Does a resource profile always describe a single entity?

[vcharpenay]

I see ambiguity in the expression "resource profile" that I can't lift, even after reading the ontology documentation: is a "resource profile" describing a single entity or is a template describing multiple entities sharing some useful characteristics?

A FOAF profile or a Thing Description describe a single entity (a person or a Thing). But a profile may also be understood as an "online target profile", identifying a group of persons targeted by the same ads, or a Thing Model, a template for Things sharing (partly) the same interface.

The discover-core scenario includes a CQ about a profile but the ex:factoryProfile may be of either kind.

In the definition of the term in the v1 of the ontology, the given examples suggest a profile describes only one entity. In that case, I would make it explicit in the definition and strengthen the associated CQ. For instance, I think of two aspects to clarify:

• isn't the concept closely related to that of an agent's body/pody?
• if a resource profile is any information resource about any other resource, in which case is it necessary to make the relation explicit? It is common to have triples of the form <> foaf:primaryTopic <#this> but <> is rarely typed with a more specific type than foaf:Document (foaf:PersonalProfileDocument exists, yes, but knowing the document is a personal profile doesn't help if it has no foaf:primaryTopic relation).

[FabienGandon]

BODY/PODY: If I follow the SOLID architecture (ex https://arxiv.org/abs/2302.06933 sections 3.1 and 3.2) The pod(y) comes with a relation to the (Web ID) profile: "Any agent (person or organization) within the Solid ecosystem can establish their identity through a URI, called a WebID (...) Each WebID URI should be derefer‐ enceable, and return a WebID profile document. Next to basic information of the agent such as its name, this document contains links to 1) the vault’s LDP container(via pim:storage [POD] ), and 2) public and private type indexes."

[vcharpenay]

Motivating scenario to make the distinction between single-resource vs. multiple-resource profiles more explicit:

a Thing Description is partly defined by the manufacturer of the Thing, the subcontractor who deploy it and, maybe the owner, who manages it after deployment. In case a TD is erroneous and leads to physical harm, who should be held accountable? Each part of the TD can be hosted on the author organization's servers, each stating they are the author of their document, or there could be e.g. prov:derivedFrom links from a full TD to "template documents".

[smnmyr]

I think that this is well-understood and also agree that we should make this explicit. I would go cautious and with a resource profile only describing a single entity. In the same sense as TD vs. TDM. There could be a Resource Profile Model (or a "Resources Profile", or a "Resource Stereotype") in the future.

[FabienGandon]

concerning the ambiguity in the expression "resource profile", we proposed at the plenary session that a profile should not be considered as a template and that @vcharpenay could suggest here an edition to the comment of the "resource profile" that would make it non ambiguous in this case.