This document provides an overview of the editorial changes to the RDF Schema Specification (2000-03-22 version) since the 1999-03-03 publication as a Proposed Recommendation.
This change summary is provided as a convenience only; the RDF Schema Specification itself is the final authoritative record of the current state of the RDF Schema work. This changes list is provided for the convenience of implementors.
Some text concerning constraints was moved from section 2.1 (The Type System) to section 3 (Constraints). A number of paragraphs were moved and/or edited for readability.
The 'fictional' URI references previously used in the specification were changed to refer to examples within the W3C URI namespace.
The 'capitalisation conventions' guideline was removed; this may be more suited to future 'best practice' guides or FAQ materials.
Clarified references to the Dublin Core: we distinguish more carefully between the Dublin Core Element Set and the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative.
The term 'consistency' is now avoided, since the relationship between our previous use of this term and its sense in logic was not clear.
Section 4.2: significant edit on 'consistency'. The phrase 'consistency constraints' is now avoided in favour of the simpler 'constraints'. The sentence which claimed that "this specification introduces the notion of 'consistent' and 'inconsistent' models" has been removed.
Under extensibility, a clarification: "All agents written to this" becomes "all agents written solely to this..." since implementations of future extended RDFS specs may also be implementations of this specification.
A number of typos were corrected. The use of <code>code</code> when mentioning RDF constructs has been made more consistent, and a number of sentences have been reworded for clarity.
The Dublin Core Element Set schema has been removed; work in the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative on DC-in-RDF superceded this example.
The tentative PICS-in-RDF example sketched as an appendix in the PR version of the spec has also been removed, to allow that work to be progressed indepedently of the core RDF Schema Specification. This is available as a separate document.
The two versions of the XML/RDF representation of the RDF Schema specification have been combined. The two versions served only to demonstrate the syntactic options available using the current RDF syntax. Since we now anticipate new ways to represent RDF in XML syntax, this emphasis seemed inappropriate.
The P3P section has been revised.
The mention of DTDs and their relationship to RDF has been expanded to cover XML Schemas.
The XML/RDF mistakenly asserted that rdfs:Literal was
rdfs:subClassOf rdfs:Resource.
Created an abstract and table of contents. Renamed 'sitemaps and other such navigation tools' section to 'Sitemaps and Concept Navigation'.
Gave the specification a number (this is RDF Schema 1.0).
refined text describing rdfs:seeAlso. The document now says 'might provide' not 'does contain' information about the resource, better reflecting the Working Group's original design.
Removed lengthy syntax-oriented comment from 2.3.2.1 example
removed syntax-centric note from definition of rdfs:Resource
removed java analogy from definition of rdfs:Resource
Moved section 1.2 into the first paragraph of 2.0 and 4.1.2; moved one sentence from start of 4.1.2 to lead in of 4.1
rdfs:Literal was misrepresented in figure 1; Literals are a class, and are now depicted as such.
Constraints that were intended for rdf:object were depicted
as applying to rdf:value (this was
the old RDF Model name for the property we now call
rdf:object). The constraints figure also mistakenly
set an rdfs:range constraint on the
rdf:object; this was inappropriate since both literals and
resources can be the object of a statement.
The figure depicting the Vehicles class hierarchy has been revised.
The RDF representation of the core Schema, and the RDF Schema namespace URI, have been made independent of the URI of the Schema Specification document.
Last updated: danbri 2000-03-22