Re: OWL2 serialized as JSON?

* Nathan <nathan@webr3.org> [2011-04-10 08:51+0100]
> Peter Frederick Patel-Schneider wrote:
> >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.
> 
> Likewise, I'd also argue that a splitting of a-box and t-box
> statements in to two distinct serializations would be far more
> inline with what people are used to, especially when coming from the
> classes and objects or RDBMS side of things, the blurring of the
> lines between schema and data always work out for the best, indeed
> I'd argue that many around the linked data world don't use
> ontologies to anywhere near there full potential because the lines
> are so blurred.

Should such a format have also a place for RDF? There's a lot of OWL
that's being used as instance data, and it could be very practical to
allow bnodes to be shared between OWL and RDF graphs. As an example,
consider if ncbi_gene:1812 in
  http://www.w3.org/TR/hcls-kb/#triplemodel
were labeled with a bnode ID instead of a an IRI, we'd want something
like:

[[
{ "JOWL" :
  { …
    "ObjectRestriction": {
        "onProperty" : "dnaGeneProduct:described_by" ,
 "hasValue" : "_:ncbi_gene1812" } }
  "JURTLE" :
  { …
    [ "_:ncbi_gene1812", "sc:describes_gene_…mentioned_by" "article:10698743" ]
  }
}
]]

(noting that the bnode "_:ncbi_gene1812" appears both in JOWL and JURTLE)


> From another point of view, it would be very nice to see a meeting
> of the minds between OWL and JSON-Schema, and likewise for
> RDF/LinkedData and JSON. To me atleast, that would be wonderful.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Nathan
> 
> ps: cross post to RDF WG, since it's quite related.
> 

-- 
-ericP

Received on Sunday, 10 April 2011 14:28:53 UTC