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Deborah L. McGuinness
Knowledge Systems Laboratory
Gates Computer Science Building, 2A Room 241
Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-9020
email: dlm@ksl.stanford.edu
URL: http://ksl.stanford.edu/people/dlm/index.html
(voice) 650 723 9770 (stanford fax) 650 725 5850 (computer fax)
801 705 0941
Forwarded message 1
I have just finished reading the drafts of the OWL-lite and full-OWL specification. I was delighted to see that there was a simple version of a description logic that I could use and explain easily to my colleagues. I think it would be useful to perhaps simplify the notation even further -- by making the special cases of cardinality restriction be named (for example no-filler, functional, no-more-than-one, at-least-one). Although this is not the same notation as full-OWL there is a direct translation, and OWL-lite should be easy to read for someone not well versed in the art. Other features that might be considered for removal include the properties TRANSITIVE and SYMMETRIC. It would be good to make it clear also what reasoning is intended to be supported by a system that interprets the language (or can one simply store an OWL Lite ontology without ensuring its consistency)?
Since KR for some applications may require significantly greater notational and reasoning power (while still remaining tractable), I think it is better to have a standard notation and reasoning base than let a thousand flowers bloom. Hence I think that full-OWL is an important contribution and should be adopted as well as OWL-lite.
danny bobrow