RE: Options we have with respect to the draft charters (i.e., RE: [fwd] Draft charters for work on Semantics for WS)

At 10:17 -0500 11/22/05, Shi, Xuan wrote:
>I'd like to make clear about my statement regarding XML, RDF/OWL, semantic
>Web, etc. XML is based on a Tree model while RDF is based on a graphic model
>originated from the AI domain. Thus it's not easy for XML people to
>understand RDF tripples.
>
>Since semantic Web is a "logical Web", in this sense, the
>"machine-processible semantics" as Uschold discuessed is limited to those
>"logics". However, the content of "semantics" is far more than "logics".
>That's why Veltman criticized the SW technologies as it is an obvious
>problem as how can we use RDF/OWL to describe the semantics of Culture or
>literature when people exchange information over the Internet? Actually what
>machine can process depends on how people design the procedure, which may
>have no logics inside it.
>
>As for semantic Web services, RDF is good at define the class-subclass
>relationship and thus has a root relationship with object-oriented
>programming techniques. However, in Web services, we have much more
>relatsionships than the class-subclass relation as we have to define the
>meaning, purpose, behavior, etc. of the services and functions, which may be
>all beyond the WSDL document itself.
>
>
>

Shi, since I just gave a keynote talk at XML 2005 on exactly these 
issues, and discussing the difference between SW and XML, may I point 
you at my slides
   http://www.cs.umd.edu/~hendler/presentations/XML2005Keynote.pdf
suffice to say, that I think the XML world has plenty of complexity 
of its own, and tree vs. graph really doesn't get at the main point.



>-----Original Message-----
>From: Bijan Parsia
>To: jeff@inf.ed.ac.uk
>Cc: public-sws-ig@w3.org
>Sent: 11/22/05 9:06 AM
>Subject: Re: Options we have with respect to the draft charters (i.e., RE:
>[fwd]  Draft charters for work on Semantics for WS)
>
>
>On Nov 21, 2005, at 10:24 PM, jeff@inf.ed.ac.uk wrote:
>
>>  Quoting Bijan Parsia <bparsia@isr.umd.edu>:
>>
>>>  On Nov 21, 2005, at 7:21 PM, jeff@inf.ed.ac.uk wrote:
>>>
>>>>  Quoting Bijan Parsia <bparsia@isr.umd.edu>:
>[snip]
>
>Perhaps we should take this off list.
>
>>  In context, the complexity point was:
>>
>>    even XML people cannot understand RDF/OWL due to those logics
>>    and the way of RDF presentation. That's why this technology is
>>    not well accepted and deployed.   That's why I said here before,
>>    the more complex the system, the less the user. It's the same
>>    to developing semantic Web services.
>>
>>  For people trying to understand, and making decisions about
>>  adopting, RDF/OWL can be significantly more complex in the
>>  ways that most affect their decision.
>
>But he didn't make this claim. Acutally, he made a muddle of claims (is
>it that RDF & OWL are a logic, or that they have bad presentation?) So,
>there's the claim that it *is* more complex and *why* it is more
>complex. Then the simple claim that *any* complexity reduces the number
>of users. So I believe you are reading far more into what he wrote.
>
>And complex *for what*? Are we comparing relevantly similar tasks? (For
>example.) Perhaps we should look at the relative acceptance of Relax NG
>and XML Schema?
>
>I had written a lot more, but it doesn't seem worth it. I stand by my
>point that wild-eyed bashing is no more informative than wild-eyed
>hype, and that if you are going to talk about the acceptance dimishing
>effects of complexity, you have to be fairly sophisticated in your
>discussion. Acceptance and adoption are complex things which marketers,
>economists and psychologists spend a lot of time failing to accurately
>predict. I think we should be humble in our claims.
>
>Cheers,
>Bijan.

-- 
Professor James Hendler			  Director
Joint Institute for Knowledge Discovery	 	  301-405-2696
UMIACS, Univ of Maryland			  301-314-9734 (Fax)
College Park, MD 20742			  http://www.cs.umd.edu/~hendler 
(New course: http://www.cs.umd.edu/~hendler/CMSC498w/)