Re: ISSUE-73 (infinite universe): REPORTED: Should owl:Thing be necessarily infinite?

While finite universe's are quire interesting theoretically, I must  
admit I've never seen a real application that used one, and I note  
that  some of the border cases for other issues come when the  
extension of owl:thing is finite - can anyone on the list give a real  
use case (preferably from an actual application) that requires this?
  -JH








On Nov 21, 2007, at 9:31 AM, OWL Working Group Issue Tracker wrote:

>
>
> ISSUE-73 (infinite universe): REPORTED: Should owl:Thing be  
> necessarily infinite?
>
> http://www.w3.org/2007/OWL/tracker/issues/
>
> Raised by: Jeremy Carroll
> On product:
>
> In this description the 'universe' means the class extension of  
> owl:Thing.
>
>
> In OWL 1.0 Full, the universe is necessarily infinite.
>
> In OWL 1.0 DL, the universe is required to be non-empty.
>
> The compatibility between OWL Full and OWL DL could be enhanced by  
> requiring the universe to be infinite in both cases.
>
> Looking at:
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-owl-dev/2007AprJun/0131
> and related messages, this is not difficult to implement.
>
>> From a modelling point of view, any model with a finite domain of  
>> discourse, would model that domain as a subclass of owl:Thing; and  
>> the domain owl:Thing would be reserved as everything in a Web  
>> context, for which it is difficult to give a finite bound.
>
>
>
>
>

"If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would  
it?." - Albert Einstein

Prof James Hendler				http://www.cs.rpi.edu/~hendler
Tetherless World Constellation Chair
Computer Science Dept
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY 12180