ALL: WG schedule

WOWG members-

In an effort to make sure we reach a realistic goal in a short
enough amount of time, but without making it so short we cannot
achieve our goals, we have developed a new working group schedule
that we believe will take us to a proposed recommendation by the end
of calendar year '02 - extending our charter a couple of months.  It
is an aggressive schedule, but we believe that since we have our own
TEST group developing test cases and code, and out GUIDE group to
help produce how-to and FAQ documents, that we can cut several months
off the normal process by not having to go to a candidate
recommendation (see the process document for details). 
Once the WG agress on a revised schedule, we will have to get approval
of the Semantic Web Coordination Group. 

Apr-May 2002
  Detailed language development
June 2002
  First Working Draft on language (with fragments of SEM, TEST and
GUIDE)
Jul-Sep 2002
  Language revisions based on public comments and TEST/SEM/GUIDE
feedback
  First complete MT
  Initial set of test cases
  Language primer plus "how-to-do-it" guide
Oct 2002
  Last-call Working draft
Oct-Dec 2002
  Final public review period
  Issues/comments tracking
Dec 2002
  Proposed Recommendation

To achieve this schedule, we believe it is crucial that the upcoming
F2F be focused on identifying the core of the language (i.e. the "OWL
Lite" part as some people are referring to it) and developing a
syntax for that language.

Please note - our Working group is NOT chartered to develop a syntax
from scratch.  Please note the following charter terms:

>* The language will use the XML syntax and datatypes wherever
>  possible, and will be designed for maximum compatibility with XML
>  and RDF language conventions.

(note - it is xml AND rdf, not xml OR rdf)

and

>The Working Group shall start by evaluating the technical solutions
>proposed in the DAML+OIL draft. If in this process the Working Group
>finds solutions that are agreed to be improvements over solutions
>suggested by DAML+OIL, those improved solutions should be used.

As such, we believe the f2f should focus on

1) Going through the DAML+OIL spec and identifying which constructs
should and should not be part of our language -- this can be done by
identifying those which relate to our requirements, and those which
do not and those which contribute to the "frame idiom" and those
which do not.  We can then identify extensions to the D+O syntax that
would let us better express the frame idioms or which enable us to
meet unsatisfied requirements.

2) we will create an issues list, which will become the dominant
guide to further development - we will know we are done when the
issue list is completely addressed.

We also believe that we must rule that discussion of syntaxes which
are not in XML and RDF are out of scope, unless they are being
recommended as "presentation syntax" - that is, an easy way to write
down the ontological information that will be mapped to the formal
(RDF/XML) syntax in a completely algorithmic way.

Looking forward to seeing many of you in Amsterdam
Guus and Jim

-- 
A. Th. Schreiber, SWI, University of Amsterdam, Roetersstraat 15
NL-1018 WB Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Tel: +31 20 525 6793 
Fax: +31 20 525 6896; E-mail: schreiber@swi.psy.uva.nl
WWW: http://www.swi.psy.uva.nl/usr/Schreiber/home.html

Received on Wednesday, 27 March 2002 06:29:06 UTC