Re: GUIDE: New version.

Other ontology web languages were: Bob Kent's OML/CKML (which really was just a proposal, as
far as I can tell), and XOL (July, 99), the latter based on OKBC-lite.

Jim Hendler wrote:

> I always worry when we have a history section, because we run the
> risk of leaving things out.  Jeff Heflin would be right to complain
> as SHOE predates both DAML and OIL (and, in fact, RDF) and Dieter and
> his crew might want to see Ontobroker mentioned, as it also predates
> OWL.  I'd suggest amending Peter's history to add these important
> forbears (SHOE was the first ontology language on the web and
> ontobroker was the first to use DL concepts in the web context that I
> know of.
>
> I'd suggest we either drop the history section, or use what Peter
> sent ammended as below to make the time line clear and to acknolwedge
> the earlier work.  In addition, we might want to mention the MCF note
> that was submitted to the W3C and was a forbear to RDF.
>   -Jim H.
>
> >
> >Suggested new text:
> >
> >
> ><p>
> ><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-rdf-syntax">The Resource Description
> >Framework (RDF)</a> was the first language specified by the W3C for
> >representing semantic information about arbitrary resources.
> ><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/CR-rdf-schema">RDF Schema (RDFS)</a>
> >is a W3C candidate recommendation for an extension to RDF to describe RDF
> >vocabularies.
> >RDFS can be used to create ontologies, but it is purposefully very
> >lightweight so little can be said about the consituents of ontologies in
> >RDFS.
> >Further, RDF and RDFS had only an informal specification of the meaning of
> >their constructs.
> ></p>
> >
> ><p>
> >Like OWL, RDFS includes classes and properties, as well as
> >range and domain constraints on properties.  It provides
> >inheritance hierarchies for both classes and properties.  Upon its
> >release users began requesting additional features, including data
> >types, enumerations and the ability to define properties more
> >rigorously.
> ></p>
>
> <p> Other efforts in the research community were already examining
> exactly these sorts of features.  As early as 1995, the
> <a href="http://www.cs.umd.edu/projects/plus/SHOE">
> Simple HTML Ontology Extensions <SHOE> project </a> had been
> exploring the adding of more ontological content to web documents,
> and soon after the <a
> href="http://ontobroker.aifb.uni-karlsruhe.de/index_ob.html">
> Ontobroker project </a> started, with a focus on annotating sets of
> web pages related to Knowledge Acquisition.  These projects provided
> a testbed for exploring ideas including the use of URIs for embedding
> ontologies on the web, mechanisms for linking and extending
> ontologies, the first explorations of rule-languages for the web, and
> the first attempts at formalizing knowledge representation on the
> web.  SHOE and Ontobroker each resulted in a corpus of marked-up web
> pages, and in papers describing the dos (and don'ts) of using
> ontologies on the web.
>
> ><p>
> Based on the earlier Ontobroker work, in 1999
>
>   <words deleted>
>
> >a group of European researchers, funded through the
> ><a href="http://www.ontoknowledge.org/">On-To-Knowledge project</a> of the
> >E.U., defined an ontology language called
> ><a href="http://www.ontoknowledge.org/oil/index.shtml">OIL
> >(Ontology Inference Layer)</a>.
> >OIL was based on ideas from
> ><a href="http://dl.kr.org">description logics</a>,
> >frames,
> >and the W3C XML and RDF (including RDFS) languages.
> >OIL was much more powerful than RDFS, but tried to retain some
> >compatability with RDF and RDFS.
> >The basic syntax for OIL was a frame-like syntax, but there was also an
> >RDFS syntax for OIL.
> >OIL was equipped with a full model-theoretic semantics, providing a formal
> >meaning for the language.
> ></p>
> >
>
> ><p>
> At about the same time that OIL was being developed, in an attempt to
> extend the expressive power of RDFS,
>
> >a group of U.S. researchers, funded through the
> ><a href="http://www.daml.org/">DAML (DARPA Agent Markup
> >Language) program</a> initiated by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects
> >Agency, defined a language called
> ><a href="http://www.daml.org/2000/10/daml-ont.html">DAML-ONT</a>.
> >This language was also an ontology language, somewhat similar to OIL, but
> >based much more directly on RDFS.
> >The basic syntax for DAML-ONT was the RDF syntax.
> >A <a href="http://www.daml.org/2000/10/DAML-Ont-kif-axioms-001107.html">
> >partial axiomatization</a> in KIF was provided form DAML-ONT.
> ></p>
> >
> ><p>
> >Instead of continuing with separate ontology languages for the Semantic
> >Web, a group of researchers, including many of the main participants in
> >both the OIL and DAML-ONT efforts, got together in the
> ><a href="http://www.daml.org/committee/">Joint US/EU ad hoc Agent Markup
> >Language Committee</a> to create a new web ontology language.
> >This language
> ><a href="http://www.daml.org/2001/03/daml+oil-index.html">DAML+OIL</a>
> >builds on both OIL and DAML-ONT, and was
> ><a
> >href="http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-webont-wg/2001Dec/0144.html">submitted</a>
> >to the W3C as a proposed
> >basis for OWL and was subsequently selected as the starting point for OWL.
> ></p>
>
> --
> 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

--
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Received on Tuesday, 24 September 2002 17:01:35 UTC