clarifying RDFS properties from Aaron Swartz on 2001-02-22 (www-rdf-comments@w3.org from January to March 2001) (original) (raw)

Several properties in RDFS are unclear. It is suggested that a future revision of the RDFS spec introduce additional subProperties of these unclear properties. This has the benefit of resolving the issue, as well as maintaining compatibility with older systems.

1. rdfs:isDefinedBy Discussion over this property has questioned whether it points to a schema (also considered a namespace) or a spec. It is suggested that two subproperties are defined to resolve this (the names are unimportant, and only suggestions):

   rdfs:inSchema would point to a URI representing the RDF schema or XML namespace of the term. This would allow the grouping of terms into various schemas/namespaces.

   rdfs:specification would point to a specification of the term. This property could be further qualified by the type of specification (RDF Schema, human-readable XHTML, etc.)

2. rdfs:comment This term, as is, has caused little difficulty but implementor experience has shown that further subproperties are needed. Again, suggestions:

   rdfs:definition would be a human-readable definition of the resource.

   rdfs:notes would include additional human-readable comments that while not being an official definition may also be useful.

-- Aaron Swartz <me@aaronsw.com>| ...schoolyard subversion... <http://www.aaronsw.com> | because school harms kids AIM: JediOfPi | ICQ: 33158237| http://aaronsw.com/school/

Received on Wednesday, 21 February 2001 20:57:26 UTC