RE: What's the point in using OWL-S?

Hi

Thx for your answer! I don't want to start another debate and discussion on
OWL-S vs. WSDL-S vs ... vs...

I'd like to understand broader picture and how Semantic web Services can be
made working. I am not expert in ontologies, reasoning, AI, so I am not
completely aware of the possibilities and limitations of this technologies.

One example that can be often found in semantic web examples is the e.g.
travel agency agent that can negotiate with several source like airlines
agents, hotel agents about prices, travel times, room reservations and so
on.

But if even the hotels can't agree on standardized ontologies and/or
interfaces how should this work. I don't think that a travel agency wants to
implement an agent that support dozens of interfaces to be able to talk to
the most important airlines and hotel booking systems... 

Given this example I am wondering what is needed at least to make this
scenario working in near future.

I know that there is research on matching different ontologies and finding
"somehow" corresponding concepts in the ontologies but I don't think that
this will work in near future.

Gerhard
PS: Sorry for TOFU, but my questions are more general and don't relate to a
particular point of the previous answer.
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Xuan Shi [mailto:Xuan.Shi@mail.wvu.edu]
> Sent: Saturday, June 03, 2006 6:29 AM
> To: gerhard.austaller@o2online.de; public-sws-ig@w3.org
> Subject: Re: What's the point in using OWL-S?
> 
> The OWL-S, as well as WSMO, not only provides the description of a
> service, but also stresses and focuses more on the process of service
> aggregation (or mediation in case for WSMO). Here we see the problem.
> Service providers only have the responsibility to provide a semantic
> description about the service. How service requesters use the service is
> beyond the control of service providers. When service requesters, or
> application developers, utilize multiple services to accomplish a series
> of tasks, they have to deal with service aggregation or mediation
> processes.
> 
> For this reason, OWL-S and WSMO mislead the group by blurring the focus
> of SWS research, i.e. to describe the semantics of services (service
> providers' responsibility), other than to describe the semantics of
> service integration (service requesters' responsibility).
> 
> WSDL-S adds semantic annotation into WSDL. In any W3C document, WSDL is
> defined as a document of service interface. Thus the semantics of
> service interface is not the same as the semantics of service, because
> the same service can have different interfaces (see living examples at:
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-ws-semann/2006Apr/0029.html)
> 
> As for your question, "do we assume that all airlines agree on one
> ontology and further also on the process how to do something?" When I
> discussed with Jacek off-the-list, he said that service providers have
> absolute right to define their own service interface, definition,
> ontology, semantics, etc. and, service providers do not need to care
> about how requesters will use the service (I stressed on a
> requester-oriented approach). Thus you see, there is NO agreement on the
> ontology or semantic definition, and that's why people have to use the
> logic-based SW technique to guess the meaning of the service
> ontology/semantics for matchmaking. Without agreement and
> standardization, we can see the problems as I discussed in
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-sws-ig/2006Apr/0048.html
> 
> At its best, what a programmer can gain from an owl-s description may be
> a service composition document which is supposed to tell you how to
> chain varied services together for certain tasks/goals. But the
> remaining question is how can you invoke the services according to such
> a composition result as I discussed in
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-sws-ig/2006Apr/0045.html
> 
> I hope you can get more responses from others in this group soon in the
> following days.
> 
> Best wishes,
> 
> Xuan
> 
> >>> "Gerhard Austaller" <gerhard.austaller@o2online.de> 06/02/06 12:30
> AM >>>
> 
> Hi
> 
> I still have not understood what exactly an agent can achieve with the
> owl-s
> description of a service.
> 
> Let's take the Bravo Air example. For an agent to book a ticket it has
> to
> "understand" the concepts used there. But where's the big advantage in
> having an interface (in WSDL) defined or an annotated WSDL like WSDL-S?
> I
> admit having the exact order of steps defined to achieve something is a
> step
> in the right direction...
> 
> Now I want my agent also to book a ticket at another airline. So if this
> airline uses another ontology that ontology also as to be understandable
> to
> the agent made by an programmer. So do we assume that all airlines agree
> on
> one ontology and further also on the process how to do something?
> 
> Do I miss something? Can please somebody explain or give me pointers
> what's
> a programmer can gain from an owl-s description?
> 
> Thanks
> Gerhard

Received on Saturday, 3 June 2006 13:11:28 UTC