[vass-01] rdfcore issue 'flat layering'

refs:
http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/RDFCore/20030123-issues/#vass-01
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-rdf-comments/2003JanMar/0561.html

Vassilis,

Following up on your RDFCore Last Call comments, in particular the issue
of 'flat layering', the RDF Core Working Group discussed your concerns in
the June 6th meeting [1]. After some discussion, we have resolved to not
accept your proposed changes to the RDF Schema specification.

At this stage of the process, we are only accepting proposed changes
where there is clear evidence that something is broken in the design.
We acknowledge that there are other designs (such as those you advocate)
which might also have worked. The basic RDF design, as you note, adopts a   
flat approach to layering. In reaching the decision to not accept your
proposal, we observed that:

1) RDFS is designed to be a lower layer for the semantic web stack that
is extended by restriction.  All structure at this layer is imposed on
all higher layers.  A layered structure is not necessary and the
principle of minimal restriction suggests it should be omitted.
  
2) A further consideration is the cost of change at this point.
To switch to a layered approach would require a massive rethink and
would affect not only the RDFCore specs but also OWL.  Only a show 
stopping problem with the current design could justify the cost of such a
change.

We also note that it is possible to build more strictly layered
languages on top of RDF(S), OWL DL/Lite being examples.

Please reply to this message as to whether this response is
satisfactory, copying www-rdf-comments@w3.org. Again, thank you for your
comments.

Dan

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-rdfcore-wg/2003Jun/0067.html

Received on Wednesday, 18 June 2003 09:45:40 UTC