Re: Rules WG -- draft charter

Regarding syntax, it would be good to see the charter include at least
as a goal some fundmental support for at least organizing rules in
RDF/XML, even if each individual rule is not stated in RDF/XML, so that
one can describe the rules, query on rule properties, etc. etc.

E.g.

<rule:Rule rdf:about="&rdfs;/rules/rdfs5">
   <rdfs:label>RDF Schema Closure Rule 5</rdfs:label>
   <rdfs:isDefinedBy rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-mt/"/>
   <rule:definition rule:format="application/cwm">
      {
         rdfs:subPropertyOf ?uuu ?vvv .
         rdfs:subPropertyOf ?vvv ?xxx .
      }
      log:implies
      {
         rdfs:subPropertyOf ?uuu ?xxx .
      }
   </rule:definition>
   <rule:definition rule:format="application/rdfql">
      INFER {[rdfs:subPropertyOf] ?uuu ?xxx}
      FROM  {[rdfs:subPropertyOf] ?uuu ?vvv}
      AND   {[rdfs:subPropertyOf] ?vvv ?xxx};
   </rule:definition>
</rule:Rule>

where the format MIME types would be properly defined and used
(the above are just ad-hoc examples)

And there would nevertheless be defined a single, standardized
rule syntax which all inference engines are expected to support,
irregardless of whatever rule expression syntaxes they might
also support. This standardized format could be considered
the default value for the rule:format attribute, such that it
need not be specified.

This seems to me to be a reasonable middle ground between
a non-RDF syntax and an RDF syntax, and allows for rules to
be interchanged using emerging generic RDF protocols.

Of course, if an RDF based syntax is adopted, then it would
fit right into such a rule organizational framework.

Cheers,

Patrick

Received on Thursday, 13 November 2003 03:07:04 UTC