Re: New RIF drafts

Sandro Hawke wrote:
> We have some new drafts from the Rule Interchange Format (RIF) Working
> Group.  While the group is not targeted at producing a "Semantic Web
> Rule Language", its output will cover much of the same space.  I suggest
> anyone interested in rule languages (especially from a web perspective)
> take a look at what RIF is doing and send comments:
>
> http://www.w3.org/TR/rif-bld/   (our first RIF dialect, Horn with Equality)
> http://www.w3.org/TR/rif-fld/   (framework for more logic dialects)
> http://www.w3.org/TR/rif-rdf-owl/  (how to use BLD with RDF, OWL-DL, OWL-Full)
>
> Instructions for commenting are in the drafts.
>   
Thanks Sandro!

Given your comment that  'the group is not targeted at producing a 
"Semantic Web Rule Language"' could you say a few words on how that 
differs from 'The mission of the Rule Interchange Format (RIF) Working 
Group is to produce W3C Recommendations for rules interchange on the 
semantic web', which I read on 
http://www.w3.org/2005/rules/wiki/RIF_Working_Group. An innocent reader 
untrained in W3C legalities might consider the two rather closely 
related. What is the key difference here?

And yup, I'd second your call for Semantic Webby people to take a good 
long look at these specs. To be honest I fear that many have stopped 
tracking the RIF work due to these kinds of disclaimers, ie. people have 
stopped expecting the group to come up with a language that captures 
patterns expressed in terms of RDF data. WGs sometimes respond to 
encouragement as well as complaint; perhaps if people here find value in 
that side of the work, they can communicate this in review comments.

The charter says

    "The Working Group will have to balance the needs of a diverse 
community — including Business Rules and Semantic Web users — specifying 
extensions for which it can articulate a consensus design and which are 
sufficiently motivated by use cases." -- 
http://www.w3.org/2005/rules/wg/charter.html

I guess 
http://www.w3.org/TR/rif-rdf-owl/#Overview_of_RDF_and_OWL_Compatibility 
is a good place to start.

cheers,

Dan

--
http://danbri.org/

Received on Tuesday, 15 April 2008 18:24:55 UTC