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  1. OASIS OSLC Lifecycle Integration for Change and Configuration Management (OSLC CCM) TC
  2. OSLCCCM-19

Resource shapes for versioned type systems

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    • Proposal:
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      Allow an oslc:Property to use prov:wasRevisionOf to reference older versions of a property. Those older versions might use a different label and/or RDF predicate URI as determine by the state of the type system representing that state of the property. We should allow prov:wasRevisionOf to reference either a blank node (inline), or a URI, so long as referenced historic property is in the same graph (inline).

      In this way, a resource shape can represent the provenance of each OSLC property. This allows a query builder to present a property to query using its current label, but then be able to construct a SPARQL query using all the predicates, current and historic.

      To address the second issue, if a type definition used to be applicable, but is no longer, then include it in a query capability's resource shape, but use oslc:archived to indicate that the most recent version is not current. That property should also be able to use prov:wasRevisionOf to reference prior states of the property.

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      Allow an oslc:Property to use prov:wasRevisionOf to reference older versions of a property. Those older versions might use a different label and/or RDF predicate URI as determine by the state of the type system representing that state of the property. We should allow prov:wasRevisionOf to reference either a blank node (inline), or a URI, so long as referenced historic property is in the same graph (inline). In this way, a resource shape can represent the provenance of each OSLC property. This allows a query builder to present a property to query using its current label, but then be able to construct a SPARQL query using all the predicates, current and historic. To address the second issue, if a type definition used to be applicable, but is no longer, then include it in a query capability's resource shape, but use oslc:archived to indicate that the most recent version is not current. That property should also be able to use prov:wasRevisionOf to reference prior states of the property.

      Description

      OSLC Core defines a number of different types of resource shapes:
      1) A shape referenced in a creation factory.
      2) A shape referenced in a query capability
      3) A shape referenced by a specific instance of a resource

      The problem arises when a type system is versioned and artifacts can have properties defined by some state of that type system. Typically, the shape in the creation factory would define its OSLC properties based on the current state of type definitions. However, the shape for a query capability often needs to satisfy a requirement to support querying and reporting on historic data. Currently, OSLC Core does not provide any means of representing versioned shapes or OSLC properties. Some implementations have attempted to address this by representing multiple OSLC properties and then using owl:sameAs. However, this approach does not allow an OSLC client to distinguish a current property from historical ones that are related to the current one with owl:sameAs.

      If an OSLC client wants to provide a query interface to select properties and values, it will typically want to show the current label of a property in its interface, but when querying, use all the predicates associated with all the versions of that OSLC property. OSLC does not currently define any means of representing provenance in shapes.

      Similarly, there is a requirement for an OSLC client to discover a property whose type definition used to exist or be available, even though currently it is not allowed on new resources. Currently, a resource shape might include an oslc:Property for it, but cannot provide any means of indicating that it is historic versus being a current property.

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            • Assignee:
              Unassigned
              Reporter:
              DavidHoney David Honey
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              • Created:
                Updated: