OASIS Semantic Execution Environment TC

Call for Participation: OASIS Semantic Execution Environment TC

Date:      Wed, 12 Oct 2005 20:35:37 -0700
From:      James Bryce Clark <jamie.clark@oasis-open.org>
To:        members@lists.oasis-open.org,
           tc-announce@lists.oasis-open.org
Cc:        xml-dev@lists.xml.org
Subject:   OASIS TC Call for Participation: OASIS Semantic Execution Environment Technical Committee

A new OASIS technical committee is being formed. The OASIS Semantic Execution Environment Technical Committee has been proposed by the members of OASIS listed below. The proposal (below) meets the requirements of the OASIS TC Process [1]. The TC name, statement of purpose, scope, list of deliverables, audience, and language specified in the proposal will constitute the TC's official charter. Submissions of technology for consideration by the TC, and the beginning of technical discussions, may occur no sooner than the TC's first meeting.

This TC will operate under our 2005 IPR Policy [2]. The eligibility requirements for becoming a participant in the TC at the first meeting (see details below) are that:

you must be an employee of an OASIS member organization or an individual member of OASIS
the OASIS member must sign the OASIS membership agreement (see [3])
you must notify the TC chair of your intent to participate at least 15 days prior to the first meeting, which members may do by using the "Join this TC" button on the TC's public page at [4]
you must attend the first meeting of the TC, at the time and date fixed below

Of course, it also will be possible to join the TC at a later time.

Standards always are improved by broad participation. Non-OASIS members who wish to participate may contact us about joining OASIS [3]. Our rules and structure are designed to promote inclusiveness. We look forward to assisting parties interested in joining the community of implementers, technologists, academics and end-users working on OASIS standardization projects. All also are welcome to take advantage of the public resources maintained for each TC: a mail list archive, document repository and public comments facility, which will be available via the TC's public home page at [4]. Archives of the TC's mail list and public comment lists, as with all OASIS TCs, will be visible at [5].

Further information generally related to the topic area addressed by this TC may be found on the Cover Pages at "Semantic Web: Projects, Initiatives, Specifications":

http://xml.coverpages.org/semanticWeb.html

Please feel free to forward this announcement to any other appropriate lists. OASIS is an open standards organization; we encourage your feedback. JBC

James Bryce Clark
Director, Standards Development, OASIS
jamie.clark@oasis-open.org

[1] http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/process.php
[2] http://www.oasis-open.org/who/intellectualproperty.php
[3] See http://www.oasis-open.org/join/
[4] http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=semantic-ex
[5] http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/

Charter: OASIS Semantic Execution Environment TC

OASIS Semantic Execution Environment TC

Name

OASIS Semantic Execution Environment (SEE) Technical Committee

Statement of Purpose

The technology of Semantic Web services (SWSs) envisions easy access to various systems and facilitates the consumption of the functionality exposed by these systems on the Web. Seamless integration, ad-hoc cooperation between various business parties or dynamic collaborations on the Web, can be achieved only if tools for handling semantically enhanced services are provided.

The OASIS SEE TC aims to continue work initiated by the WSMX project and working group visible at http://www.wsmx.org and several other projects in Europe such as DIP (http://dip.semanticweb.org/), ASG (http://asg-platform.org/) and other projects in the area of Semantic Web Services which will start in the coming months. The aim of the SEE TC is to provide guidelines, justifications and implementation directions for an execution environment for Semantic Web services. The resulting architecture will incorporate the application of semantics to service-oriented systems and will provide intelligent mechanisms for consuming Semantic Web services.

Service-oriented architectures anticipate a large number of ambient heterogeneous computational services that may be utilized in various combinations. However, a typical composition of services to meet a business goal often is an attempt to coordinate disparate resources from multiple sources — services that may not know, or fully understand, each other in advance. When planning to invoke multiple services, it is not always readily apparent whether the methods and outputs of one service meet the requirements of another. So some interpretation, mediation or common understanding is essential for any significant deployment. The SEE TC will define methods for using semantic technologies to solve these coordination and automation issues.

The TC also will define the functional components of such an SWS system and the semantics descriptions of these components' interfaces. The TC will also define a formal description of execution semantics of such a system. In addition, the TC will define a generic and open framework, using metadata, to allow for new components to be plugged into the system and made available to the execution engine dynamically. Further, after providing the basic methods described above, or in parallel if appropriate, the SEE TC will seek to develop specifications addressing specific problem sets covering the spectrum from a general purpose environment to a specific business-domain-focused applications addressing financial, telecommunication, military and e-Government applications of Semantic Web Services technologies.

In the course of existing research, it has become clear that Semantic Web services and Grid Computing are closely related research activities with many shared objectives. Both address distributed computing systems from different perspectives and we believe that they should be investigated in parallel as complementary technologies enabling the next era of internet applications. In our vision, the usage of arbitrary resources (physical or logical) for building complex business applications should be simplified, so that their discovery, deployment, composition, provisioning and management, can be performed by the means of semantic-enhanced services. To reach this goal, on the one hand, current Grid technologies need to be extended to support semantically enriched resource descriptions and services, e.g., to simplify their discovery and composition. On the other hand, Semantic Web services technology has to be extended to support resource management, including dynamic provisioning of services and resources, execution management, and support of security-related issues concerning virtual organization management. This TC aims to combine Grid Computing with Semantic Web Services technologies and to take advantage of their different perspectives to provide architecture of the infrastructure for machine-to-machine enabled communication and cooperation.

The SEE TC's efforts will foster compatibility across specifications developed for Semantic Web Services, and where possible re-use existing standards and methods that already have been carried in areas of Semantic Web and Web Services. This TC will engage with industry, academic and research communities to facilitate understanding, awareness and possible collaborations regarding emerging semantic technologies and research applicable to semantically-aware Web Services.

Scope

Initial requirements have indicated that Semantic Web services systems should enable automatic or semi-automatic discovery, negotiation, selection, composition, mediation, invocation and interoperation of multiple services. The SEE TC will assess the subsequent and related works and implementation experience of existing efforts in a variety of sectors (financial, telecommunication, e-health and e-governament) to define and implement these functions related with Semantic Web Services. Based on those experiences, the detailed analysis of requirements for Semantic Web services Architecture will be provided.

The SEE TC will provide a testbed for the Web Services Modeling Ontology (WSMO), which is anticipated as a contribution for use by the TC on a non-exclusive basis, and will seek to demonstrate the viability of using WSMO concepts, relationships and definitions as a means to achieve successful dynamic interoperation of multiple ambient services, whether or not they share a common design or source.

The TC anticipates contribution of the draft WSMX specifications and WSMO ontology on a non-exclusive basis. Other contributions will be accepted for consideration without any prejudice or restrictions, and evaluated on their technical merit, as long as the contributions conform to this charter.

Following a top-down, component based development approach, the TC will provide a whole framework capable of carrying out the dynamic discovery, mediation, selection, invocation and inter-operation of Web Services and any other functionality which will be revealed during the requirements analysis phase. While the focus of this group will remain on a high level semantic description of components interfaces, the TC will seek tight cooperation with any group working on semantics-enabled functional components that fulfill the requirements of such system.

The SEE TC will not implement actual software products or solutions based on the specifications developed along the course of work of this group.

Deliverables

OASIS SEE TC will develop two Technical Specifications described below, and also may elect to issue Technical Reports and White Papers:

Semantic Web Services Architecture and Information Model — final version available in December 2007 (the TC may issue intermediate versions as frequently as every 6 months)
Services Specification - Execution Semantics for Semantics-Enabled systems — final version available in December 2007 (intermediate versions may be available as frequently as every 6 months)
Technical Reports will be drafted as appropriate
White Papers as appropriate

IPR Mode

SEE TC will operate under "RF on Limited Terms" mode.

Anticipated Audience

The anticipated audience for this work includes all OASIS Web Service and ebXML TCs, non-OASIS Web Service standards groups, Semantic Web Services research and interest groups, SOA architects and programmers, vendors and users. The work should be of interest to anyone involved with Semantic Web Services and more generally also in Service Oriented Architectures (SOAs).

Language

English. The TC may elect to form subcommittees that produce localized documentation of the TC's work in additional languages.

