Re: reification test case

From: "Peter F. Patel-Schneider" <pfps@research.bell-labs.com>

> There are arguments to be made on either side.  Some argue that there
> should be multiple reifications, some argue that there should not. Given
> that there are two viable possibilities, and that RDF M&S clearly comes
> down on one side, switching to the other is a significant change, and
> should not be made lightly.

That's just your opinion; I believe there are lawyers who could argue
persuasively against it.

> > But the essential requirement that you will need to answer is not a
> > legalistic one, but a practical one.  If you throw out the ability to
have
> > multiple descriptions of statements, then how are we to describe
multiple
> > occurances of the same proposition relative to the contexts in which
they
> > appear?
>
> Well I guess then you can't, at least not with RDF reification.

This is unacceptable and will break running applications and will render
planned applications impossible.

> RDF reification is what is described in RDF M&S.  It may not be very
> useful but that doesn't mean that RDF reification should be something
> different from what is described in RDF M&S.  (There are enough unclear
> aspects of RDF M&S to argue over without changing the clear parts.)

You may say it is clear to you, but it has been pointed out that M&S is
inconsistent in that regard.  The working group has been chartered to fix
these confusions. We are not still back there in 1999 arguing about a
literal interpretation of the M&S bible.

It seems to me that those in favor of a one-one mapping between a
proposition and the description of that proposition are trying to limit the
usefulness of RDF.  For what purpose, to what end ?

Seth Russell

Received on Monday, 4 February 2002 14:17:24 UTC