Re: OWL Documents and new WG (was Re: New draft charter (was Re: Responses to "Draft of charter for NextWebOnt (Proposed) Working Group"))

My concern is that the group that has defined OWL 1.1 to date is not 
necessarily the same group that will be in the Working Group.  Thus 
the "decisions" have not been made yet and may need to be revisited - 
the charter could propose that the documents so far should be the 
basis of the new work, but they are not yet WG documents, and the 
features in this draft need to be approved by members of the WG who 
may not yet have joined or participated.  The decisions and features 
will need to be revisited, voted on, etc.  There might be new 
suggestions not yet in the documents (allDisjointList for example) 
and the new otganizations joining the WG might decide that some of 
those proposed are not appropriate for their needs, meaning new 
consensus would need to be reached.
   So I still worry about whether the scope and the time frame are 
appropriate, but I've made my points.  However, do remember that the 
documents to date are suggestions, not deliverables.
  -Jim H.



At 5:33 PM -0500 1/17/07, ewallace@cme.nist.gov wrote:
>I agree with Bijan that we have a very good start on some of the tasks
>we need to accomplish to create an OWL 1.1 Recommendation.  In fact, in
>my mind, the hardest part of reaching this goal is defining the model
>theory and getting the proof of implementation.  Here we have a huge
>head start.  But this only addresses the implementation side of an OWL
>1.1 specification.
>
>We must also have at least one complete and authoritative reference for
>users to appeal to for answers to questions about the language or as the
>basis for discussions with implementers (the vast majority of users don't
>find language semantics such as in S and AS comprehendible, nor should they
>have to).  For OWL 1.0, OWL Reference filled this role well. For me this was
>the most important document in the OWL Recommendation.  I propose that we
>revise this for OWL 1.1. Bijan: Did you intend the Functional-style Syntax
>document to replace the role of Reference in OWL 1.1 or was OWL Reference a
>potential Outreach material in your deliverable list?
>
>I think that Guide and OWL Overview are less crucial.
>Guide was important when most people were using text editors as authoring
>tools for OWL in RDF/XML.  Purpose built OWL editors are now the dominant
>tool type for OWL authoring (Protege-OWL, SWOOP, TopBraid, etc), and RDF/XML
>will be seen by fewer and fewer users as time goes on.  OWL Overview is
>largely redundant with OWL Reference, although it currently is the OWL
>document that succinctly describes the OWL sublanguages and it provides nice
>overview of OWL for people new to the Semantic Web.
>
>I am not yet sure how major an undertaking revising OWL Reference for 1.1
>would be.  The language features are not that different in 1.1, but OWL
>Reference used RDF/XML examples and had enough of an RDF perspective that
>it could require major revision (if the new mapping changes that perspective).
>Any of the OWL 1.1 Member Submission authors care to offer an opinion on that?
>
>Almost no standards activity completes within a year, but if we continue
>to refine the charter that Bijan has created, particularly the deliverable
>section, we should be able to define OWL 1.1 as quickly as is possible.
>Stab the stawman now, rather than the standard activity later.
>
>-Evan
>
>Evan K. Wallace
>Manufacturing Systems Integration Division
>NIST

-- 
Prof James Hendler				hendler@cs.rpi.edu
Tetherless World Constellation Chair		http://www.cs.umd.edu/~hendler
Computer Science Dept			301-405-2696 (work)
Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst			301-405-6707 (Fax)
Troy, NY 12180

Received on Thursday, 18 January 2007 03:55:16 UTC