Comments on OWL

Jim, Ian, and Colleagues

I've debated jumping in for some time, but preparing and
delivering several DAML+OIL/OWL tutorials and working
with several groups trying to come to grips with it, convince
me that both points are valid.  I know the issue of implied
restrictions on defined vs primitive concepts is in some
ways a tools issue, but I think building the abstract syntax
in a way that so obviously causes confusion is a mistake.
It is likely to mean that many tools builders perpetuate the problem.
As for checks - many of us need them in many situations in which I
don't want to pay for them in global overheads and in which
we want to see violations transparently and not as unexpected
classifications.

Regards

Alan


--
Alan L Rector
Professor of Medical Informatics
Department of Computer Science
University of Manchester
Manchester M13 9PL, UK
TEL: +44-161-275-6188/6239/7183
FAX: +44-161-275-6204
email: rector@cs.man.ac.uk
web: www.cs.man.ac.uk/mig
        www.opengalen.org