Re: DAML-S input

Hi Ian -

Dickinson, Ian J wrote:
> We are in the midst of a fairly intense discussion on DAML-S (and OWL-S) in
> our lab.  This has raised a number of issues, problems and questions about
> the languages and their use.  What is a good way to report these back to the
> DAML-S consortium?  Two obvious extremes are to post one message here on
> www-ws per issue, to allow a suitably threaded discussion, or to post a
> paper discussing all of the problems  - which would be more compact but
> harder to respond to.  I'd appreciate some suggestions.

 From the perspective of the DAML-S Coalition, either of these 
approaches would be fine, and welcome.  I guess it's whatever is most 
convenient and productive in terms of your time constraints, etc.

> 
> I know that some of the problems that we are encountering have been
> identified before - but I couldn't find an issue list or issue tracker for
> DAML-S.  Does such a thing exist?

No.  There's an informal hand-crafted "rationale" page and a "status" 
page on the DAML-S release site, which might be relevant, but I'm afraid 
they haven't been maintained very rigorously.

Also, of course, the www-ws archives are available.

> Finally, why are the consortium discussions private?  DAML-S is a public
> specification; other standards bodies (e.g. W3C) make the standards
> committees' deliberations open to the community to read (even if
> participation is restricted).  I notice the same lack of visibility is true
> for SWSI.  

You are right that a good deal of our technical discussions (in both 
groups) have taken place on private lists, and many of us are concerned 
about this.  It has been more the result of habit, tradition, and 
convenience than anything else.  Actually we have discussed this 
recently and we intend to increase our use of this list (www-ws) for 
technical discussions.

Does it suggest that consortium members have or are going to
> assert intellectual property claims on the resulting specification? 

No.  Our use of private discussions has had nothing to do with IP 
considerations.

  If so,
> are the terms of these claims public?

There aren't any such claims.  Noone in either the DAML-S Coalition or 
in SWSI has ever expressed any interest in establishing any IP claims in 
connection with this work.

Anyway, thanks for your comments, and we welcome your input on technical 
issues.  Also, please bear with us - we really are beginning to increase 
our use of public e-mail discussions.

Regards,
David Martin

Received on Friday, 1 August 2003 14:08:58 UTC