Proposal to request Candidate Recommendation

As discussed previously, we expect to take a vote on moving to 
Candidate Recommendation at the July 24 telecon.  Below are a 
specific proposal for this vote and a rationale for the dates/timing:

Proposed: To submit a request to the Director of the W3C that the six 
Last Call Documents, as edited during the Last Call period, be 
advanced to Candidate Recommendation status as described in [1].  The 
requested date for completion of implementations will be in 
mid-September, allowing between four and six weeks for the minimum 
span of the CR.

[1] http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/WebOnt/rqim.html


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Proposed Exit Criteria (from [1]):

     *  integrate any changes to RDF Core specs
     * 2 complete OWL Lite consistency checkers (i.e. 2 which pass 
almost all OWL Lite consistency and inconsistency tests and moreover 
claim logical completeness)
     * Each test (except the extra credit tests) is demonstrated to be 
passed by some implementation
     * two reasoners implementing (different) substantial subsets of OWL DL
     * two reasoners implementing useful subsets of OWL Full and 
passing almost all the entailment tests
     * two owl syntax checkers passing all tests

these are based on the criteria suggested by Jeremy in his WBS 
straw-poll comments, slightly amended based on comments from Charles 
and Jos.  As I mentioned in an earlier message, I think this is 
aggressive but doable - and if we cannot reach these goals by 
mid-Sept, we can extend the CR period.

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Rationale: Why Now? Why Mid-Sept?

The Semantic Web Coordination Group has been working on a coordinated 
strategy for moving both RDF Core and WebOnt to Recommendations - 
with RDF going to PR about a month before we do - with us going to PR 
about the time they close.  The decision that both groups were likely 
ready for this was made with the chairs and team contacts of both 
groups involved.  Dan Connolly drafted a proposed set of dates to the 
CG which would enable RDF Core to get to Recommendation and us to get 
to Proposed Recommendation around the time of ISWC -- which would be 
very beneficial in terms of the visibility of the recommendations. 
Details of the dates and etc. are in [2] which is a MEMBER ONLY 
message explaining why the dates are suggested.
  It is important to note that in the opinions of all concerned, both 
groups were close enough to attempt to try to move in concert, and 
our plan to have the CR vote this week was already recorded.  The 
goal of getting to PR by ISWC is why we suggest the 4-6 week CR 
period (depending on if/how fast Director agrees to our request).
  PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING:  We cannot exit the CR until we meet our 
exit criteria - so the 4-6 weeks serves as a minimum -- if, as we 
approach that time, we are not yet near passing these criteria, we 
will need to extend the CR.  It is easy to extend the CR, but it 
would not work well to shorten an announced CR period, which is why 
Dan and I are asking the group to consider the mid-Sept date -- would 
be great if we could get to PR by ISWC (when we can get together to 
celebrate :->)
  Again, we realize these dates are aggressive, but we think our 
design is good and that our implementations are coming well, and the 
straw poll indicated a great amount of support for moving to CR.

[2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-semweb-cg/2003Jul/0029.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	  *** 240-277-3388 (Cell)
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