RE: role vs. requestedBy or providedBy

Marja,
	Though the distinction was made between requestedBy/providedBy
and role in V0.5, there is no real reason for this, and in V0.6 (which
should be released shortly) we have made both requestedBy & providedBy
subclasses of role.  The definitions of each however extend the
definition of role, by explicitly stating whether the actor is a
service requester or a service provider (each of which is subclassed
from actor) - as in DAML-S V0.5.

<rdf:Property rdf:ID="role">
  <rdfs:domain rdf:resource="#FunctionalAttributes" /> 
  <rdfs:range rdf:resource="#Actor" /> 
</rdf:Property>

<rdf:Property rdf:ID="requestedBy">
  <rdfs:subPropertyOf rdf:resource="#role" /> 
  <rdfs:range rdf:resource="#ServiceRequester" /> 
</rdf:Property>

<rdf:Property rdf:ID="providedBy">
  <rdfs:subPropertyOf rdf:resource="#role" /> 
  <rdfs:range rdf:resource="#ServiceProvider" /> 
</rdf:Property>
 
The idea here is to provide specific semantics for two the
subproperties of actor, to distinguish from any third-party actors
that may be involved with the service.  At the moment, processes
are not annotated with role information; there is an implicit
assumption that transactions are between two parties only, and
that the flow of information between the service provider and
service requester based on whether parameters are 'input' or
'output'.  However, this will change, either with the explicit
annotation of role within a process, or through the definition
of the grounding (most probably the latter - though the jury is
out on this one right now).

It is also important to maintain symmetry between advertisements and
requests (and hence ServiceProviders and ServiceRequesters) right
now, as we are trying to be agnostic regarding the type of discovery
service and hence reasoning that may be done.  For example, a
"Classified Ads" based discovery service may be used, where service
requesters submit desired services, and service providers then look
these up and contact the requester directly.  This contrasts with
the more obvious yellow-pages styled discovery service.

A prototype of the new Profile can be found at [1]; this however may 
change before the formal release of DAML-S V0.6.

[1] http://www.daml.ri.cmu.edu/ont/DAML-S/Profile.daml

Regards,
	Terry

_____________________________________________________________________
Terry R. Payne, PhD.    | http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~terryp/index.html
CMU, Robotics Institute | Voice: (412) 268-8780 Fax: (412) 268-5569
Pittsburgh, PA 15213    | Email: terry@acm.org or Terry.Payne@cmu.edu 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-daml-services@mail.daml.org
[mailto:owner-daml-services@mail.daml.org]On Behalf Of
marja.j.phipps@gd-is.com
Sent: Monday, October 01, 2001 4:02 PM
To: daml-services@daml.org
Subject: role vs. requestedBy or providedBy


I do not understand the distinction between role and requestedBy or
providedBy.  The Profile specification defines the role property as a
link between the profile and an actor, and then states that the actor
is the entity that provides the services or makes the request.  The
requestedBy and providedBy properties are defined as similar but
distinct from the role.

Is the intent of the role property to allow the requestedBy or
providedBy properties to take on "job context" information, e.g. a
"user" (actor) executing an "administration" function (role).  If so,
wouldn't one subproperty requestedBy or providedBy?

Clarification or examples would be much appreciated.

Thanks -

Marja

Received on Tuesday, 2 October 2001 18:21:04 UTC