RDF Core LC Issue chas-01

  [[Issue 1 - aboutEachPrefix
  ...

  I am told by Jeremy Carroll that this problem can be dealt with by
  Jena and modelled using OWL.  The issue is why this is not
  something that a "basic" RDF processor should be able to deal
  with. In the aboutEachprefix case it was (theoretically) available
  in basic processors which did not implement other "optional"
  specifications.
  ]] -- http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-rdf-comments/2003JanMar/0501.html

So it is a layering question, asking why is this not (no longer) in RDF.

I think we had good feedback that it lived badly in RDF and as such
was hardly implemented.  It broke layering by looking inside URIs
rather than dealing with identity, felt mor elik a RDF/XML syntax
thing than part of the RDF model and as such it mixed badly with the
triples model (and bagID - ha ha).

I also quite like what Dan Brickley said during the RDF Core WG discussion:

  [[I for one will never enourage people to write down useful
  generalisations in aboutEach syntax, because I don't want to have
  them come back and ask me why those rules aren't accessible via the
  (graph-oriented) APIs, query languages, database interfaces etc
  that they'll have to use to access their content. In my experience
  of talking to RDF developers _and_ content producers, there's often
  misunderstanding about which features of the XML syntax are carried
  through to the abstract graph. So my problem with encouraging the
  use of aboutEach is that it risks creating a huge legacy problem:
  information loss as we go from the RDF/XML into databases, APIs
  etc. Because about aboutEach mechanism _appears_ to be RDF's way of
  making generalised claims about members of a collection, people
  will likely use it as such unless we attach a health warning. Once
  it becomes clear that aboutEach is just a wierd macro mechanism, I
  believe it'll lose its appeal to content producers.]]
  -- http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-rdfcore-wg/2001Nov/0532.html


This comment isn't a proposal to change anything, just a question.
How do you deal with such things?  It doesn't fit into
accept/reject/postpone.

Picking one: reject, the reasons it was thrown out of RDF remain valid.

Brian: please add this to the agenda for Friday

Dave

Received on Tuesday, 1 April 2003 11:40:01 UTC