- From: Uschold, Michael F <michael.f.uschold@boeing.com>
- Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 09:45:27 -0800
- To: "Jim Hendler" <hendler@cs.umd.edu>
- Cc: <public-swbp-wg@w3.org>, "Jones, David H" <david.h.jones@boeing.com>
Thanks Jim for your input. More concrete dicussion can take place when the note has some meat on it for you and others to assess. However, I can respond to some of your points. See [MFU] below. -----Original Message----- From: Jim Hendler [mailto:hendler@cs.umd.edu] Sent: Sunday, February 06, 2005 2:29 PM To: Uschold, Michael F Cc: public-swbp-wg@w3.org Subject: Re: [OEP] OWL and Semantic interoperability for the note is: > >This note addresses the role of OWL in overcoming problems of semantic >heterogeneity. We briefly characterize what we mean by semantic >interoperability, and what the challenges are. We describe some OWL >constructs that are designed to support semantic interoperability and >illustrate them with examples. We highlight their strengths and >limitations. The main message is that OWL is no silver bullet for the >general problem of achieving semantic interoperability. The support >provided is very limited. Many of these limitations will be overcome by >the Semantic Web Rule Language (SWRL) that is currently under >development. Mike - let me put this in a friendly way -- I don't like this at all. First of all, when you compare OWL to any of the alternatives it is way better - [MFU] Which alternatives to OWL is OWL superior to? In what way? Perhaps you have something different in mind by 'semantic interoperability' than I do. When I compare OWL to alternatives (such as CWM or SWRL, and perhaps FLogic) for providing semantic interoperability , OWL comes up short (see below). == If you stopped after the sentence "OWL is no silver bullet ..." I'd be fine. However, you go on to say "the support provided is very limited" which I don't agree with, and which also is a subjective statement at best. [MFU] By limited, I meant it cannot support some extremely simple and minor things that are critical to many real world interoperability scenarios. e.g. doing arithmetic to convert between different units (e.g. feet/meters). One can do this very easily using CWM, and SWRL. That assertion is not subjective. Going from this fact to an interpretation that OWL is "very limited" is open to discussion, and perhaps should be re-worded for different emphasis. For example: "OWL provides x,y and z to support interoperability. a,b,and c are not supported by OWL. The extent to which this is a limitation depends on the nature of one's application." would probably be better. In the experience of myself and some of my colleagues, OWL's support for interoperability is indeed very limited. Without simple arithmetic and rules, most of what we need is not supported. I would be very grateful if you [Jim or anyone] could give some examples of non-toy real-world problems of interoperability that can be solved with ONLY the support that OWL provides. That would be a good way to start off on a postive note; and then move on to some of the limitations, concluding that OWL is no silver bullet, and that some kind of rule language is needed to perform interoperability beyond what OWL currently gives. === I would even further object to the last sentence - first, SWRL has no official status and may not even be the eventual choice for a standard, second SWRL has not been tested in interoperability issues, and it is unclear to me why more expressivity should increase the ability to do reuse -- if anything I would actually expect the reverse in practice... [MFU] I mean to say that more expressivity increases the ability to express and execute mappings between one ontology and another for the purpose of interoperability. I'm not making any claims about reuse. === So let's keep this factual and focused, and leave the hypotheticals out of WG notes [MFU] That is my intent. I will rely on you and others to identify hypothethicals that may unintentionally find their way into the note. === -JH p.s. And in case anyone is interested, I would like to deny in the strongest possible terms that "The support provided (for interoperability) in OWL is very limited", the URI/RDF basis of OWL makes the sharing of terms possible in a way that no KR langauge in the past has ever had, and is a good part of the reason that OWL is now the most used KR langauge in the history of AI. [MFU] Again, I'm not making claims about reuse and sharing, per se. What do you see as the relationship/connection between reuse/sharing and interoperability? This note does not focus on reuse/sharing per se. It is no doubt part of the bigger picture of semantic interoperability that I should perhaps explore more. As I read and reread your comments, it seems likely that we have two fairly different things in mind by 'semantic interoperability'. What do YOU have in mind? Perhaps when you think of semantic interoperability, you are mainly thinking of the reuse and sharing of ontologies and ontology terms using the URI/RDF basis? Perhaps THIS is what you see as being superior to all the alternatives? On that we can agree. The way that OWL is inferior, is in its abilty to express mappings between ontologies to that applications using different ontologies can interoperate. This is what I mean by semantic interoperability. === Professor James Hendler Director, Semantic Web and Agent Technologies Maryland Information and Network Dynamics Lab. 301-405-2696 8400 Baltimore Ave, Suite 200 301-314-9734 (Fax) College Park, MD 20742 http://www.cs.umd.edu/users/hendler
Received on Monday, 7 February 2005 17:46:01 UTC