[foaf-dev] fidelity vs idiom

-----Original Message-----
From: foaf-dev-bounces-RyYwo1q5J+qsOXdr9/[email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Dan Brickley
Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 2010 8:12 AM
To: Rinke Hoekstra; Ian Davis
Cc: foaf-dev Friend of a
Subject: [foaf-dev] Implying that two mentioned individuals are distinct... updating best practice from owl:differentFrom to owl:IrreflexiveObjectProperty?

From discussion here at benelux semweb meetup in Amsterdam -

In FOAF, if we say

alice a foaf:Person .
alice foaf:knows bob .
bob a foaf:Person .

this implies the existence of ...
...
It's truth doesn't guarantee formally that there are
...
and that this doesn't put the idiom into OWL Full.


One of the things Henry and I used to argue about was whether a FOAF file (used in a FOAF+SSL context) was an assertion; similar to a SAML assertion. The argument for assumed that because the basis of FOAF (RDF) was formal and logical (and capable of making assertions), so too was FOAF; and a FOAF file signaled via FOAF+SSL is thus an assertion. At the time of initial communication using mainstream SSL, it's an authenticated assertion furthermore.

If FOAF is only an idiom (albeit one with intuitive semantics about its pseudo-assertions of identity when used in the FOAF+SSL context) then the proposed relationship attributes (when invoking the powers of less than OWL-FULL) are not "legally sound" - having not formal basis of truth that meets criminal law standards. They may be circumstantially sound, which may well meet the legal standards for truthful assertions used typically in resolving civil disputes (which much more interesting to the web, of course).

Though forlorn, a middle ground of legal semantics exists: known as equity. It stands between criminal and common law. About the only place its relevant today is in really old-fashioned trust instruments, using archaic language mostly. These are often found in legacy social structures, such as mortages and land dealing. Posh lawyers trudged out of the American law schools and used to invoking the phrases of the  17th and 18th century seem to like to invoke these language forms, I've noticed; alluding to (and only "alluding to") legal reasoning powers that derive from the rather abstract equitable principles  referenced by all the code words.

So, if FOAF as it stands is suitable for the non-criminal law tradition (common law), and FOAF with OWL FULL would be suitable for the criminal law, then perhaps FOAF's idioms augmented with some OWL constructs might be suitable particularly for making statements about the world of trust and equity - statements that are "about identity" (merely).

Of course, FOAF is no longer an idiom - once augmented like this. To be honest, I don't know the correct term for what kind of language FOAF is, if augmented with such equitable reasoning. Perhaps it's now a "fidelity" language (vs a mere idiom).

_______________________________________________
foaf-dev mailing list
foaf-dev-RyYwo1q5J+qsOXdr9/[email protected]
http://lists.foaf-project.org/mailman/listinfo/foaf-dev