Transition Request: SKOS to Candidate Recommendation

The Semantic Web Deployment Working Group requests the Director
issue a Call for Implementation for the following specification:

  SKOS Simple Knowledge Organization System
  Reference

A draft [1] of the proposed CR document is available (with a date
that will be updated following the Director's decision on this request).

  [1] http://www.w3.org/2006/07/SWD/SKOS/reference/20081001/

The Abstract and custom part of the Status of This Document sections
appear below.

The Working Group resolved to request this transition on its
conference call of 16 December [2].

  [2] http://www.w3.org/2008/12/16-swd-minutes.html#item06

Changes to the document since the Last Call Working Draft [3]
are enumerated in a list of changes [4].

  [3] http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-skos-reference-20080829/
  [4] http://www.w3.org/2006/07/SWD/SKOS/reference/20081001#changes

Of the three features at risk, two resulted in no change.
The third issue -- the introduction of a new URI for the
SKOS vocabulary -- resulted in a decision to revert to the
original URI as 2004 [5] as explained in the resolutions to
Issues 153 and 175 [6,7].

  [5] http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core
  [6] http://www.w3.org/2006/07/SWD/track/issues/153
  [7] http://www.w3.org/2006/07/SWD/track/issues/175

The Disposition of Comments [8] shows 56 Last Call comments
received that led to open issues and each issue has been resolved.

  [8] http://www.w3.org/2006/07/SWD/SKOS/reference/20081001/issues.html

Comments from the OWL Working Group suggested changes to allow
SKOS to be used with the (in-progress) OWL 2.  These are recorded
as Issue 157 [9].  In resolving this issue, SKOS documentation
properties are now being defined as OWL annotation properties.
As SKOS labeling properties are already defined as annotation
properties and this has attracted no comments, the Working
Group is confident in this change and does not feel that this
invalidates any other reviews.  This change does not affect
SKOS/RDF users and should not require changes in current
implementations.  No other substantive changes have been made
to the design of SKOS since Last Call.

  [9] http://www.w3.org/2006/07/SWD/track/issues/157

Issue 157 continues to be marked as 'open' as a formal response
from the OWL WG has not been received.  However, personal
responses [10,11] from the primary commentor indicates acceptance
of this resolution and an expectation that the OWL WG concurs.

  [10] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-owl-wg/2008Dec/0039.html
  [11] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-owl-wg/2008Dec/0042.html

The Working Groups believe this specification meets the
requirements described in "SKOS Use Cases and Requirements"
W3C Working Draft 16 May 2007 [12] and in the Semantic Web
Deployment Working Group charter [13].

  [12] http://www.w3.org/TR/skos-ucr/
  [13] http://www.w3.org/2006/07/swdwg-charter

This specification has no normative dependencies on other
W3C specifications that are not yet Proposed Recommendations.

The Last Call document received formal review comments from
the OWL Working Group [14].

  [14] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swd-wg/2008Oct/0059.html

No objections to this specification have been raised.

No changes have occurred to the patent disclosure pages [15]
since the FPWD was issued.

  [15] http://www.w3.org/2004/01/pp-impl/39408/status

----

Abstract

This document defines the Simple Knowledge Organization System
(SKOS), a common data model for sharing and linking knowledge
organization systems via the Web.

Many knowledge organization systems, such as thesauri,
taxonomies, classification schemes and subject heading
systems, share a similar structure, and are used in similar
applications. SKOS captures much of this similarity and makes
it explicit, to enable data and technology sharing across
diverse applications.

The SKOS data model provides a standard, low-cost migration
path for porting existing knowledge organization systems to
the Semantic Web. SKOS also provides a light weight, intuitive
language for developing and sharing new knowledge organization
systems. It may be used on its own, or in combination with
formal knowledge representation languages such as the Web
Ontology language (OWL).

This document is the normative specification of the Simple
Knowledge Organization System. It is intended for readers who
are involved in the design and implementation of information
systems, and who already have a good understanding of Semantic
Web technology, especially RDF and OWL.

For an informative guide to using SKOS, see the SKOS Primer.

Status of This Document

This is a Candidate Recommendation produced by the Semantic Web
Deployment Working Group.  It reflects changes arising from comments
during the Last Call period. A "Disposition of Comments" report is
available at http://www.w3.org/2006/07/SWD/SKOS/reference/20081001/issues.html.
An implementation report will be available at
http://www.w3.org/2006/07/SWD/SKOS/implementation-report.

There were three "features at risk" cited in the Last Call
Working Draft.  Two of those items resulted in no change.
The third issue, the introduction of a new URI for the
SKOS vocabulary, resulted in a decision to revert to the
original URI as 2004, as noted in the Changes section.
A fourth change, to declare the SKOS documentation
properties as OWL annotation properties, makes SKOS more
usable with the OWL 2 specification currently in development.
As SKOS labeling properties were already defined as annotation
properties and this has attracted no comments, the Working
Group is confident in this change and does not feel that this
invalidates any other reviews.

This specification is considered stable by the working group. The
working group invites comments on this draft through 27 February
2009. Comments should be addressed to
public-rdf-in-xhtml-tf@w3.org. All comments sent to that address are
available in a public archive. The working groups intend to submit
this document for consideration as a W3C Proposed Recommendation after
27 February having met the following criteria:

   1. At least two implementations have been demonstrated that use
      features of the SKOS vocabulary.  Other vocabularies that use
      SKOS are candidates for inclusion in the implementation report.
   2. All issues raised during the CR period against this document
      have received formal responses.

[end]

Received on Wednesday, 7 January 2009 21:20:00 UTC