New version of DAML-S available

A new release, version 0.6, of DAML-S (DAML for Services) is
available here:

    http://www.daml.org/services/.

Version 0.6 includes a number of refinements to the Service
Profile and Process Model.  The Service Profile is used to concisely
represent the service, in terms of capabilities, service provider
information, and operational parameters (e.g. cost-of-use, quality-
of-service parameters, etc), and advertise the service, with Web
Service Registries or other service indexing schemes.  Improvements
over DAML-S 0.5 include: clarification and simplification of
capability description parameters (i.e. inputs, outputs, preconditions
and effects), and a tighter integration with the process model, as
well as refinements necessary to facilitate automatic service
discovery through Matchmaking.

The process model provides a declarative description of the programs
or processes that realize a Web service.  In version 0.6, the process
model has been modified to comprise three subclasses: AtomicProcess,
SimpleProcess, and CompositeProcess, and some new properties
have been added to characterize the relationships between processes of
these different types.  Among the other significant changes, the model
allows for conditions on outputs and effects of all processes, and for
computed inputs, outputs, effects, and preconditions associated with
composite processes.  It also includes a simplification of the
representation of composite processes, that facilitates composite
process encoding and manipulation.

The services ontology includes three major subdivisions, those dealing
with profiles, process models, and groundings.  Looking further ahead,
version 1.0 will be released when work underway on groundings and on
execution modeling has been completed.  We appreciate recent
discussion and contributions on the mailing list related to groundings.

David Martin, 

on behalf of the DAML-S contributors from BBN Technologies, Carnegie
Mellon University, Nokia, Stanford University, SRI International, and
Yale University.

Received on Friday, 14 December 2001 15:03:53 UTC