- From: Drew McDermott <drew.mcdermott@yale.edu>
- Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 13:00:47 -0400 (EDT)
- To: www-ws@w3.org
The requester specifies its "desired outcome", e.g.,
"I want to buy a book of J.R.R. Tolkien".
In the cyberspace it means that "an invoice for a book
of Tolkien is delivered to the requester".
Why not go all the way and say that the formal meaning of the goal is
(informally!) "I own a book by Tolkien (that I didn't already own)"?
The "desired outcome" must be expressed in a common
generic conversation language.
(As far as I know there are no means to express
explicitly the "desired outcome" in DAML-S)
DAML-S provides for goal statements, but as yet does not specify a way
to express them. An appendix (which I wrote) suggests a syntax
somewhat compatible with RDF, but I am sure genuine extensions to RDF
will eventually be endorsed by the W3C. In any case, the real issue
is, as you said, a common language, that is, a common vocabulary or
"ontology." There will probably never be a vocabulary agreed upon by
everyone, but it's certainly reasonable to assume that there will be a
core ontology with terms such as "owns," "pays," and such.
--
-- Drew McDermott
Received on Tuesday, 20 May 2003 13:00:52 UTC