Re: OWL working drafts - feedback sought

Hon. Chair,

My reading of Issue 5.2 seems to me very clearly to be whether a SUBSET of 
the language should exist:
It has been proposed that DAML+OIL is a complex language that is hard to 
implement and/or explain to new users. As a result, different implementors 
are creating incompatible subsets of the language features that they 
support. A possible way to improve this situation is to have a particular 
subset that is recommended in the form of a proper compliance level -- 
that is, a subset of the total functionality that is easier to explain and 
implement, and that forms a useable core sublanguage.
Calling Owl-lite a SUBSET of the full language implies that there IS a 
full language.  If we want to make the exclusivity of OWL-Lite an issue, 
it must be made a separate and distinct issue.  I know you want to close 
issues at this stage not open them, but lumping two major issues into one 
doesn't help us reach a solution.
I strongly support the need for creating the full language, and am totally 
ambivalent about having OWL-lite - how could that be if it's one issue?

-Chris





Jim Hendler <hendler@cs.umd.edu>
Sent by: www-webont-wg-request@w3.org
09/04/2002 08:32 AM

 
        To:     Ian Horrocks <horrocks@cs.man.ac.uk>
        cc:     www-webont-wg@w3c.org
        Subject:        Re: OWL working drafts - feedback sought

 


At 1:02 PM +0100 9/4/02, Ian Horrocks wrote:
>On September 1, Jim Hendler writes:
>>  As Mike Dean mentioned a few weeks back, we have released the first
>>  real langauge-based working drafts of the OWL langauge - successor to
>>  DAML+OIL.  We could use some feedback as to whether we are going in
>>  the right direction.  The document
>>      http://www.w3.org/TR/owl-features/
>>  is a short summary of the language and will show what has changed so
>>  far from DAML+OIL.  We would welcome feedback on the public mailing
>>  list (see below) if you have issues with any of changes or, in fact,
>>  if you think these changes are positive -- i.e. just a "this looks
>>  good" would be useful feedback
>>    We would particularly like feedback as to whether the naming of a
>>  subset (Owl Lite in these documents) is a good or bad idea.
>>    In addition, there are some who feel that stopping at OWL Lite would
>>  be a good idea (i.e. come out with a simpler version w/less
>>  inferential power, but easier to implement) - we need feedback on
>>  this as well
>
>Jim,
>
>I am really rather amazed to read the last sentence. The stated
>purpose of OWL Lite was to provide an easy entry for tool builders,
>and not an alternative to or replacement for the full language.
>
>If members of the WG believe that we should "stop at OWL Lite", then
>they should declare themselves and open an issue in the normal
>way. Currently, I see no such issue, and am not aware of such a
>suggestion even having been (openly) discussed.
>
>Ian
>
>
>>    thanks much
>>    Jim H
>  >   CoChair, Web Ontology Working Group

Ian-
   In our discussion of the compliance level issue there were indeed 
those who said we should have only one level and it should look a lot 
like Owl-lite (go read our archives) - at the time the chairs and the 
WG decided not to hold that specific discussion, however we ruled 
that it was within the scope of the OPEN issue 5.2 [1]  (Guus, if you 
remember differently, please correct me)
   That said, in this particular case, however, I was not referring to 
WG discussion, but to a comment received in our public comments list 
[2] which stated "Forget about OWL-Heavy (for now; maybe forever)" 
and for which I was soliciting feedback from the DAML community, who 
have been users of the DAML+OIL language and would be likely 
candidates to provide feedback on both sides of this issue, making it 
easier for us to have appropriate documentation of whichever decision 
we take when we move on to Candidate Recommendation.
  -Jim Hendler
p.s. In future, please be more careful about forwarding mail from 
limited distribution groups to public ones - no harm done in this 
case, but obviously there may be times when the author doesn't want 
to send to a public group.


[1] 
http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/WebOnt/webont-issues.html#I5.2-Language-Compliance-Levels
[2] 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webont-comments/2002Sep/0000.html
-- 
Professor James Hendler    hendler@cs.umd.edu
Director, Semantic Web and Agent Technologies              301-405-2696
Maryland Information and Network Dynamics Lab.             301-405-6707 
(Fax)
Univ of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742                   240-731-3822 
(Cell)
http://www.cs.umd.edu/users/hendler

Received on Wednesday, 4 September 2002 09:31:31 UTC