Re: shapes-ISSUE-86 (dimitris): Associating shapes with ontologies or vocabularies [SHACL Spec]

I do not see that SHACL needs any connection between a shapes graph and an
ontology definition.

For purposes of designing a collection of shapes, having access to an ontology
that provides axioms about the classes in a collection of shapes is handy.
However, validating SHACL shapes or documents against a data graph or node in
a data graph does not need any link going from the shapes graph to an ontology
graph.   A SHACL validation engine does need to have access to ontology axioms
to determine whether a node in the data graph is a SHACL instance of a class,
but this is best done by including a graph with the required ontology axioms
into the data graph.

I therefore vote 0 for a) and -1 for the other options.



I would vote +1 for a proposal like:

PROPOSED: The SHACL spec states that there is no need for a link from a SHACL
shapes graph to an ontology graph and does not define such a link.  The SHACL
spec further states that there is nothing in SHACL to prevent a SHACL shapes
graph from including ontology axioms or importing ontology axioms, but that
such inclusion or importation has no effect on determining whether a node in a
data graph is a SHACL instance of a class.  The SHACL spec states that
ontology axioms that affect SHACL are either part of the data graph or
included from the data graph.   The SHACL spec mentions that SHACL shape
graphs are often best developed in conjunction with a set of ontology axioms
and that tools for the development of SHACL shapes may want to provide
mechanisms for viewing axioms from a separate ontology.

This proposal clearly makes the required distinction between what is required
for SHACL validation and thus should be part of the SHACL language, and what
is useful for SHACL development and thus should not be part of the SHACL language.


peter


On 09/10/2015 01:09 AM, RDF Data Shapes Working Group Issue Tracker wrote:
> shapes-ISSUE-86 (dimitris): Associating shapes with ontologies or vocabularies [SHACL Spec]
> 
> http://www.w3.org/2014/data-shapes/track/issues/86
> 
> Raised by: Dimitris Kontokostas
> On product: SHACL Spec
> 
> Related to ISSUE-44, this is issue is about ways to associate an ontology or vocabulary to a set of shapes.
> 
> Possible ways to resolve it
> a) SHACL spec says nothing about associating ontologies/vocabularies with shapes
> b) SHACL spec suggests the use of owl:imports
> c) SHACL spec suggests the use of sh:shapesGraph
> d) SHACL spec suggests shapes are defined in the same file with the ontology/vocabulary
> e) SHACL spec suggests a combination of (d) with (b) or (c)
> 
> 
>

Received on Thursday, 1 October 2015 02:36:28 UTC