Re: Versioning system for ontologies

Don't forget about OWL's versionIRI, which gives a way to express that
different versions are of a single ontology. The most basic version control
is to periodically save a file, put it at a location, and make the
versionIRI point to it. Keep the ontologyIRI the same thoughtout. Use
import with the version you care load. At the ontologyIRI put either the
most recent version or the most recent version you release.

There is no need for additional repository infrastructure, though that may
add useful features. Whatever you do, make sure that at a minimum you
version using vanilla specifications, given that they can support that.

I generally recommend you do not change IRIs of terms as you change
versions. Rather,  try to ensure that the referents of your URIs refer to
the same intended entities, and obsolete them if they no longer refer well.

Happy to discuss this offlist if you are interested in my experiences.

Best,
Alan

On Friday, April 19, 2013, Ali SH wrote:

> I'm also very interested in hearing answers to this.
>
> As Stephen mentions, treating an ontology analogously to source code
> (which is close enough) means that you can use services such as github (or
> google code). The downside is that an ontology lifecycle management is *
> not* equivalent to source code management. Barring a native solution for
> ontologies, they do come quite close.
>
> You might also be interested in following the development of the Open
> Ontology Repository [1]
> (a fork of the BioPortal platform), which among other things will be
> addressing this issue as well.
>
> [1] http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?OpenOntologyRepository
>
> On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 11:57 AM, Stephen D. Williams <sdw@lig.net<javascript:_e({}, 'cvml', 'sdw@lig.net');>
> > wrote:
>
>>  Do you want to version it like source code?  Everyone has, is, or will
>> move to Git for that.
>> Or maintain the history of changes for reasoning and/or historical
>> queries?  This is probably more needed for actual statements, but could
>> make sense here too: "Answer this query based on the ontology at time X."
>>
>> Stephen
>>
>>
>> On 4/19/13 7:05 AM, Prateek wrote:
>>
>>  Hello all,
>>
>>  I am trying to identify a system which will provide versioning and
>> revision control capabilities specifically for ontologies. Does anyone have
>> any experience and idea about which systems can help out or if systems like
>> SVN, CVS can do the job?
>>
>>  Regards
>>
>>  Prateek
>>
>>  --
>>
>> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>> Prateek Jain, Ph. D.
>> RSM
>> IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
>> 1101 Kitchawan Road, 37-244
>> Yorktown Heights, NY 10598
>> Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/prateekj
>>
>>
>>
>> --
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>>
>>
>
>
> --
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