Report of Feature Synopsis Breakout Session

	Report of breakout session on Feature Synopsis Documemt


Overall conclusion:
- make it more introductory,
- less technical,
- stronger on motivation/purpose
- rename it "overview",

Main chunks of work:
- CHUNK "GUIDE/ROADMAP":
- CHUNK "MOTIVATION FOR THE LANGUAGE"
- CHUNK SUBLANGUAGES:
- CHUNK FEATURE LIST:
- CHUNK EDITORIAL
- Some suggestions for Guide document

CHUNK "GUIDE/ROADMAP":
- needs a reading guide/roadmap between the documents
  - make Synopsis non-normative (ie informative)
  - explicit statement of purpose, intended audience, follow-up reading
  - remove ref. to WG expect in header
  - title: "Web Ontology Language (OWL): Overview"
  - Intended readership:
    - anyone who wants to decide if they want to use OWL
    - knowledge of RDF(S) is useful but not essential
  - mention UML as a metaphor

CHUNK "MOTIVATION FOR THE LANGUAGE"
- need motivation for the language: lift par. from Requirements Doc
  + pointer to ReqDoc for further reading.
  Relation with RDF(S) and XML
    (both in terms of motivation and what's possible)
  Shortest statement = expressive language for defining shared
  vocabulary, with formal semantics that makes it suitable for machine
  usage.
  [see list of Dan]
  XML: surface syntax, no/unconstrained semantics
  XML Schema: restricting form of XML documents
  RDF: datamodel for things + relations between them,
       some simple semantics
  RDF Schema: vocabulary for documenting properties and classes,
              with semantics for generalisation-hierarchies of
	      properties and classes
  OWL : more vocabulary for modelling concepts such as cardinality
        ("exactly one"), equality, richer typing of properties
	("all carnivores eat meat")
This will help in:
  - what does upgrading from RDF involve


CHUNK SUBLANGUAGES:
- Needs better stuff on sublanguages and semantics-layering:
  - motivation "why each sublanguage",
  - explanation "what it is"
  - guide on "when to use what"
  - consequences of this to choice
  point to conformance issues
- strategy for feature-list should be additive

CHUNK FEATURE LIST:
- make feature list more introductory & shorter,
    interlinked
    for each feature: "this language element allows you to..."
    (only scrap feature list alltogether if this doesn't work)
  - incorrectness on sameClassAs/sameIndividualAsa
- max length 10 pages
  if nec. economise on details and not on motivation etc.
- PostPone until issue is clearer:
  - importing documents vs language levels
- we deliberately stay don't list RDF syntax

CHUNK EDITORIAL
interdocument consistency of terminology,
  (dialect/language/vocabulary, instance/individual/member)
interlinking etc
- check against http://www.w3.org/Guide/pubrules#head
- Brian McBride and/or Dave Becket comments
- replace "RDF namespace" by "features already present in RDF(S)",
  replace "OWL namespace" by "features introduced by this language"

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- SUGGESTION FOR GUIDE: Description of the language levels in Guide
  document is misleading/backwards (not consistently addititive or
  diminuitive)

- SUGGESTION FOR GUIDE:
  needs list of interdefinability between language items

- SUGGESTION FOR GUIDE:
  needs difference-list with DAML+OIL

- SUGGESTION FOR GUIDE: explain what it takes to turn an RDF Schema
  document into an OWL Lite document

- SUGGESTION FOR GUIDE: explain how to say that two classes are
  different