search

SEMICeu / CPOV

This is the issue tracker for the maintenance of Core Public Organisation Vocabulary
11 stars 7 forks source link

cpov:PublicOrganisation subClassOf #14

Closed aidig closed 2 years ago

aidig commented 3 years ago

The class cpov:PublicOrganisation is currently defined as a subClassOf org:Organization, but what is the argument for not defining it as an org:FormalOrganization (which is also reused in Core Business Vocabulary)? The W3C definition and provided examples seem to include public organisations, but there might be other reasons for not reusing this class?

org:FormalOrganization An Organization which is recognized in the world at large, in particular in legal jurisdictions, with associated rights and responsibilities. Examples include a corporation, charity, government or church.

source: http://www.w3.org/ns/org#FormalOrganization

aidig commented 2 years ago

On page 22 in Appendix I of the docx distribution of CPOV 1.0.0. it is noted that cpov:PublicOrganisation was not been defined as a org:FormalOrganization in order to include organisations that are not legal entities, but does org:FormalOrganization actually imply that the organisation always is a legal entity (the phrase involved is "which is recognized in the world at large". It does continue "in particular in legal jurisdictions", but "in particular" signals, that this is not always the case - but was the intention of org:FormalOrganization to capture legal entities exclusively?

  1. Definition of Public Organization moved from previous (very short) section that offered definitions of key terms to the definition of the Public Organization class (section 4.1). Short definition retained but expanded upon with reference to the PSI Directive (resolves issue https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/asset/cpov/issue/definition-public-organisation). Furthermore, the class cv:PublicOrganization has been created in the CPOV's own namespace and defined a subclass of org:Organization and not of org:FormalOrganization to include POs that are not legal entities (a rare, but not unknown situation in some countries).
mayaborges commented 2 years ago

I cannot find any requirement that org:FormalOrganization be legal entities. It is certainly not a part of the definition.

I find it hard to imagine a PublicOrganisation that is not recognized in the jurisdiction where it exists. And having rights and/or responsibililties also so seem very much in line with being a PublicOrganisation. So I really do not understand why PublicOrganisation cannot be a subclass of org:FormalOrganization.

aidig commented 2 years ago

In the communication during the development of The Organization Ontology, it was also noted that "Formal" is ambiguous and discussed what the purpose of FormalOrganization was: https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-lod/2010Jun/0103.html https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-lod/2010Jun/0110.html https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-lod/2010Jun/0120.html

EmidioStani commented 2 years ago

As discussed in the webinar of 09/11/2021 the subclass relation will not change, as such change does not have an impact per se.