On Jul 6, 2010, at 4:02 PM, Nathan wrote:
Pat Hayes wrote:
However, before I lose any more of my SW friends, let me say at
once that I am NOT arguing for this change to RDF.
so after hundreds of emails, I have to ask - what (the hell) defines
RDF?
Well, the current specs do. And they include a lot more than the
semantics. In particular, they include syntactic restrictions on what
can be in what part of a triple, like no literals in the subject
position. When I say that the RDF semantics works fine for a more
general version, what I mean is only to reassure folk who know that it
would be only an editorial matter to change the specs to allow more
general forms for triples, but who worry (as many folk do) that such a
change might break something basic in the RDF semantics, which is
known to be a deep, subtle complicated thingie - to reassure them that
this will not break the semantics, in fact. Of course, the 'rdf
semantics' document would need some revision, since it gives for
inference rules for RDFS which presume that the syntactic restrictions
are in place, things like that. But these changes would actually
simplify the way the document is written compared to its present form.
I've read that 'The RDF Semantics as stated works fine with triples
which have any kind of syntactic node in any position in any
combination.'
Do the 'RDF Semantics' define RDF? or do the serializations?
The specs do, which include the RDF graph model as well as the RDF/XML
serialization, both normative.
simply - does RDF support literal subjects or not
Right now, it does not.
- I've read the aforementioned sentence to read 'RDF Semantics
support literal subjects' or should I be reading 'RDF Semantics
could support literal subjects' or 'does support literal subjects' or?
Could support (with some work, but not too much) is closest to the
mark. See above.
Pat
Just seeking a definitive bit of clarity on 1: what defines RDF, 2:
what is *currently* supported in that definition.
Preferably a serialization unspecific answer :)
Best & TIA,
Nathan
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