SEM: Going forward

Hi:

I too am concerned about the lack of progress in defining the semantics of
OWL.  The semantics is the most important portion of OWL: it is not a minor
detail that can be deferred until the last moment.

My proposal is that anyone who cares about the semantics of OWL should
reread the existing proposals [1] and [2] and some of the discussion
related to semantics (if necessary).  If anyone has questions, they should
raise them to the WG right now.  Then the WG should decide on how to
proceed with semantics for OWL.

For either of the two semantics documents to be turned into something that
can be voted on as a WD at the Briston face-to-face, the WG has to make
decisions about the semantics real soon now.  If a new semantics document
is to be created from scratch then there is even more urgency.


Just to remind everyone, the issues are well known, and have been on
the WG issue list for some time now.  The major issues are:

  5.3   Semantic Layering - and the treatment of OWL syntax [3]
  5.10  DAML+OIL semantics is too weak - comprehension principles [4]
  5.19  Classes as Instances [5]

Each of these issues has been the subject of various threads on the WG
mailing list.  Some of these threads go back over six months, especially
the threads on paradoxes resulting from various ways of doing semantic
layering (e.g., [6]).


Peter F. Patel-Schneider
Bell Labs Research


[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-webont-wg/2002Jun/att-0082/01-semantics.html
[2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-webont-wg/2002Jun/0208.html
[3] http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/WebOnt/webont-issues.html#I5.3-Semantic-Layering
[4] http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/WebOnt/webont-issues.html#I5.10-DAML-OIL-semantics-is-too-weak
[5] http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/WebOnt/webont-issues.html#I5.19-Classes-as-instances
[6] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-webont-wg/2002Jan/0096.html

Received on Thursday, 8 August 2002 09:12:53 UTC