Re: Ontology modules and namespaces
Uldis Bojars
Forwarding the conversation to Ontolog-Forum and SIOC-Dev lists as their
subscribers may also have interesting insights.
Simon Reinhardt wrote:
> Hi,
>
> It is becoming somewhat popular for large ontologies to be split into
> a core ontology file and module ontology files (which import the
> core). Normally each module then gets its own namespace for the terms
> defined in it. I was wondering though if that is too complicated for
> users of the ontologies. I have seen confusion of "sioc" and "sioct"
> (the prefixes for the SIOC core and the SIOC Types module namespaces)
> and when such vocabularies get higher adoption by people not so well
> versed with ontologies I can see it happen a lot more often.
>
> So as an alternative I want to explore the idea of just using one
> namespace shared between the core and the modules. The advantage would
> be not having to guess which namespace to use. One disadvantage for
> the developer(s) of the ontology is that a "local name" can only be
> used in one of the modules or core, you can't use the same "word"
> under a different namespace with a different meaning. Another
> disadvantage is that if you want the terms to dereference to the
> ontology files they have been defined in then you can only do that
> with a "/" namespace (and you have to set up lots of redirects).
>
> My questions: What do you think of that idea? Can you see any other
> advantages or disadvantages? Do you think several namespaces are not
> confusing at all? And what are the main advantages to splitting up
> ontologies into modules other than being easier to organise? Do they
> justify a higher burden on the ontology users?
>
> Thanks,
> Simon
>