Additional Information

The following is informational only for the purposes of starting the TC, and will not be part of the TC's charter.

Similar and Related Work and Liaisons

All Web Services and Service Oriented Architecture groups are the primary target of this work. It is anticipated that liaisons may be needed for many SOA-related Technical Committees such as the following:

OASIS SOA Reference Model TC
OASIS ebSOA TC
OASIS Web Services Resource Framework (WSRF) TC
OASIS ebXML Registry TC
OASIS UDDI TC
OASIS FWSI TC
OASIS SOA Adoption Blueprints TC
OASIS ebXML BP TC
W3C WS Description Working Group
W3C WS Choreography Working Group
W3C Resource Description Framework
Web Services Modelling Ontology Working Group
Web Services Modelling Language Working Group
OASIS WSBPEL TC
SWSI
Meteor-S
OWL-S

Anticipated Contributions

Overview and Scope of WSMX, http://www.wsmo.org/TR/d13/d13.0/v0.2/
WSMX Conceptual Model, http://www.wsmo.org/TR/d13/d13.1/v0.2/
WSMX Mediation, http://www.wsmo.org/TR/d13/d13.3/v0.1/
WSMX Architecture, http://www.wsmo.org/TR/d13/d13.4/v0.1/
Processes Mediation in WSMX, http://www.wsmo.org/TR/d13/d13.7/v0.1/
WSMO, http://www.wsmo.org/TR/d2/v1.2/

First Meeting

Date: 11 November 2005
Time: 1:00 pm CET
Telephone conference: immediately after the International Semantic Web
Conference 2005 in Galway, Ireland (http://iswc2005.semanticweb.org/). Meeting Sponsor: DERI

Ongoing Meeting Schedule (Subject to TC Approval)

Meeting schedule will be biweekly conference calls as well as quarterly Face to Face meetings pending approval and adoption by the TC. Sponsor: DERI.

Proposers

Jürgen Angele, angele@ontoprise.de, Ontoprise, Germany
Boualem Benatallah boualem@cse.unsw.edu.au, University of New South Wales, Australia
Michael Brodie, michael.brodie@verizon.com, Verizon, USA
Mark Burstein, burstein@bbn.com, BBN Technologies, USA
Christoph Bussler chris.bussler@deri.org, DERI, Ireland
Dario Cerizza, cerizza@cefriel.it, Cefriel, Italy
Marin Dimitrov, marin.dimitrov@ontotext.com, Ontotext, Bulgaria
John Domingue, j.b.domingue@open.ac.uk, Open University, UK
Asuman Dogac, asuman@srdc.metu.edu.tr, Software Research & Development Center, Turkey
Arik Elberse, elberse@nortel.com, Nortel, Ireland
Jerome.Euzenat, Jerome.Euzenat@inrialpes.fr, Inria, France
Dieter Fensel, dieter.fensel@deri.org, DERI, Austria
Masahiro Hori, horim@res.kutc.kansai-u.ac.jp, Kansai University, Japan
Mike Huhns, huhns@engr.sc.edu, University of South Carolina, USA
Hong-Gee Kim, hgkim@snu.ac.kr, DERI, Korea
Rafael Garcia Leiva, rafael.garcia@andago.com, Andago, Spain
Sara Carro Martínez, scm@tid.es, Telefónica Investigación y Desarrollo
Dugki Min, dkmin@konkuk.ac.kr, Konkuk University, Korea
Colm O hEocha, Colm.O'hEocha@ie.fid-intl.com, Fidelity, Ireland
Massimo Paolucci, paolucci@docomolab-euro.com
Amit Sheth, amit@cs.uga.edu, LSDIS, USA
Emanuele Della Valle emanuele.dellavalle@cefriel,Cefriel, Italy
Kunal Verma, verma@cs.uga.edu, LSDIS, USA
Alexander Wahler, wahler@niwa.at, Niwa, Austria
Michal Zaremba, michal.zaremba@deri.org, DERI, Ireland

TC Convener

Michal Zaremba, michal.zaremba@deri.org, DERI, Ireland

Proposed TC Chair or Co-Chairs

Dieter Fensel, dieter.fensel@deri.org, DERI, Austria
Michal Zaremba, michal.zaremba@deri.org, DERI, Ireland

Prepared by Robin Cover for The XML Cover Pages archive. General references: (1) "Semantic Web: Projects, Initiatives, Specifications"; (2) "Markup Languages and Semantics"; (3) "XML and 'The Semantic Web'."

