Re: on media types for OWL (5.13)

From: "Jonathan Borden" <jonathan@openhealth.org>
Subject: Re: on media types for OWL (5.13)
Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2002 22:36:22 -0400

[...]

> 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


(By ``validly reading'' below, I mean being read and understood, i.e., that
the agent knows the correct handling of a document.  I believe that this is
what the media type is supposed to support.)

The question is whether we (i.e., the W3C Web Ontology Working Group) want
any agent (that is any agent, not just an OWL-aware agent) that is validly
reading a Large OWL document with the following contents

 <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="...the usual..."
  <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://foo.ex/bar#john">
    <rdf:type rdf:resource="http://foo.ex/bar#Student">
    <rdf:type rdf:resource="#Employee">
  </rdf:Description>
 </rdf:RDF>

to answer positively if it is asked whether the above document entails

 <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="...the usual..."
 	  xmlns:owl="...the usual...">
  <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://foo.ex/bar#john">
    <rdf:type>
      <owl:intersectionOf rdf:parseType="collection">
       <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://foo.ex/bar#Student">
       <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://foo.ex/bar#Employee">
      </owl:intersectionOf>
    </rdf:type>
  </rdf:Description>
 </rdf:RDF>

If so, we need to prevent agents that are only XML-aware or only RDF-aware
from believing that they are validly reading such documents.  The only way
I can see of doing this is to have at least one OWL media type.

Peter F. Patel-Schneider
Bell Labs Research

Received on Wednesday, 30 October 2002 09:07:47 UTC