* to infer, in RDF, 
that some uriref is reserved.

>(and no fair peeking into URIs either, those are opaque, no?)

They are referentially opaque, but if Im a software agent I can 
certainly look at them. They are just character strings, after all. 
And I can check whether or not they are in some list I might have of 
reserved character strings. That list, of course, came from God: I 
was born with it inside me. My creator just knew about those strings. 
I guess he had read some W3C spec or other.

>  >>
>>>>   (6) Does this require any changes to syntax/ test cases/ Ntriples/
>>>>   datatyping/ whatever?
>>>>   A: No.
>>>
>>>  I don't see how it would not. We would need a mechanism in RDF/XML
>>>  for setting the dark bit on statements and also an explicit
>>>  representation of that bit in NTriples (such as ';' rather than '.').
>>
>>  No, that is not the proposal.
>
>That's *my* proposal.

OK, I vote against that for the reasons outlined in the message that 
Guha and I sent about nonmonotonicity.

>  >>
>>>  But that probably is not a great amount of work, and likely
>>>  could be done in a backward compatable manner.
>>>
>>>  [In case it's not clear, I'm pretty much in favor of providing for
>>>   these layering tweaks to the MT and elsewhere, so long as they
>>>   are not based on reference to namespaces]
>>
>>  I do not follow your reasons for objecting to the idea of a set of
>>  URIs having an owner. Isnt that a given, in all these discussions?
>
>You've misunderstood me. I have no problems with a set of URIs having
>a single owner.

OK, then, that is all we need to make this work. Only the W3C has the 
authority to reserve a vocabulary that the W3C owns.

Pat
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Received on Friday, 14 June 2002 12:32:19 UTC