Call for Implementations of RIF

The W3C Rule Interchange Format (RIF) Working Group has just published
a new set of its documents as Candidate Recommendations.  This status
indicates that they have been widely reviewed and are ready for
developers to try using.

RIF includes three different dialects, designed for different kinds of
rule systems, along with a framework for adding more dialects, a set
of builtins, and a mechanism for using RIF with RDF and OWL.

    RIF Core Dialect
    http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/CR-rif-core-20091001/

    RIF Basic Logic Dialect
    http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/CR-rif-bld-20091001/

    RIF Production Rule Dialect
    http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/CR-rif-prd-20091001/

    RIF Framework for Logic Dialects
    http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/CR-rif-fld-20091001/

    RIF Datatypes and Built-Ins 1.0
    http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/CR-rif-dtb-20091001/

    RIF RDF and OWL Compatibility
    http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/CR-rif-rdf-owl-20091001/

Along with these mature Candidate Recommendations, we have three
first-draft documents which may be helpful:

    RIF Overview
    http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/WD-rif-overview-20091001/

    RIF Combination with XML data
    http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/WD-rif-xml-data-20091001/

    OWL 2 RL in RIF
    http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/WD-rif-owl-rl-20091001/

Our test suite is described in another document, and all test cases
(including ones which are not yet approved) can be browsed on our
Wiki:

    RIF Test Cases
    http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/WD-rif-test-20091001/

    Test Suite on the RIF WG Wiki, 
    http://www.w3.org/2005/rules/wiki/Category:Test_Case

Our "Use Cases and Requirements" document is still being updated and
will be republished soon.

We welcome feedback on all these documents at public-rif-comments@w3.org. 

This Candidate Recommendation period will extend for at least 4 weeks
(until 29 October), and we would appreciate reports from everyone
working on an implementation by that time.  After that point, we
expect to move to Proposed Recommendation whenever we see sufficient
evidence of RIF's quality and implementability.  We are maintaining a
list of the implementations we know about:

     http://www.w3.org/2005/rules/wiki/Implementations

There are five elements of RIF on which we are seeking specific
guidance from developers and which might still change, going forward.
These are marked as "at risk", according the to W3C process, and
marked with large yellow boxes in the specifications.  For the latest
on these features, see:

     http://www.w3.org/2005/rules/wiki/Features_At_Risk

As a final note, we invite the RIF developer community to subscribe to
a new open mailing list, public-rif-dev@w3.org.  To subscribe, send a
message to public-rif-dev-request@w3.org with the subject "subscribe".
For the list archives see:

    http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rif-dev/

I think that's about it.  If you reply to this e-mail, please make sure
"To" is what you want it to be.  The Working Group only sends official
replies to messages sent to its public comment list.

     -- Sandro Hawke, RIF Staff Contact

Received on Thursday, 1 October 2009 22:40:25 UTC