Re: DAML-S 0.6: use of classes vs instances

Ian -

Your question is kind of hard to answer - for one thing, I notice that some of
the documents that that particular URL data back about a month, and it's hard
to remember how much has changed in that particular span of time.  That URL
was never intended for public browsing, and thus hasn't been maintained
consistently.

I doubt if there's anything on that URL that's actually misleading - but there
may be some things that are hard to follow because they hadn't yet been
described/explained adequately.

Anyway, here is an announcement about the upcoming release, which will be "
published" in the next version of "HotDAML newsletter", which will be
available on www.daml.org.  I hope this will help answer your question:

A new version, version 0.6, of DAML-S (DAML for Services) is scheduled
for release on December 5, 2001.

Version 0.6 will include 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 on groundings has been
completed.  This promises to tie DAML-S in with emerging industry
service description languages such as WSDL.

DAML-S release 0.6 will be made available at
http://www.daml.org/services/.

Regards,

-- David

"Dickinson, Ian J" wrote:

> Thanks for the clarification, David.  I was only following a pointer given
> to me by the original requestor.  Is much likely to change in the draft
> before the public release?
>
> Cheers,
> Ian
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: David Martin [mailto:martin@ai.sri.com]
> > Sent: 27 November 2001 15:08
> > To: Dickinson, Ian J
> > Cc: 'www-ws@w3c.org'
> > Subject: Re: DAML-S 0.6: use of classes vs instances
> >
> >
> > Ian -
> >
> > Thanks for your interest and excellent questions about
> > DAML-S.  I don't
> > have time at this moment to address your questions, but I or another
> > member of the DAML-S team will do so shortly.
> >
> > However, I'd like to hasten to point out that the URL you're
> > looking at
> > does *NOT* contain a release of DAML-S, but rather contains working
> > drafts of V 0.6 material that will be released on December 5
> > (and these
> > are not necessarily the latest drafts)!
> >
> > The 0.6 version will be made available here, on December 5:
> >
> >     http://www.daml.org/services/
> >
> > (and 0.5 is, of course, already available there).
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > -- David Martin

Received on Tuesday, 27 November 2001 14:30:23 UTC