RE: Assessment of semantics bug: [was: Re: proof bug in semantics]

FYI I am not available for review of semantics in the next couple of weeks.

Jeremy


> -----Original Message-----
> From: w3c-rdfcore-wg-request@w3.org
> [mailto:w3c-rdfcore-wg-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of Brian McBride
> Sent: 10 October 2003 13:13
> To: pat hayes
> Cc: w3c-rdfcore-wg@w3.org
> Subject: Assessment of semantics bug: [was: Re: proof bug in semantics]
>
>
>
> Hi Pat,
>
> pat hayes wrote:
> >
> > Guys, I have to report a slight disaster.
>
> You did the right thing in bringing this to light immediately.
>
>   Trying to respond to Peter's
> > suggestion that we should provide a clear rule-based criterion for RDFS
> > inconsistency, and to prove the resulting lemma, I found a serious flaw
> > in the proofs of the RDF and RDFS entailment lemmas.  There just wasnt
> > time to get nice versions of the corrected proofs written out by the
> > publishing deadline, so the 10/10 semantics document has some
> ugly stuff
> > in its proof appendix, written in a hurry and with parts of it rather
> > sketchy.
> >
> > I apologize to the WG for this.
>
> It is not your fault.  I had doubts about going to 2nd last call without
> a complete review of the semantics doc.  I suppressed them, which in
> hindsight was a mistake.
>
> That is life.  The world is not a perfect place, and one of the things
> I'm learning is just how hard it is, even for very clever people, to get
> things like proofs right.  I forget what it was like programming in
> languages that didn't do a lot of checking of the program at compile
> time.  This seems like writing in machine code without even a machine to
> test the code on - all one has is testing by inspection.
>
>   I hope to have really nice proofs done
> > by early next week, and they can be editorial tweaks to the final
> > publication version.
> >
> > None of this affects the normative parts of the document.
>
> I think we have to assess how to react to this little problemette.
>
> I think we make life more difficult for ourselves, not easier, if we try
> to rush things through before we are really ready.  We should ask
> ourselves whether we still believe we are ready for lc2.
>
> On the one hand:
>
>    - the proofs are informative - they are there to convince ourselves,
> and others, that the claims we make are justified, e.g. with respect to
> the relationship between the entailment rules and the MT.
>
>    - thus W3C process allows for them to be corrected during last call
> without forcing another last call, provided its just the proof thats
> wrong, not the conclusions.
>
> On the other hand:
>
>    - there are bugs in the proofs - we are not done on the semantics
> document and we have not yet addressed all our issues with it.  The
> latest message from Peter suggests we are not done discussing this yet.
>   By that critereon, semantics is not ready for 2nd last call.
>
> Options:
>
> - go ahead with the second last call announcement
>
> - hold off the second last call announcement till we have sorted the
> problems with semantics (how?).
>
> - go ahead with all except semantics?
>
> Brian
>
>
>

Received on Friday, 10 October 2003 07:41:51 UTC