Re: MISC: Internet Media Type registration: proposed TAG finding

From: Dan Connolly <connolly@w3.org>
Subject: Re: MISC: Internet Media Type registration: proposed TAG finding
Date: 22 May 2002 15:29:53 -0500

> On Wed, 2002-05-22 at 06:17, Peter F. Patel-Schneider wrote:
> > The W3C TAG has come up with a proposed finding about internet media type
> > registration, which will affect WebOnt sooner or later.  Also, a message
> > about the finding was sent to the RDF Core (but not to WebOnt), and there
> > already is discussion in RDF Core as to how to handle media types for RDF
> > and other Semantic Web languages.
> > 
> > [The initial message states ``RDF (RDFCore, RDFS, WebOnt, ...)''.  I find
> > it rather disconcerting to see words to the effect that WebOnt is (just)
> > making another dialect of RDF, no different in status from RDFS.
> 
> Why do you find it disconcerting? That's exactly what WebOnt is,
> until we decide otherwise...
> 
> "A DAML+OIL knowledge base is a collection of RDF triples. DAML+OIL
> prescribes a specific meaning for triples that use the DAML+OIL
> vocabulary. This document informally specifies which collections of RDF
> triples constitute the DAML+OIL vocabulary and what the prescribed
> meaning of such triples is."
> 
>  -- http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/NOTE-daml+oil-reference-20011218

Well, DAML+OIL has a very different status from RDFS, even discounting the
differences in administrative status.

1/ DAML+OIL had a model theory before RDF and RDFS had.
2/ The DAML+OIL model theory is not compatible with the new RDF model
   theory.
3/ It is not possible to make DAML+OIL the same kind of extension to RDF
   that RDFS has been made into and still retain its desirable
   characteristics.

So, DAML+OIL is not an RDF dialect.  It stands on its own.  It just happens
to have the same syntax as RDF, but it has a different meaning.

[...]

Peter F. Patel-Schneider

Received on Tuesday, 28 May 2002 08:11:20 UTC