REQDOC: ontologies as resources

In a message expressing my concerns with the requirements document, I
argued that it is premature to require that ontologies be resources, at
least if by resource, we mean an RDF resource, i.e., elements of the domain
of discourse that can be used just like any other element of the domain of
discourse.

I happen to think that it is a bad idea for ontologies to be just the same
as other objects because there may be unexpected consequences of this
decision.  For example, if we have ontologies referring to other
ontologies, making ontologies just the same a other objects gets us more
than halfway to being able to have conditional referring, which can have
sever computational consequences.

Moreover, the justification for have ontologies as (RDF) resources is to
support ontology sharing, but it is certainly possible to have ontology
sharing while still making ontologies different from other objects.
Therefore, the stated support for ontologies as resources is not a true
support.

Peter F. Patel-Schneider
Bell Labs Research

PS:  What should we do with requirements that have no motivation?

Received on Thursday, 14 February 2002 13:43:34 UTC