DRAFT OBO Foundry Principle 19: Stability of term meaning

[Darren A Natale]

Dear OBO Community,

The Editorial Working Group is requesting your feedback on a new principle, Principle 19, called "Stability of term meaning". This principle codifies already-common practice and provides guidance on the somewhat disparate implementations of term obsoletion. The relevant links are:

Discussion:   https://github.com/OBOFoundry/OBOFoundry.github.io/issues/964
Pull Request: https://github.com/OBOFoundry/OBOFoundry.github.io/pull/2668
File Preview: https://github.com/OBOFoundry/OBOFoundry.github.io/blob/76d8c2e31e000775dbdada8674ed01d11e0d02da/principles/fp-019-term-stability.md

The summary and purpose are given below:

Summary

The definition of a term MUST always denote the same thing(s)--known as "referent(s)"--in reality. If a proposed change to the definition would substantially change its referents, then a new term with new IRI and definition MUST instead be created.

Purpose

Users of an ontology depend on the stability of its terms and their meanings. Therefore, changes to the definition of a term should never substantially shift its meaning. Put another way, its set of referents MUST remain stable, within reason. That is, changes to a term definition--or any mechanism to denote meaning, including elucidations and logical axioms--should not cause that term to point to different entities than it denotes already.

Best regards,
Darren Natale, EWG Chair