MISC: Response to RDF Core re: RDF Schema

Slightly later than I'd hoped - apologies.

 - nmg

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

		Web Ontology Working Group response to
	 RDF Vocabulary Description Language 1.0: RDF Schema

			   DRAFT 2002-05-22

1.  Executive Summary

This document is a response by the Web Ontology Working Group (WOWG)
to the current RDF Schema working draft [5] published by RDF Core.

In general, our response to this draft is positive; several of the
existing problems in the previous candidate recommendation [2] have
been fixed (including the semantics of repeated rdfs:range and
rdfs:domain constraints and the restriction on cycles in
rdfs:subClassOf and rdfs:subPropertyOf), which brings the semantics of
RDFS into line with those of the Ontology Web Language (OWL) currently
under development by WOWG.

The majority of the issues that we have with this draft are already
covered by the the editorial notes which appear within it. We have
restated certain of the points made in these notes where we feel that
they are particularly important to the development of OWL.

Finally, the explanatory text in this draft is quite sparse and needs
a considerable amount of fleshing out. Without further examples and
cross-references to the relevant sections of other RDF specifications,
it is likely to present a barrier to the understanding of RDF Schema
by novice RDF users.


2.  Comments

2.1 Section numbering

While the overall structure of the RDF Schema document is acceptable,
it would benefit from having numbered sections in order to make it
possible to refer to specific parts of the document (this would have
been useful during the preparation of this response!)


2.2 Typographical errors

In Appendix B [5b], the value of the rdfs:comment property on
rdfs:subClassOf is incorrect, and appears to have been cut and pasted
from the comment for rdf:type. It should read "Represents a
specialization relationship between classes of resource", or similar.

This error also appears in the table entitled RDF Properties [5a].


2.3 Changes from previous version

This document is likely to be read before the Model Theory, especially
by novice users. The changes that have been made to the semantics of
multiple rdfs:range and rdfs:domain properties from the previous
version [2] are significant, and should be made explicit in this
document. Similarly, the document should explicitly state that it is
now possible to create cycles in the rdfs:subClassOf and
rdfs:subPropertyOf properties.


2.4 rdf:value

The document notes that rdf:value [5c] is used to identify "the
principal value (usually a string) of a property when the property
value is a structured resource", but there is no explanation of what
is meant by a structured resource. Is this the same as a structured
property value, as mentioned in [3a]? The only existing examples of
the use of rdf:value use are in Model and Syntax [1a,1b].

The RDF Issue Tracking document notes [7a] that the Model Theory [6]
should state that rdf:value has no specific semantics beyond those
ascribed to a property, but it is not mentioned in the MT, nor it is
mentioned in the revised RDF/XML syntax [4].

This text would benefit from further clarification and from
cross-references to the relevant sections of [1],[3] and [6].


2.5 Datatypes

The ability to talk about datatype values is an important requirement
for an ontology language that has been identified by WOWG [8a] and
that appears in several of its open issues [9a,9b]. The DAML+OIL
language, which WOWG has taken as a starting point for its work, takes
an approach to the representation of datatypes which ascribes special
semantics to the rdf:value property [10a] (a potential conflict with
RDF Core's decision regarding rdf:value, as mentioned in 2.4).

The RDF Schema draft makes no mention of datatype issues, nor does it
contain placeholders for references to the RDF Datatypes document
under development by RDF Core. The RDF Schema document should make
clear the relationship between datatypes and schemas; we make this
comment here in anticipation of the publication of the RDF Datatypes
working draft.


2.6 Containers

The section on containers in this document is particularly sparse, and
needs more concrete examples and cross-references to the relevant
sections in the RDF Primer [3] and Model Theory [6], possibly with a
recapitulation of the behaviour of the rdf:li pseudo-property.

In addition, although the rdfs:member property that has been
introduced in this draft appears in the entailments in the Model
Theory [6a], the existing class rdfs:ContainerMembershipProperty does
not. Strictly speaking, this is an issue with the Model Theory, rather
than the RDF Schema draft; we include it here because we believe that
this section needs to be cross-referenced to the Model Theory in order
to clarify the definitions.


3.  References

[1] Resource Description Framework (RDF) Model and Syntax Specification,
    W3C Recommendation, 22 February 1999
    http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-rdf-syntax/

    [1a] Qualified Property Values
         http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-rdf-syntax/#value

    [1b] Non-Binary Relations
         http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-rdf-syntax/#ex-NonBinary

[2] Resource Description Framework (RDF) Schema Specification 1.0,
    W3C Candidate Recommendation, 27 March 2000
    http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/CR-rdf-schema-20000327/

[3] RDF Primer, 
    W3C Working Draft, 26 April 2002
    http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-rdf-primer-20020426/

    [3a] Structured Property Values
         http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-rdf-primer-20020426/#structuredproperties

[4] RDF/XML Syntax Specification (Revised), 
    W3C Working Draft, 25 March 2002
    http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-rdf-syntax-grammar-20020325/

[5] RDF Vocabulary Description Language 1.0: RDF Schema,
    W3C Working Draft, 30 April 2002
    http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-rdf-schema-20020430/

    [5a] RDF Properties
         http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-rdf-schema-20020430/#ch_properties

    [5b] RDF Schema as RDF/XML
         http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-rdf-schema-20020430/#ch_appendix_rdfs

    [5c] rdf:value
         http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-rdf-schema-20020430/#ch_value

[6] RDF Model Theory, 
    W3C Working Draft, 29 April 2002
    http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-rdf-mt-20020429/

    [6a] RDFS-entailment and RDFS closures
         http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-rdf-mt-20020429/#rdfs_entail

[7] RDF Issue Tracking, 
    2 May 2002
    http://www.w3.org/2000/03/rdf-tracking/

    [7a] Issue rdfms-replace-value: Suggestion that the rdf:value property
         be replaced by rdf:toString 
         http://www.w3.org/2000/03/rdf-tracking/#rdfms-replace-value

[8] Requirements for a Web Ontology Language, 
    W3C Working Draft, 7 March 2002
    http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-webont-req-20020307/

    [8a] Datatypes
         http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-webont-req-20020307/#req-datatypes

[9] Web Ontology Issue Status, 
    W3C Working Draft, 20 May 2002
    http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/WebOnt/webont-issues.html

    [9a] Structured Datatypes
         http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/WebOnt/webont-issues.html#4.3-Structured-Datatypes
    [9b] Datatypes
         http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/WebOnt/webont-issues.html#5.8-Datatypes

    [9c] Closed Sets
         http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/WebOnt/webont-issues.html#2.5-Closed-Sets

[10] DAML+OIL (March 2001) Reference Description,
    W3C Note, 18 December 2001
    http://www.w3.org/TR/daml+oil-reference

    [10a] Datatype Values
         http://www.w3.org/TR/daml+oil-reference#Values

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

-- 
Nick Gibbins                                            nmg@ecs.soton.ac.uk
IAM (Intelligence, Agents, Multimedia)             tel: +44 (0) 23 80592831
Electronics and Computer Science                   fax: +44 (0) 23 80592865
University of Southampton

Received on Wednesday, 22 May 2002 12:14:21 UTC