Juan Sequeda wrote: > As anybody considered reusing the DBpedia ontology? > > Juan Sequeda, Ph.D Student > > Research Assistant > Dept. of Computer Sciences > The University of Texas at Austin > http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~jsequeda <http://www.cs.utexas.edu/%7Ejsequeda> > [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > http://www.juansequeda.com/ > > Semantic Web in Austin: http://juansequeda.blogspot.com/ > > > On Mon, Nov 17, 2008 at 2:09 PM, Richard Cyganiak <[EMAIL PROTECTED] > <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote: > > > John, > > Here's an observation from a bystander ... > > On 17 Nov 2008, at 17:17, John Goodwin wrote: > <snip> > > This is also a good example of where (IMHO) the domain was > perhaps over specified. For example all sorts of things could > have publishers, and not the ones listed here. I worry that if > you reuse DBpedia "publisher" elsewhere you could get some > undesired inferences. > > > But are the DBpedia classes *intended* for re-use elsewhere? Or do > they simply express restrictions that apply *within DBpedia*? > > I think that in general it is useful to distinguish between two > different kinds of ontologies: > > a) Ontologies that express restrictions that are present in a > certain dataset. They simply express what's there in the data. In > this sense, they are like database schemas: If "Publisher" has a > range of "Person", then it means that the publisher *in this > particular dataset* is always a person. That's not an assertion > about the world, it's an assertion about the dataset. These > ontologies are usually not very re-usable. > > b) Ontologies that are intended as a "lingua franca" for data > exchange between different applications. They are designed for > broad re-use, and thus usually do not add many restrictions. In > this sense, they are more like controlled vocabularies of terms. > Dublin Core is probably the prototypical example, and FOAF is > another good one. They usually don't allow as many interesting > inferences. > > I think that these two kinds of ontologies have very different > requirements. Ontologies that are designed for one of these roles > are quite useless if used for the other job. Ontologies that have > not been designed for either of these two roles usually fail at both. > Richard, > > > Returning to DBpedia, my impression is that the DBpedia ontology > is intended mostly for the first role. Maybe it should be > understood more as a schema for the DBpedia dataset, and not so > much as a re-usable set of terms for use outside of the Wikipedia > context. (I might be wrong, I was not involved in its creation.) > In a nutshell, YES! This is much much clearer and less problematic than the generic "ontology" moniker.
DBpedia colleagues: I think we should qualify what currently exists as a Schema or Data Dictionary for the DBpedia data set (or Data Space) :-) Kingsley > > > Richard > > -- Regards, Kingsley Idehen Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen President & CEO OpenLink Software Web: http://www.openlinksw.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's challenge Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK & win great prizes Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the world http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100&url=/ _______________________________________________ Dbpedia-discussion mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dbpedia-discussion
