- From: Drew McDermott <drew.mcdermott@yale.edu>
- Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 11:21:15 -0400 (EDT)
- To: public-ws-chor@w3.org
Subject: service type and the Semantic Web Resent-Date: Tue, 6 May 2003 13:25:50 -0400 (EDT) Resent-From: public-ws-chor@w3.org Date: Tue, 6 May 2003 19:18:22 +0200 (MET DST) From: Stanislaw Ambroszkiewicz <sambrosz@IPIPAN.Waw.PL> To: public-ws-chor@w3.org CC: Stanislaw Ambroszkiewicz <sambrosz@IPIPAN.Waw.PL> >> Jon Dart wrote: > >> So service type is just a more generic term and a WSDL interface is > >> just part of the definition of that type. Consider two services; each of them performs one operation. Suppose that input data types of the two services are the same as well as the output data types. Is it possible that these services perform different operations? If the answer is NO, then service type is hard-coded in the input and output data types. It means that the pair of input and output data types determines the type of service. It is a solution to the problem of service type. The solution is of particular interest for procedural (imperative) approach to service composition, like BPEL. Then, the type of composite service as well as the interface can be created automatically from BPEL code. Please note that if the service type (proposed by Sanjiva Weerawarna) had been included in WSDL 1.2, then it would be hard or even impossible to create the interface of composite service automatically. If I am not right, please let me know it. If the answer is YES, then it is clear that the service type is necessary, and there must be another means to express the type of service. The solution proposed by Sanjiva Weerawarna seems to be insufficient, i.e., something more is needed than just giving a name to a service type. IMO the concept of service type is related to the more fundamental concept of meaning on the Web. However, it seems that DAML-S did not succeed in achieving its ambitious goal; it was reduced more or less to WSDL + UDDI + BPEL. Perhaps it is the high time to come back to the roots of the Semantic Web. Best regards, Stanislaw --- Stanislaw Ambroszkiewicz Polish Academy of Sciences http://www.ipipan.waw.pl/mas/ -- The answer is clearly YES. However, I doubt that the concept of service type has much to do with "meaning on the Web," except for very loose concepts of "meaning." Expressing the type of service requires that service providers and service requesters use the same language, and that it can be shown that P->R, where P is the description published by the provider, and R is the description posted by the requester. That is, the "broker" that brings the provider and requester together should be able to verify that if the provider provides a service satisfying P, it will satisfy R, this requester's particular requirement. This is a purely inferential task, and has nothing to do with "meaning." Of course, to prove that P->R, it may be necessary to make use of background information (i.e., axioms) relating the terms of P and R, but those axioms don't get us any closer to "meaning." I think you're being too hard on DAML-S. Its notion of _profile_ is supposed to be an independent characterization of a service in a formal language, namely, RDF + OWL (or its predecessors). Because OWL is a description logic, P->R becomes "class P subsumes class R." Of course, the "roots of the Semantic Web" are always of interest, and perhaps not grown as deeply as we'd like them to be, but one can pursue service descriptions independently of the pursuit of better foundations for the SW. -- -- Drew McDermott Professor of Computer Science Yale University
Received on Wednesday, 14 May 2003 11:21:19 UTC