RE: LANG: need to CLOSE Issue 5.6 Imports as magic syntax

> Considering that we have a solution that addresses the requirements,
> that simply clarifies things from DAML+OIL, that is a common element of
> ontology design, and that does not restrict us from developing
> alternative approaches in the future, I can see no good reason to
> postpone the issue. I think that anyone who opposes this solution should
> come up with an example of an application that it breaks or a specific
> language extension that it will prohibit.

The reason for opposing that solution has been addressed already, e.g. among various posts, in
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-webont-wg/2002Oct/0061.html
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-webont-wg/2002Oct/0029.html
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-webont-wg/2002Oct/0019.html
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-webont-wg/2002Sep/0382.html

which I'll summarize, again, with:
1) [major] when transporting/manipulating RDF, you risk to lose the import information.
2) [moderate] owl entailment would depend on the timed web structure
AFAIK these critique haven't been addressed yet. In particular, there haven't been unanswered objections to the "operational import"
proposals, in their various form (rfc2119-flavors with explicit owl:import, or rdfs:seeAlso). Until there is a proper comparison and
analysis, I don't think we can easily move forward.

-M

ps Note the "closure" thing is in all orthogonal to the issue: any reasonable version of import would include a closure notion of
some kind (like in all import I can think of in any programming language....); this was never the real issue (no? ;)

pps In case there's no consensus, note I would not be opposed to the (at that point, reasonable) "leave import after v1" proposal
that DanC and Jim are advocating.

Received on Thursday, 7 November 2002 09:08:23 UTC