Re: Imports issue

On Wed, 2003-02-19 at 18:40, Peter F. Patel-Schneider wrote:
> From: Guus Schreiber <schreiber@swi.psy.uva.nl>
> Subject: IImports issue
> Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2003 00:26:57 +0100
> 
> > I'm feeling increasingly uncomfortable about our "imports" resolution 
> > (see the discussion threads cited in the agenda).
> > 
> > Unless we get in the very near future clear evidence this is an 
> > implementable language feature, I will have to reopen this issue and 
> > propose to give imports the same informnal status as the versioning stuff.
> 
> Huh?  
> 
> To implement imports, it suffices to modify an RDF/XML processor as
> follows:
> 
>    Whenever an imports triple is found, first check to the if the object of
>    the triple has been imported already.   If not, get the document that is
>    pointed to by the object of the triple and run it through the RDF/XML
>    processor.  Then merge the result with the current graph.  Only a very
>    small amount of care is required to prevent loops.
> 
> What could be easier?

Then why aren't tools that do that widely deployed?
Or at least available to this WG in some form?

I suggest: because there isn't really a need
for owl:imports as specified. There are lots
of ways of meeting the relevant requirements,
and there isn't community consensus about
which way is best, or even pretty good.


> What is currently being argued about is how imports interacts with OWL Lite
> and OWL DL, i.e., what documents containing imports count as an OWL Lite or
> OWL DL document.
> 
> > Note that responses of the type "this is a useful/necessary feature" are 
> > not helpful at this point. 
> 
> > If we cannot show that imports  can be 
> > implemented, we will not be able to go to Proposed Rec with the OWL spec 
> > as it stands. 
> 
> This is crazy!  Who has claimed that imports is not implementable!

I have; that is: I have claimed that we do not have
sufficient implementation experience to standardize
it at this time.

Re: ISSUE 5.6 - daml:imports as magic syntax
From: Dan Connolly (connolly@w3.org)
Date: Tue, Sep 10 2002
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-webont-wg/2002Sep/0108.html

Re: LANG: need to CLOSE Issue 5.6 Imports as magic syntax
From: Dan Connolly (connolly@w3.org)
Date: Wed, Oct 30 2002
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-webont-wg/2002Oct/0297.html

RE: MT for imports (was: Re: Imports Proposal)
From: Dan Connolly (connolly@w3.org)
Date: Wed, Nov 13 2002
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-webont-wg/2002Nov/0173.html

There is no burden on me to show it is not implementable;
rather, it's on the WG to actually demonstrate implementation
experience that validates the design.

The only implementation experience I'm aware of is Jos's,
and it led him to remove support from his tools.

I followed up on a claim that the stanford KSL tools
do daml:imports only to find that while yes, they do
a certain amount of ontology merging, they don't
support owl:imports nor daml:imports as specified.

I suppose Sean B's code is implementation experience
that's available to this WG, but note that his experience
led him to propose to change the design.

If there is no code to support the WG's claim that
owl:imports is specified in an interoperable,
workable, useful way, I don't see
how we can expect The Director to uphold the WG's
decision in spite of the outstanding dissent.

"OBJECTIONS: Connolly, Welty, JimH"
 -- minutes 14Nov
 http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-webont-wg/2002Nov/0202.html

i.e. I don't see how we can make a reasonable
request for Proposed Rec. without substantially
more implementation experience.

-- 
Dan Connolly, W3C http://www.w3.org/People/Connolly/

Received on Wednesday, 19 February 2003 23:09:36 UTC