Re: on media types for OWL (5.13)

Dan Connolly wrote:

>
> The purpose of a media type in Web Architecture[1] is
> to say what format/encoding/language a sequence
> of bytes is written in.
>
> On the one extreme, one might consider the application/octet-stream
> media type. Clearly, all our documents can be captured
> as octet sequences, so they qualify for that media type.
>

...good story snipped...

> So we actually do need to invoke the RDF
> spec[3] more directly, in order that the
> poor sap can follow his nose thru g:wife
> to <geneology-terms>.
>
> So I'm convinced we need application/rdf+xml.
>
> Now further up the spectrum, we might consider application/owl+xml.
>
> I find that objectionable because it suggests that
> dublin core and adobe XMP and RSS and so on
> need their own media types, and it leaves me
> wondering what media type to use if for
> a document that mixes all these vocabularies
> together.

This is where the story falls down.

1) XMP and RSS presumably don't have their own model theories which define
semantics of such documents
2) one _could_ argue that Large OWL is "just" RDF(S)
3) application/rdf+xml along with a root element <rdf:RDF> provides no clue
to the client that the OWL spec has anything to do with the document, nor
provides a pointer to the OWL MT, abstract syntax etc.

>
>
> So I propose that the reference document specify
> application/rdf+xml as a suitable media
> type for OWL KBs written in RDF/xml syntax.
>

I'd really like a better story about how such a media type says anything at
all relevent to OWL.

Since OWL starts with <rdf:RDF> I fail to see why application/xml isn't just
as good as application/rdf+xml ***BUT*** if you can construct a story on how
the 'meaning' of a document isn't just a function of the meaning of a root
element, but rather depends on contained namespaces, then may be willing to
listen to this story ... of course I will hold you to that at a later point,
perhaps outside this WG if you catch my drift.

Jonathan

Received on Wednesday, 23 October 2002 22:55:22 UTC