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LC Responses/JR4
| The OWL 2 document suite has a large number of formats and top-level
concepts, and I found myself getting lost, so I prepared a map for myself (PDF attached). My 'public comment' is: Please consider providing the community with a roadmap of this kind. The format is ersatz, inspired not by UML but by the notation of category theory (in case that means anything to whoever's reading this). One question this raised for me is whether a functional-style syntax document can be imported (or in webarch-ese: whether an OWL 2 processor MUST be able to process an ontology whose only representation is in functional-style syntax). Similarly for OWL/XML. These questions are the two links labeled "is a ??". I didn't find an answer in the drafts, but then I haven't read everything. I haven't checked to see whether all of the information that's in this diagram, such as the correct "type" of every transformation, is in the drafts. For example, I'm not sure that one can infer from the direct semantics that the semantics of a collection of ontologies is the semantics of the union of the things (axioms etc) in the ontologies in the collection, or that no semantics is given for ontology collections that are not imports closed. I think there are subtleties around imports that I don't understand and aren't captured by the diagram. Many of the boxes and arrows could be labeled with or linked to the various documents, e.g. 'OWL/XML document' to the specification for OWL/XML. If the diagram reflects some misunderstanding of mine that would not have been cleared up by reading all of the drafts, that would be an opportunity to improve one or more of them. |
To: Jonathan Rees <jar@creativecommons.org>
CC: public-owl-comments@w3.org
Subject: [LC response] To Jonathan Rees
Dear Jonathan,
Thank you for your comment
<http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-owl-comments/2009Jan/0067.html>
on the OWL 2 Web Ontology Language last call drafts.
The Working Group acknowledges the need for some sort of an introductory text, combined with a roadmap covering the various OWL 2 documents, and is grateful for your proposal. At its last face-to-face meeting the Working Group has, therefore, added a new document to the OWL 2 suite, entitled "Document Overview". This includes a diagrammatic overview of the OWL 2 architecture, although somewhat simplified compared to the one you proposed as well as a guide to readers to help them to navigate their way through the various documents making up the specification.
The new document overview has not yet been published, but an editor's draft is publicly available at:
http://www.w3.org/2007/OWL/wiki/Document_Overview
We hope that this document will satisfy the requirement that you identified in your comment.
Please acknowledge receipt of this email to <mailto:public-owl-comments@w3.org> (replying to this email should suffice). In your acknowledgment please let us know whether or not you are satisfied with the working group's response to your comment.
Regards,
Ian Horrocks
on behalf of the W3C OWL Working Group
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