RE: issue pfps-17,18,19,20,21 namespace v vocabulary

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ext Frank Manola [mailto:fmanola@mitre.org]
> Sent: 28 February, 2003 01:09
> To: Brian McBride
> Cc: RDF Core
> Subject: Re: issue pfps-17,18,19,20,21 namespace v vocabulary
> 
> 
> 
> Brian McBride wrote:
> 
> > 
> > Regarding issues:
> > 
> > http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/RDFCore/20030123-issues/#pfps-17
> > http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/RDFCore/20030123-issues/#pfps-18
> > http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/RDFCore/20030123-issues/#pfps-19
> > http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/RDFCore/20030123-issues/#pfps-20
> > http://www.w3.org /2001/sw/RDFCore/20030123-issues/#pfps-21
> > 
> > PROPOSE, as suggested by Patrick
> > 
> > That the term 'namespace' be used when referring 
> specifically to an XML 
> > namespace, and that the term 'vocabulary' be used when 
> referring to the 
> > set of URIREF's defined by RDF and RDFS.
> > 
> 
> 
> This principle is fine with me, but I suggest an amendment 
> that says we 
> use the term "vocabulary" when we're referring to sets of URIrefs 
> defined by anybody for use in RDF triples, e.g. I'd talk about 
> "example.com's vocabulary" in the Primer (and in RDF/XML we 
> use the XML 
> namespace mechanism to construct those URIrefs).

Right. A vocabulary is just a set of terms used for a particular
purpose, and different vocabularies can share common terms, just
as e.g. PRISM includes both DC terms as well as its own, yet we
speak of the PRISM vocabulary.

A particular process, methodology, tool, etc. can define the
vocabulary that is significant for it, taking terms from any
number of namespaces, and can then refer to that vocabulary
explicitly.

See the attachements for an example of how I model these. Note
that XML namespaces are completely irrelevant to the vocabulary
model applied (as it should be ;-)

This does bring up the question, since it seems that there is
an overall RDF+RDFS vocabulary, which is defined by the single
normative RDF schema, should we have a formal URI grounded in
W3C space to denote that vocabulary, of which the RDF Syntax
and RDF Schema subvocabularies are members? At present, I have
to use a URI grounded in Nokia space to refer to that complete
RDF+RDFS vocabulary.

Cheers,

Patrick