Re: Imports issue

From: Dan Connolly <connolly@w3.org>
Subject: Re: Imports issue
Date: Wed, 19 Feb 2003 22:09:28 -0600

> 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?

These are complete different issues from the one of implementability, which
is what Guus raised.  

> I suggest: because there isn't really a need
> for owl:imports as specified. 

This goes even further afield from the original issue.

> 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.

I believe that several members of the working group have indicated that
they feel a strong need for the ability to include other ontologies into an
ontology.  The document-importation method appears to me to be the simplest
and most natural method for this.

> > 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.

Not being implementable is a different issue from not having implementation
experience.   

> 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.

Well, then let's have the dicussion about implementation experience, not
about implementability.

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

peter

Received on Thursday, 20 February 2003 06:13:35 UTC