RE: depending on poorly-thought-out portions of RDF

[This message is a continuation of a technical discussion that was started
on a separate mailing list.  I have redirected it to www-rdf-logic, and
included appropriate context. pfps]

A problem occurs when containers can contain themselves.  If this happens,
then the meaning of equality (and membership) becomes difficult.  I don't
see that there is any prohibition in RDF against containers containing
themselves and RDFS certainly has something akin to this with respect to CLASS.

peter



From: Ora.Lassila@nokia.com
Subject: RE: dependence on RDF
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 07:59:10 -0600

> Peter,
> 
> you wrote:
> > My (strongly-held) view is that whatever portion of RDF we
> > include or depend on [for any new version of DAML/OIL]
> > *must* provide a firm foundation for
> > our work.  It does absolutely no good whatsoever if we
> > knock ourselves out to provide a clean language with a
> > well-specified meaning for its constructs, only to include
> > a version of sets with an ill-defined membership relation
> > (to pick on a particular possible problem).
> 
> I agree. I particularly agree that the RDF containers need work. Bags (or
> sets) shouldn't be difficult to define using a simple membership relation
> ("repeated property" in RDF terms).
> 
> Regards,
> 
> 	- Ora

Received on Thursday, 14 December 2000 11:21:06 UTC