- From: Nikita Ogievetsky <nogievet@cogx.com>
- Date: Sat, 6 Apr 2002 23:31:55 -0500
- To: "Seth Russell" <seth@robustai.net>, <www-rdf-interest@w3.org>, "Sandro Hawke" <sandro@w3.org>
Well... let me jump on this... This is actually exactly what Topic Maps are doing. At Extreme 2001 [1] and KT2002 [2] conferences I presented some steps towards the RDF representation for Topic Maps. In particular, proposed RDF Topic Maps Schema has two daml:UnambiguousProperty sub-properties: rtm:indicatedBy and rtm:constitutedBy (see slide http://www.cogx.com/kt2002#slide16) The object of rtm:indicatedBy property INDICATES the subject. For example, http://www.cogx.com/kt2002 can be used to indicate the notion of Quantum Topic Maps (QTM), QTM is one of Topic Maps representations. Or in N3: :QTM rtm:/indicatedBy http://www.cogx.com/kt2002; :representationOf :TopicMaps. and the object of rtm:constitutedBy property CONSTITUTES the subject For example you can say that html page at http://www.cogx.com/kt2002 has a pink background: :myPresentation rtm:/constitutedBy http://www.cogx.com/kt2002; :hasBackground :pink. Note that in the first proposal [1] I mapped Topic Maps constitutedBy property to the rdf:about attribute. It was very cute, but did not solve the problem. [1] http://www.cogx.com/rdfglasses.html [2] http://www.cogx.com/kt2002 --Nikita. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Seth Russell" <seth@robustai.net> To: <www-rdf-interest@w3.org>; "Sandro Hawke" <sandro@w3.org> Sent: Saturday, April 06, 2002 10:46 AM Subject: Re: silly question about rdf:about > I totally agree, and thanks for saying it ! > > And while we're at it why not just leave the old 'rdf:about' alone for > people who like built-in properties in their systems and make up a new > property name ... call it something obvious ... like for instance 'uri'. > > And while were at that, why not invent another useful property ... something > to mean 'preferred human friendly name' ... this would be like a cyc > constant, a kif term, or a rdf:label. The thing that is different between > it and rdf:about (aside from the fact that it would be human user friendly) > is that it can change (be renamed) from time to time and from system to > system. But in any given system at any given time it would be unique. For > a moment let's just call this new term ':named'. Nodes so named internally > would be tied to URI like this: > > [:uri <http://foo/#Dog>; > :named "Doggie"]. > > We could say that in XML\RDF with: > > <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://foo/#Dog"> > <:named>Doggie</:named> > </rdf:Description> > > Another useful property (that you might like) would be 'local name'. This > would be used to publish blank node anchors to the external world: > > [a :Dollar; > :givenTo :Sandro; > :givenBy :Seth; > :localName <uuid:Sue1638877566348489>] > > What namespace should we use for these kinds of terms ? > > Seth Russell > > --- in response to --- > From: "Sandro Hawke" <sandro@w3.org> > > > Why is rdf:about treated as magic syntax? Wouldn't everything work > > the same in the grammar if > > http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#about were just another > > property? > > > > Processors could either be hard-coded to know it was a > > daml:UnambiguousProperty (thus allowing the usual collapsing of nodes) > > or they could read that from the ontology. (Obviously DAML is not > > part of RDF Core, but the concept of unambiguous properties is still > > around.) > > > > This interpretation would allow uses like: > > > > <rdf:Description> > > <rdf:about>http://example.com</rdf:about> > > </rdf:Description> > > > > and declaring sub-properties of rdf:about to help classify kinds of > > names for things. It would also allow zero or more names for things, > > which seems perfectly appropriate. > > > > -- sandro > > > > > > >
Received on Saturday, 6 April 2002 23:33:15 UTC