Re: perspectives on OWL v.next and RDF

On 13/11/06, Jim Hendler <hendler@cs.umd.edu> wrote:

> Bijan - in the interest of bringing things to the mailing lists instead of
> blog wars

I'm here :-)

I don't have the expertise in OWL to offer much to the debate, but I
do care about the Web. So with regards to this:

> Deliverables
>
>      * Syntax and Semantics (S&S)
>      * Outreach material
>            o update/diff//what the wg decides
>            o New material (e.g., tractable fragments)
>     * Test Suite

I would suggest that the test suite covers compatibility testing, to
ensure that any proposal which is intended to build on the SW stack
doesn't conflict with the existing RDF and OWL layers. (I am not a
logician, but a first thought is that lossy round-tripping across any
mappings would be considered acceptable, round-tripping that might
lead to contradiction, not).

In addition (a point I've been struggling to get across in the
blogosphere), surely the primary consideration for a Web Ontology
Language should be the (Semantic) Web. Compatibility with deployed Web
languages should take precedence over the requirements of any
(effectively) offline users. The onus should be on the proposers of
any development to demonstrate there won't be any Web-breaking.

In my opinion, in this context the specific exchange syntax is of
secondary importance.

I personally have doubts about the wisdom of making a significant
increment to OWL at this point in time because of potential impact on
the adoption of RDF and OWL, but am happy to defer to Kendall, Bijan
and co. on the point that there is real demand for certain features.

Cheers,
Danny.

-- 

http://dannyayers.com

Received on Monday, 13 November 2006 22:00:44 UTC