Re: OWL2 serialized as JSON?

From: Bob Ferris <zazi@elbklang.net>
Subject: Re: OWL2 serialized as JSON?
Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2011 06:46:30 -0500

> Hi Peter,
> 
> On 4/6/2011 1:18 PM, Peter Frederick Patel-Schneider wrote:
>> From: Bob Ferris<zazi@elbklang.net>
>> Subject: Re: OWL2 serialized as JSON?
>> Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2011 03:47:20 -0500
>>
>>> Hi Chris,
>>>
>>> On 4/5/2011 11:29 PM, Chris Mungall wrote:
>>>> Is there a de-facto standard way of serializing OWL2 as JSON? I'm aware of RDF-over-JSON efforts, but something more OWL-centric would suit my purposes better.
>>>>
>>>> I recall a lightning talk at OWLED2007 that showed something like Manchester Syntax in JSON, but I don't know if this idea has advanced further. I think ideally there might be a frame-style modeled after MS (but including GCIs), and an axiom-style modeled after the functional syntax. It seems the most predictable way to do the latter would be to have a single object per axiom, and to use the non-terminals on the RHS of the production rules as names in the name-value pairs.
>>>>
>>>> I'm hoping someone has already provided a specification - and/or an OWLAPI implementation?
>>>
>>> I'm not aware of any OWL2/JSON serialization. However, I'm wondering
>>> whether this is really necessary, since OWL can be represented via the
>>> knowledge representation structure RDF Model quite well. Today there are
>>> multiple proposals for RDF/JSON serialization (see [1]) available and
>>> the new RDF WG is working on a standard recommendation. Maybe you should
>>> wait for this.
>>> What are the benefits of having a separate OWL2/JSON serialization format?
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Bob
>>>
>>> [1] http://www.w3.org/2011/rdf-wg/wiki/JSON-Serialization-Examples
>>
>> A direct transformation from OWL axioms to JSON would be much more
>> readable than first going through RDF.  There would be other advantages,
>> including size.
> 
> However, then you probably confuse people even more who are trying to 
> get into Semantic Web, or? If we would have two separate serializations 
> formats, then you have to teach people RDF/JSON and OWL/JSON, and 
> convience them from their benefits and existence. The power of RDF Model 
> is that it is a knowledge representation structure for the vocabulary 
> level and the instantitation level. Otherwise, you would (prefer to) use 
> OWL/JSON for vocabulary level serializations and RDF/JSON for 
> instatiation level serializations. Finally, the size reduction would be 
> a consequence of a more complex grammar, which might be a disadvantage.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> 
> Bob

I would argue instead that RDF/JSON for OWL axioms would be much more
confusing than a direct transformation.

peter

Received on Wednesday, 6 April 2011 11:57:30 UTC