RE: OWL Lite vs OWL DL-Lite

> From: Evan Wallace [mailto:ewallace@cme.nist.gov] 
[...]
> People who are currently modeling using NIAM/ORM, EXPRESS, 
> or UML who are considering using Semantic Web languages will go 
> directly to OWL DL Lite or OWL DL (or perhaps to DAML).  At OMG,
> we are specifically asking for a mapping to OWL DL in our RFP for 
> Ontology Definition (an OMG version of a UML Presentation syntax 
> for OWL).  This is because the motivation for moving models to 
> ontology languages is to attain a practical capability for reasoning 
> about those models.  I am not denying that there is a constituency 
> for a migration path from RDFS to OWL F Lite, just that I haven't 
> encountered it in OMG, ISO STEP, or other communities doing 
> manufacturing, business, or systems modeling.  

Quite.  I (personally - this is not a NI view) regard OWL as a useful
language in its own right for exchanging models.  The RDF part is, for
me, a by-product of the fact that W3C is specifying OWL, rather than a
necessity, and so I am pleased to see an OWL/XML encoding.  However, I'm
aware that I'm probably in a minority in this WG on that one!

From NI's point of view, I believe NI has some customers who prefer
OWL/RDF and others who prefer OWL/XML - and, indeed, others to whom OWL
is irrelevant as they just want a way of interfacing to a sound and
complete reasoner for a well-defined language.  Unfortuinately, I'm not
at liberty to state what the proportions are.

		- Peter

Received on Friday, 14 February 2003 17:56:47 UTC