Principle: Relations (principle 7)
- Overview
- Open (principle 1)
- Common Format (principle 2)
- URI/Identifier Space (principle 3)
- Versioning (principle 4)
- Scope (principle 5)
- Textual Definitions (principle 6)
- Relations (principle 7)
- Documentation (principle 8)
- Documented Plurality of Users (principle 9)
- Commitment To Collaboration (principle 10)
- Locus of Authority (principle 11)
- Naming Conventions (principle 12)
- Notification of Changes (principle 13)
- Maintenance (principle 16)
- Stability of Term Meaning (principle 19)
- Responsiveness (principle 20)
NOTE
The content of this page is scheduled to be reviewed. Improved wording will be posted as it becomes available.
Summary
Relations should be reused from the Relations Ontology (RO).
This check is automatically validated.
Purpose
To facilitate interoperability between multiple ontologies, especially with respect to logical inference. That is, a reasoner can only detect logical inconsistencies between ontologies and infer new axioms if the ontologies use the same object properties.
Recommendations and Requirements
Each OBO ontology MUST reuse existing relations (aka object properties) that have already been declared in the Relations Ontology (RO), rather than declaring relations that mean the same as an existing RO relation. Where it makes sense for an ontology to declare a new relation in its own ID space and there is a RO relation that is logically a super-property of the new relation, the new relation MUST be asserted to be a sub-property of the RO relation. In such cases, it is requested that there still be coordination with RO, for example in the form of an issue submitted to the RO tracker.
Implementation
Reuse means that the actual relations PURLs are used. Ontology developers should be aware that RO relations (in rare instances) can evolve over time and previous relations might become obsolete. This means developers should monitor the state of the RO relations they use.