Re: WOWG: Charter issues (was RE: RE: parseType="daml:list" doesn't cut it)

From: Jim Hendler <hendler@cs.umd.edu>
Subject: WOWG: Charter issues (was RE: RE: parseType="daml:list" doesn't  cut it)
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2002 21:18:55 -0500

> It is the responsibility of the chairs to remind WG members of the 
> charter when necessary.  I haven't confirmed the below w/Guus, and 
> thus we may eventually want to mitigate the below, but I feel some of 
> the discussion on the WG list is getting very close to the charter 
> boundaries, so I want to make sure we are careful and don't go too 
> far down paths that could take us out of scope.

> At 3:45 PM -0600 3/5/02, Smith, Michael K wrote:
> >I wanted to second Jim's comment re rdf:parsetype and N3.
> 
> I think you mean Jon's comments.
> 
> [snip]
> 
> At 3:45 PM -0600 3/5/02, Smith, Michael K wrote:
> >
> >-----------------------------------------------------------
> >MOTION: The primary syntax for OWL will be defined in XML.
> 
> 
> [snip]
> 
> Please be aware that the proposal here is something of a departure 
> from charter terms, we are committed to:
> 
> At 9:02 PM -0500 3/5/02, Jim Hendler wrote:
> >     * The language will use the XML syntax and datatypes wherever 
> >possible, and will be designed for maximum compatibility with XML 
> >and RDF language conventions.
> 
> so we are supposed to use XML, but also to have "Maximum 
> compatibility" w/RDF, making it hard for us to forego it completely 
> under this charter.  

How does the proposal to define the primary syntax for OWL in XML bring us
any closer to going outside this part of our charter?  After all, the
primary syntax for RDF is (still) defined in XML.

> Further,
> 
> >The Working Group shall start by evaluating the technical solutions 
> >proposed in the DAML+OIL draft. If in this process the Working Group 
> >finds solutions that are agreed to be improvements over solutions 
> >suggested by DAML+OIL, those improved solutions should be used.
> 
> this is the "elastic" clause in our charter - it lets us depart from 
> how D+O did things, but only if we have substantial agreement that 
> this is a significant technical improvement  -- the "significant" is 
> my interpretation based on the Director's statement approving our WG. 
> [Note that the Director's statement is W3C member only, so I will not 
> state it here - WG members can see it at [1]
> In that document, you will note a number of strong statements about 
> how our work relates to that of RDF Core -- obviously we are expected 
> to follow this guidance which represents the approval of our WG by 
> the W3C membership]

I believe that several problems with DAML+OIL have already been pointed
out, and some better solutions have been proposed.  In particular, the
proposal by Michael Smith alludes to one of these problems.  So again, how 
does the proposal take us any further out of our charter?

> So we are allowed to go this route, but understand a wholesale 
> departure from RDF is out of charter, and a more mixed approach is 
> allowed, but only if carefully justified with significant consensus 
> from within the WG.

> 
> [1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-semweb-cg/2001Oct/0024.html
> -- 
> Professor James Hendler				  hendler@cs.umd.edu


Peter F. Patel-Schneider

Received on Wednesday, 6 March 2002 11:09:46 UTC