Re: RDF Keys, or why RDF is lousy at metadata annotations

Bob--

Defining some kind of key mechanism for RDF might well be a good idea. 
An alternative approach might be to start with OWL inverse functional 
properties (which already define a kind of key mechanism) and extend 
them to handle composite (more than one property) keys (i.e., it seems 
to me there are two issues here;  one is whether keys should be in RDF 
rather than (just) in OWL, and a second is whether they should be 
composite or not).  However, it seems to me that some of the points in 
your argument require a little further "qualification".

Bob MacGregor wrote:

> 
> Its claimed that RDF and OWL are really great because they
> facilitate making metadata assertions.  The reality is that the
> RDF and OWL standards do a lousy job at supporting metadata
> annotations for (at least) two reasons.
> 
> To do a good job of annotating (attaching metadata) to something, you need
>    (1) to reify the something, and
>    (2) the URI needs to be globally unique, and it needs to be 
> "repeatable".
> 
> By now its well understood that RDF statement reification is a loser,
> because its chooses too small a grain size.  The best remedy is to
> add contexts and quads to RDF.  If we did that, then (1) is taken
> care of.  However, that's a subject for a different e-mail.


I think this argument is a tad dubious.  After all, lots of people use 
RDF to represent metadata about things without reifying anything, and 
are reasonably happy with it.  For that matter, lots of metadata is 
contained in databases, and the databases certainly don't use RDF 
reification (or anything resembling it).  I really think reification is 
a red herring in this discussion.  The important point here is that in 
order to represent metadata about things in RDF you need something that 
enables you to identify the things you're describing;  i.e., URIs or 
primary key values.


> 
> Here I'm really addressing the Bnode problem.  The proper scope
> for a bnode is the model that it belongs too.  That means that
> to reference a resource/entity outside of the model, you need
> something other than a bnode--you need a resource with a globally
> unique URI.  Its easy, but quite useless for annotation purposes, to use
> "gensym" URIs, where you generate a unique URI on the fly, because
> the next time you load the model, you get a different URI.  In other
> words, the URI is not "repeatable".   To achieve repeatability, some 
> misguided
> proposals suggest concatenating or hashing all of the values of attributes
> of a resource to create a repeatable URI.  If you do that, the attributes
> of a resource cannot be updated.
> 
> The right solution is to generate a URI based on a minimal set of attribute
> values that can be guaranteed not to change.  This is the definition of a
> "key" (or primary key).  Proper database tables have primary key 
> definitions.
> XML items don't have keys, but they should.   And RDF classes should define
> keys.
> 
> Defining a key on a class C in RDF is very simple.  A key consists of a
> set of properties--the order doesn't matter.  If P1 and P2 are properties
> that define a key for C, then we can invent a new property 
> "hasKeyProperty" and
> make two statements:
> 
> C hasKeyProperty P1 .
> C hasKeyProperty P2 .
> 
> and we're done.  Now we have the foundation needed to synthesize
> unique and repeatable URIs.
> 
> Hence, my proposal for the follow-on to the current RDF is to define
> a new predicate equivalent to "hasKeyProperty".
> 
> Let me address two possible objections. One is that there may exist
> more than one set of properties that defines a key for a give class.
> The same is true for database systems, but they have wisely chosen
> to identify one key as "primary" and declare that one as "the" key.
> 
> Second, the strategy for forming a unique URI based on a set
> of key values is left open.  It would be REALLY useful if the
> committee also tackled this problem.
> 
> Note: I'm posting this to RDF comments because I'm not soliciting
> debate on this issue.  Rather, I would like to see it added to the
> issues list for the next RDF committee.


As I said above, I like the idea of being able to define keys.  However, 
your discussion leaves a few considerations out.  First of all, lots of 
database designs use "surrogate" keys (artificially-generated values of 
a specialized property) rather than "natural" keys, particularly where 
the natural key would have to be composite in order to uniquely identify 
the entity.  It isn't all one or the other;  which to use is generally 
considered a design issue.  See, e.g.,

http://www.dbdebunk.com/page/page/626995.htm
http://r937.com/20020620.html

for some representative discussion.  Note in this connection that things 
like "company id" or "employee id" (or social security number) are 
artificially-generated for uniqueness, even though they often are 
considered "natural" (because they are generated by some authority 
external to the database).  A URI is in many respects just another 
surrogate key, specifically generated for uniqueness in a specific 
context (the Web). Many URIs could also be considered just as natural as 
a social security number.  For example, identifying a company employee 
by something like http://example.com/employees/<ssn value> could be 
considered as prepending "context information" onto a 
"naturally-occurring" identifier value (a social security number).

Note that this also raises a second point, about the context within 
which the key value or values are considered unique.  Keys used in 
databases have an implicit context (that of the database table).  The 
use of keys in RDF or OWL needs to address the context issue too (the 
OWL inverse functional property concept includes some consideration of this)

Finally, it's all very well to talk about attribute values that can be 
"guaranteed not to change", but in practice this is mostly a fantasy. 
One of the reasons for using surrogate keys in databases is that the 
folks running the database system have more control over when the values 
change than for "natural keys", but even then things change (e.g., one 
company merges with another company, and you need to diddle with the 
employee numbers, part numbers, and so on).    Although stability of 
identifier values is certainly a Good Thing, in general, identifier 
mechanisms need to provide ways of dealing with such situations in ways 
other than assuming the values never change.

--Frank



> 
> Cheers, Bob
>

Received on Monday, 15 March 2004 10:24:40 UTC