Re: Requirements Document

From: Dan Connolly <connolly@w3.org>
Subject: Re: Requirements Document
Date: 08 Feb 2002 08:55:47 -0600

> On Thu, 2002-02-07 at 13:45, Peter F. Patel-Schneider wrote:
> [...]
> > The document uses words with technical meaning in places where the
> > technical meaning may not be what is wanted.  In particular,  unless
> > ``resource'' means what it means in RDF I think that it should be avoided.
> > So
> > 	Ontologies must be resources with their own unique identifiers.
> > can easily be read as implying that ontologies must be objects just like
> > regular objects.  
> 
> Yes, that's the requirement I agreed to. 

I am unable to find any record of the group agreeing that ontologies are to
be resources.  Could you please provide a pointer to this?

> It seems like you
> have something else in mind, but I can't tell what.

For the purposes of this discussion, I don't need to tell you what I have
in mind, just that I am worried about identifying ontologies as resources,
which carries along RDF-derived baggage.


> > The document anticipates some technical features of OWL.  In particular, it
> > uses URI as the term identification mechanism.
> 
> Again, to me, that's a straightfoward elaboration
> of the requirement that we agreed to:
> 
> " A unambiguous term referencing using URIs"
> 	-- http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-webont-wg/2002Jan/0089.html

True.

I am now officially unagreeing to the above.

> 
> >  This brings up the URI vs
> > QName discussion.  
> 
> Does it? Perhaps you mean to bring up the URI vs QName discussion,
> but I don't see how the requirements document does.

True again.

I am now officially bringing up the URI vs QName discussion here.

My view is that WebOnt should be trying to heal the gap between XML and
RDF, and coming down on the RDF side of the URI vs QName division is
premature.

> -- 
> Dan Connolly, W3C http://www.w3.org/People/Connolly/

Peter F. Patel-Schneider
Bell Labs Research

Received on Friday, 8 February 2002 12:37:31 UTC