Bit of catch up
by Bijan Parsia
There are lots of things going on!
- The OWLWG has had its first telecon (see the agenda, minutes). Our homework for the next telecon is to review the OWL 1.1 documents and the OWLWG charter. So if you had been thinking about taking a peek, this is a good time
- The fall semester has started up again, so I’m again teaching a third-year (that’s, “senior year” to my USites) class with Sean Bechhofer on Knowledge Representation. Per usual, my slides are online (with some commentary).
- OWLED task forces have seen a bit of activity with my posting about “easy keys” (the proposal is not fully fleshed out yet). This led to some yammering about BNodes and their semantics. I’ll do a post in the future about it, but one thing I regret is that I use “existential” as a shorthand for “existentially quantified variables”. BNodes are just existentially quantified variables with graph scope. However, most people don’t work with them as full existentially quantified variables, that is, as plural terms (that is, variables) as opposed to singular terms. I believe that this is what is confusing Reto and why he appeals to singularizing additional constructs (e.g., inverse functional properties) and his implicatures. Existentially quantified variables do not only imply existence, which is fine (and singular terms do this as well!), but also potential plurality. It’s this latter bit that is tricky and dangerous and what I would like to excise from BNodes.
- I will say that I’m a bit disappointed over all with the response to my, I thought, hilariously subjected post, “RDF: XULing or Grueling”. Much was positive (though Harry Haplin went off the rails for some reason), but very little was usefully substantive (at least from my perspective). I really really want a case study of RSS 1.0. I would be shocked if such a thing showed that RDF would have been a sensible wire format in any reasonable variant of history. Also, I have to say, that if it really, really, really is true that MOST adoption problems stem from the facts of RDF/XML, then we are an exceeding stupid community not to simply up and fix that. I conclude from this that either we are stupid, or that the syntax problems aren’t a sufficient condition for widespread lack of adoption, or that at least a good chunk of the community doesn’t believe that syntax problems are all that, regardless of reality. Seriously, if Turtle would cause a doubling of good press for RDF and a doubling of the rate of (happy) adoption, just freaking advocate the hell out of it. Doesn’t have to be in the W3C. Hijack it and run like the wind on a windy day.
So, lots going on!
