Re: rdf inclusions (was Re: DAML Level of Effort for FY03-FY05)

It seems there's a kind of distinction here between vocabularies and 
ontologies.  I have some wooly ideas what these might be, but I'd be 
interested if anyone can offer a sharp definition.

(In the sense that "http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" does 
define some vocabulary, but not an ontology, and 
"http://www.daml.org/experiment/ontology/beta/elements-ont#" is viewed as 
defining an ontology.)

#g
--

At 06:49 PM 4/21/02 -0400, Drew McDermott wrote:
[...]
><rdf:RDF
>   xmlns:rdf ="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
>   xmlns:rdfs ="&rdfs;#"
>   xmlns:daml ="&daml;#"
>   xmlns:xsd ="&xsd;#"
>   xmlns:enp ="http://www.daml.org/experiment/ontology/beta/elements-ont#"
>   xmlns:soci= 
> "http://www.daml.org/experiment/ontology/beta/social-elements-ont#"
>   xmlns:poli= 
> "http://www.daml.org/experiment/ontology/beta/political-elements-ont#"
>   xmlns:econ= 
> "http://www.daml.org/experiment/ontology/beta/economic-elements-ont#"
>   xmlns:infr= 
> "http://www.daml.org/experiment/ontology/beta/infrastructure-elements-ont#"
>   xmlns:info= 
> "http://www.daml.org/experiment/ontology/beta/information-elements-ont#"
>   xmlns:mil 
> ="http://www.daml.org/experiment/ontology/beta/military-elements-ont#"
>   xmlns:assess  ="&assess;#"
>   xmlns:obj  ="&obj;#"
>   xmlns:loc  ="&loc;#"
>  >
>
>Now we can all see that all but the first 4 of these are clearly
>ontologies to import.  But the first certainly is not; the second and
>fourth I'm not sure of (for fear of offending Ian Horrocks :); and the
>third, good old &daml;#, is the grandaddy of all ontologies.
>
>But how can a computer see all this?  Should it just assume that any
>namespace that expands out to something ending in ".daml" somehow is
>an ontology?  This strikes me as a silly tactic for avoiding an
>"imports" declaration.
>
>                                              -- Drew McDermott

-------------------
Graham Klyne
<GK@NineByNine.org>

Received on Monday, 22 April 2002 05:47:44 UTC