RE: problems with concise bounded descriptions

The following represents my understanding of the note. As such it 
may point out both ways in which the note could be clarified or 
ways my understanding is deficient. Also, given the genesis of CDB 
as the result of a URIQA query on a URIRef, some of what I say recalls 
that history. Peter points out additional uses that could be made of CDBs 
by generalizing the query to include blank nodes as the input, but its 
first use case, as I understand it, was to provide a bounded set of 
descriptive expressions constraining the interpretation of a single URIRef 
taken in isolation. In short, its first use was as part of a naming 
performative consisting of the four parts:

 1. A naming authority - the source of both the URIRef and the CDB
 2. A URIRef used as a name of a resource (thing in the world)
 3. A graph constraining the possible interpretations of that 
    URIRef to one unique thing in the world.
 4. A public announcement (publication on the web) by the source 
    that the object described by the graph is the referent of the name.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: www-rdf-interest-request@w3.org
> [mailto:www-rdf-interest-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of Peter F.
> Patel-Schneider
> Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2004 7:40 PM
> To: www-rdf-interest@w3.org
> Subject: problems with concise bounded descriptions
> 
> 
> 
> In the DAWG message archive I came across a reference to a W3C member
> submission from Nokia on Concise Bounded Descriptions
> http://www.w3.org/Submission/CBD/.
> 
> The notion of Concise Bounded Descriptions (CBD) in this note 
> has a number
> of problems.
> 
> The initial description of a CBD is severely underspecified.  
> According to
> the note, ``A [CBD] of a resource is a body of knowledge about that
> resource which does not include any explicit knowledge about any other
> resource which can be obtained separately from the same source.''
> 
> Problem 1:  Which source?

The source is the agent with the authority created by possessing the 
means to legitimately implement a web response to the URIRef in question;
the agent with such authority that is motivated to promote through public 
announcement a common knowledge of a mechanical substitution of that 
URI-used-as-symbol for a graph containing additional expressions 
in description of the denotation of that URIRef. In terms from the 
RDF Semantics spec., the agent here is publishing expressions 
that constrain the mapping IS from the URIRef as a vocabulary term 
to that object in the real world that the source agent is mapping 
it to when the source agent uses it.

John Black

[snip]

> 
> Peter F. Patel-Schneider
> Bell Labs Research
> 
> 
>

Received on Friday, 1 October 2004 13:42:57 UTC