Alignment issue between dcat:contactPoint and sdo:contactPoint

[wouterbeek]

The DCAT2 specification (currently under development) indicates the following alignment with Schema.org:

dcat:contactPoint 	sdo:contactPoint

The domain of dcat:contactPoint is dcat:Resource which is something very generic, aligned with sdo:Thing.

At the same time, sdo:contactPoint is intended to have either persons or organizations in its domain.

Conceptually speaking there is a conflict when we assert that a DCAT catalog has a contact point (something we would like to assert), when this results in us (sort of) implying that a DCAT catalog is a person or organization in Schema.org.

[makxdekkers]

@wouterbeek As far as I understand, schema.org does not do domains the way RDF does. It only asserts that a property is merely "Used on these types" which does not stop people from using it on other types.
They actually state that "We expect schema.org properties to be used with new types, both from schema.org and from external extensions" (https://schema.org/docs/datamodel.html).
In fact, sdo:contactPoint is currently also 'used on' sdo:HealthInsurancePlan so it doesn't seem like a problem to me to also use it on dcat:Catalog and dcat:Dataset.

[wouterbeek]

@makxdekkers I was not aware of the precedent sent by sdo:HealthInsurancePlan. In that case DCAT is simply following a widening of the applicability of the sdo:contactPoint property that is already in effect. Closing...