Re: FAQ on Rules and ontologies

Thanks Sandro for the quick reply! Yue, your question is not only
pertinent, but one of the hard questions that comes up all the times in
the rules related discussion...

I have added to my internal draft.

Ivan

Sandro Hawke wrote:
>> Since a piece of RDF description may be posed extra constraints with
>> both an ontology and a rule system, an related issue is the semantic
>> interoperability between the ontology language and the rule language:
>> can a rule engine call an ontology engine when it encounters terms
>> defined in an ontology or vice versa?   
>>
>> I don't have complete answer to the question. We may say there is hybrid
>> reasoning engines like CARIN that combine ontologies and rules. What
>> about the standardization effort? 
> 
> How about this:
> 
>   Q.  How do I know when to use OWL and when to RIF?  How can I use them
>       both together?
> 
>   A.  RIF is not yet a W3C Recommendation (or even a Candidate
>       Recommendation), so for now it should only be used on an
>       experimental basis.  As it proceeds to Recommendation status,
>       however, it will be accompanied by an answer to this question,
>       which the RIF Working Group is chartered to produce. [1]
> 
> [1] http://www.w3.org/2005/rules/wg/charter#owl_compat
> 
> We could also try to explain the state of the art, but it seems to me
> that we might as well wait until the RIF WG gives an answer.
> 
>      -- Sandro (RIF WG staff contact; editor of the charter)
> 

-- 

Ivan Herman, W3C Semantic Web Activity Lead
URL: http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/
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