Re: status of RDF, RDFS, and OWL ``namespace files''

On Thu, 2003-01-02 at 21:30, Peter F. Patel-Schneider wrote:
> Hi:
> 
> What is the status of 
> 	http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns
> 	http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema
> Are they normative parts of the RDF specifications?

I believe the latter is a normative part of the RDFS
spec; i.e. its contents are part of the tech report.

That's not the case for the former.

>   I don't see how, because
> 
> 1/ Neither of them are valid in the RDF Model Theory or the RDFS model theory.

No?
What leads you to that conclusion?

The model theory spec defines validity of inferences; what
does it mean for a document to be valid? Oh... do you
mean that they're not entailed by the empty graph?

Good point; I think that's a bug, for RDFS; i.e. the
rdfs:comment's and such need to be consistent in
the 01/rdf-schema file and the text of the RDFS spec;
and I guess you're right that the model theory spec
needs to refer to them.

For 22-rdf-syntax-ns, I think it could be empty
(or full of nonsense) without any specific technical
impact. But for practial purposes, it's probably
good for it to contain stuff that all RDF users
would agree to.

> 2/ http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns
>    does not have elements that correspond to all the elements of the RDF
>    namespace. 
> 
> If they are not normative, what is their status?

Umm... really handy web page?
I'm not sure what sort of answer you're after.

Actually, I'm not sure what you mean by "normative" either.

> One reason that I ask is that WebOnt has a similar sort of document
> 	http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl
> with some of the same problems, but because of owl:imports the actual
> contents of the document matters more.
> 
> In fact, owl:imports makes the contents of
> 	http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns
> 	http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema
> matter more.

Certainly the latter; 2002/07/owl imports 2001/01/rdf-schema, no?

I can't think of any way that the contents of 22-rdf-syntax-ns
would matter much.

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

Received on Friday, 3 January 2003 01:56:08 UTC