Re: comments on http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-rdf-schema-20021112/

My comments are interspersed below, prefixed with "#####"
============ 
Dick McCullough 
knowledge := man do identify od existent done
knowledge haspart list of proposition
 ----- Original Message ----- 
 From: Brian McBride 
 To: Richard H. McCullough ; www-rdf-comments@w3.org 
 Sent: Wednesday, November 27, 2002 12:09 AM
 Subject: Re: comments on http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-rdf-schema-20021112/ 
 Hi Richard,
 At 12:33 26/11/2002 -0800, Richard H. McCullough wrote:
 >There are a number of domain & range errors in your descriptions of the 
 >RDFS properties. You should check your descriptions against your table 
 >"RDF Properties".
 Thanks for drawing our attention to this. Please not however that 
 references to specific errors are much more helpful. Consider the 
 difference between:
 Your spec is full of mistakes. You should check it over.
 and
 The range for property foobar is missing on page 5.
 The latter is more helpful to us.
 ##### I agree. I just got lazy. I didn't have a printout of the document, and I was trying to manage by flipping between screens. BTW, the document has no section numbers or page numbers.
 >
 >Since you provide no definitions, there is confusion about the distinction 
 >between "resource" and "instance" and "member". For example, in the 
 >description of "rdfs:type", does the domain of type include individuals, 
 >or classes, or both?
 Right. We have some text in progress to clarify that. The answer to your 
 question is that domain of type is rdfs:Resource. RDF Schema does not 
 define the term individual. Please note also that a class is an instance 
 (member) of rdfs:Resource.
 >
 >In your description of the property "rdfs:object", you imply that Literal 
 >is not a subclass of Resource. That contradicts the definition of Resource.
 Right. That is a hangover from when we were being coy about whether 
 Literals were resources or not. Will fix. Thanks.
 >
 >In many places, you say that x "represents" y. You should say "denotes" 
 >or "means".
 We are in process of reviewing use of the term "represents". Sometimes we 
 might replace it with denotes, others some variant of the verb to be.
 >The ranges in the "RDF Properties" table encourage the continuing 
 >confusion between "Class" and "Resource".
 > With the exception of "type", the ranges should be "Resource" instead of 
 > "Class".
 What properties do you mean. For example the range of rdfs:domain is 
 definitely rdfs:Class.
 ##### I mean EVERY property in the table.
 ##### For the rest of my discussion, I'm going to drop the qualifiers "rdf:" and "rdfs",
 ##### because I frankly can't remember which one is used, and I'm too lazy to look it up now.
 ##### For the property "domain", its domain is "Property" and its range is "Resource", i.e.,
 ##### Property has domain = Resource
 ##### which means (when combined with other info.) that
 ##### Resource has Property = Resource
 ##### which means that every resource (individual or class) has properties,
 ##### and that the value of every property is a resource (individual or class).
 >The only consistent definition of "Class" that I can come up with is: 
 >"Class" is the set of class names.
 I have shown you a description of class in discussion on rdf interest that 
 was different to that. To the best of my knowledge, you have found no 
 inconsistencies in it.
 ##### OK, here's the proof that your definition of Class is contradictory.
 ##### I don't remember exactly what you said in the rdf interest discussion.
 ##### I think the basic idea was that "Class" is a class instead of a set of class names.
 ##### The problem with your definition comes out when you consider
 ##### the PROPER subclass relations between Class and Resource.
 ##### By the definition of Resource
 ##### every class except Resource is a proper subclass of Resource
 ##### Therefore
 ##### Class is a proper subclass of Resource
 ##### On the other hand, you have defined Class to include all classes, 
 ##### and Resource is a class, so
 ##### Resource is a proper subclass of Class
 ##### which is a contradiction. The only logical alternative to this conclusion is that
 ##### Class is identical to Resource
 ##### and I don't think that's what you want Class to be.
 ##### Using my definition
 ##### Class is the set of all class names
 ##### the set of all class names is an individual of the class Set
 ##### the class Set is a proper subclass of Resource
 ##### and there is no contradiction.
 ##### Note that "Resource" is a member of "Class", because it is a class name,
 ##### but "Class" is not a member of "Class", because it is an individual name.
 > Given that definition, the range of "type" is "Class"
 Given the one we are using also, the range of type is rdfs:Class.
 >, i.e., a class name.
 No, its not the name of a class. Classes are named by URIrefs. The range 
 of type is not uriref.
 Brian