Re: OWL and Web services descriptions

Dear Charlie,

Good questions!  There are indeed plans to use OWL as the bases for 
a WS description language, and another initiative in the works that
is relevant to you.

As you note, DAML-S, an ontology for Web service description, is
currently described using the DAML+OIL ontology language.  DAML-S
version 1.0 is currently in the works, and there is a strong possibility
that it will be released in OWL.  As you know, OWL took DAML+OIL as
its starting point, and it has always been the intention of the DAML
Services Coalition (the creators of DAML-S) to transition DAML-S from 
DAML+OIL to OWL, once OWL was defined and stable.

More generally, a new joint DAML-North American-European Semantic
Web Service Initiative is currently in the works that will see
the continuation of efforts at building a Web Service Descriptoin
Language (as well as an architecture) that exploits richer representation
of services, and that builds on emerging industry initiatives such
as BPEL4WS, XLANG, WSFL, WSCL, WSCI, etc.  At this early stage, it
certainly appears that ontological aspects of this language will 
be developed in OWL.  Further details of this initiative will be posted 
to relavent lists in the coming months.

Regards,
Sheila McIlraith



> Hi,
> 
> I decided to post this mail to both the webont-wg and the ws mailing lists
> since the question is related to OWL as much as to Web services.
> I have been looking at various research initiatives that are aimed at
> defining WS description languages in relation to the Semantic Web. Major
> efforts such as DAML-S[1] (built on DAML+OIL) and also WSMF[2](Web Services
> Modelling Framework) are both aimed at proposing ways in which Web services
> can be described for the purpose of advertising, discovery and possibly
> composition and execution. The prior is built on a number of ontologies for
> service, profile, process and grounding definitions while the latter work is
> planned to adopt/extend what has already been defined by WSFL and combine
> this with DAML-S (or its extension).
> Now since the progress on OWL[3] seems to be advancing with a good pace and
> considering the work mentioned above, I would like to research on the
> possibility/feasibility of using OWL as the bases of a WS description
> language. Is there already work being done in this area? How advanced is it?
> If there is relevant work, can someone please indicate where it can be found
> or who is responsible, I would like to get involved if possible?
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Charlie
> 
> 
> 

==============================================================================

Sheila McIlraith, PhD                 Phone: 650-723-7932
Senior Research Scientist             Fax:  650-725-5850
Knowledge Systems Lab
Department of Computer Science
Gates Sciences Building, 2A-248       http://www.ksl.stanford.edu/people/sam
Stanford University                   E-mail sam@ksl.stanford.edu
Stanford, CA 94305-9020

Received on Sunday, 26 January 2003 15:50:42 UTC