clarifying RDFS properties

Several properties in RDFS are unclear. It is suggested that a future
revision of the RDFS spec introduce additional subProperties of these
unclear properties. This has the benefit of resolving the issue, as well as
maintaining compatibility with older systems.

1) rdfs:isDefinedBy
Discussion over this property has questioned whether it points to a schema
(also considered a namespace) or a spec. It is suggested that two
subproperties are defined to resolve this (the names are unimportant, and
only suggestions):

    rdfs:inSchema would point to a URI representing the RDF schema or XML
    namespace of the term. This would allow the grouping of terms into
    various schemas/namespaces.

    rdfs:specification would point to a specification of the term. This
    property could be further qualified by the type of specification
    (RDF Schema, human-readable XHTML, etc.)

2) rdfs:comment
This term, as is, has caused little difficulty but implementor experience
has shown that further subproperties are needed. Again, suggestions:

    rdfs:definition would be a human-readable definition of the resource.

    rdfs:notes would include additional human-readable comments that while
    not being an official definition may also be useful.


-- 
Aaron Swartz <me@aaronsw.com>| ...schoolyard subversion...
  <http://www.aaronsw.com>   |  because school harms kids
AIM: JediOfPi | ICQ: 33158237|  http://aaronsw.com/school/

Received on Wednesday, 21 February 2001 20:57:26 UTC