RE: URI Declarations [Usage scenario 1b]

> From: John Cowan [mailto:cowan@ccil.org]
>
> Booth, David (HP Software - Boston) scripsit:
>
> > SCENARIO 1: [ . . . ]

I just noticed that as written, Scenario 1 was slightly ambiguous: it did not make clear that all of Alice's assertions were in her URI declaration, i.e., they were "core assertions" as described in
http://dbooth.org/2007/uri-decl/

Here is a clearer version:

SCENARIO 1a: Fred wishes to publish some RDF assertions
about a particular protein.  Alice has already minted
a URI to denote that protein, and her URI declaration
contains several assertions ("core assertions").  She has
not published any other assertions about that protein.
Fred notices that Beatrice and Carl have already published
other assertions about the protein, and they all use the same
URI to denote that protein: the URI minted by Alice.  Fred
notices that if he uses Alice's URI to denote the protein,
his assertions will be logically inconsistent with some of
Alice's assertions, although they are logically consistent
with Beatrice and Carl's assertions.  He wonders whether he
should publish his assertions using Alice's URI -- and post
a blog entry noting that his assertions should not be used
in conjunction with Alice's assertions -- or mint a new URI.

Question: Should Fred use Alice's URI?

Answer: No.  He should mint a new URI and indicate the relationship
(not owl:sameAs) to Alice's URI -- at least rdfs:seeAlso.

> That sounds right iff Fred's assertions are essential
> (identifying) claims,
> but not otherwise.  If I assert that aneurine HCl is soluble
> in water, and you
> assert that it is insoluble, it is more likely that one of us is wrong
> than that we mean two different things by the term "aneurine HCl".

Since I just modified the scenario to be clearer, I don't know if your comment is still relevant, but I'll comment assuming that it is.

Although I agree with some of the sentiment that you express, I don't know any objective way to differentiate "essential (identifying) claims" from other claims.  Thus, in some sense the purpose of a URI declaration is to declare certain claims to be the "essential (identifying) claims" by fiat.  Using the URI thus implies agreement with them.



David Booth, Ph.D.
HP Software
+1 617 629 8881 office  |  dbooth@hp.com
http://www.hp.com/go/software

Opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not represent the official views of HP unless explicitly stated otherwise.

Received on Sunday, 2 March 2008 07:26:50 UTC