SEMANTICS: Agenda

This is a kickoff message for the formal models/semantics task force. 
My aim is to lay down a simple agenda for the work of the task force.

While semantic issues are long and deep (never mind piranhas, think 
Great White Sharks), I see two key areas that relate to choreographies, 
neither of which needs to end up as shark bait:

1. Semantic models of choreography.

The idea being to adopt model(s) that help to inform us in our choice 
of choreography language constructs. It does not seem to be necessary 
that any of the constructs of a modeling notation be directly reflected 
in the choreography language; rather the modeling notation should help 
us to be precise about the features of the choreography language.

2. Semantics of Web services.

The idea here is to suggest ways in which information which relates to 
the semantics of Web services should be integrated with any 
choreography language. The purposes of such information might be:

a. To permit automatic discovery of Web services based on the semantics 
of the input, output and behavior of the Web services.
b. To permit semi-automatic composition of Web services based on the 
semantics of the input, output and behavior of the Web services.
c. To permit tools to verify certain aspects of executing 
choreographies (such as whether privacy tokens are properly propagated).
d. To permit better documentation of Web services, especially in the 
context of complex choreographies.

Note that the W3C already has a strong commitment to enhanced semantics 
-- via the Semantic Web initiative. Therefore, the real effort in 
WS-CHOR in relation to 2. would be adapting the choreography language 
to enable an integrated use of OWL/RDF etc. Something similar is 
happening in WSD at the moment.

The first of these goals is probably higher priority at the moment; 
although both are essential. <duck/>

To get the ball rolling, I invite interested parties to submit a short 
(2 page) easily digestible summary of their favorite formal model; 
together with some proposal for its use. This would be used to help us 
to get educated about the various modeling approaches and help us make 
the best choices.

Frank McCabe

Received on Wednesday, 2 July 2003 17:36:32 UTC