SEARCH Advanced Search ABOUT Site Map CP RSS Channel Contact Us Sponsoring CP About Our Sponsors NEWS Cover Stories Articles & Papers Press Releases CORE STANDARDS XML SGML Schemas XSL/XSLT/XPath XLink XML Query CSS SVG TECHNOLOGY REPORTS XML Applications General Apps Government Apps Academic Apps EVENTS LIBRARY Introductions FAQs Bibliography Technology and Society Semantics Tech Topics Software Related Standards Historic	OASIS Semantic Execution Environment TC Call for Participation: OASIS Semantic Execution Environment TC Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2005 20:35:37 -0700 From: James Bryce Clark <jamie.clark@oasis-open.org> To: members@lists.oasis-open.org, tc-announce@lists.oasis-open.org Cc: xml-dev@lists.xml.org Subject: OASIS TC Call for Participation: OASIS Semantic Execution Environment Technical Committee A new OASIS technical committee is being formed. The OASIS Semantic Execution Environment Technical Committee has been proposed by the members of OASIS listed below. The proposal (below) meets the requirements of the OASIS TC Process [1]. The TC name, statement of purpose, scope, list of deliverables, audience, and language specified in the proposal will constitute the TC's official charter. Submissions of technology for consideration by the TC, and the beginning of technical discussions, may occur no sooner than the TC's first meeting. This TC will operate under our 2005 IPR Policy [2]. The eligibility requirements for becoming a participant in the TC at the first meeting (see details below) are that: you must be an employee of an OASIS member organization or an individual member of OASIS the OASIS member must sign the OASIS membership agreement (see [3]) you must notify the TC chair of your intent to participate at least 15 days prior to the first meeting, which members may do by using the "Join this TC" button on the TC's public page at [4] you must attend the first meeting of the TC, at the time and date fixed below Of course, it also will be possible to join the TC at a later time. Standards always are improved by broad participation. Non-OASIS members who wish to participate may contact us about joining OASIS [3]. Our rules and structure are designed to promote inclusiveness. We look forward to assisting parties interested in joining the community of implementers, technologists, academics and end-users working on OASIS standardization projects. All also are welcome to take advantage of the public resources maintained for each TC: a mail list archive, document repository and public comments facility, which will be available via the TC's public home page at [4]. Archives of the TC's mail list and public comment lists, as with all OASIS TCs, will be visible at [5]. Further information generally related to the topic area addressed by this TC may be found on the Cover Pages at "Semantic Web: Projects, Initiatives, Specifications": http://xml.coverpages.org/semanticWeb.html Please feel free to forward this announcement to any other appropriate lists. OASIS is an open standards organization; we encourage your feedback. JBC James Bryce Clark Director, Standards Development, OASIS jamie.clark@oasis-open.org [1] http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/process.php [2] http://www.oasis-open.org/who/intellectualproperty.php [3] See http://www.oasis-open.org/join/ [4] http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=semantic-ex [5] http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/ Charter: OASIS Semantic Execution Environment TC OASIS Semantic Execution Environment TC Name OASIS Semantic Execution Environment (SEE) Technical Committee Statement of Purpose The technology of Semantic Web services (SWSs) envisions easy access to various systems and facilitates the consumption of the functionality exposed by these systems on the Web. Seamless integration, ad-hoc cooperation between various business parties or dynamic collaborations on the Web, can be achieved only if tools for handling semantically enhanced services are provided. The OASIS SEE TC aims to continue work initiated by the WSMX project and working group visible at http://www.wsmx.org and several other projects in Europe such as DIP (http://dip.semanticweb.org/), ASG (http://asg-platform.org/) and other projects in the area of Semantic Web Services which will start in the coming months. The aim of the SEE TC is to provide guidelines, justifications and implementation directions for an execution environment for Semantic Web services. The resulting architecture will incorporate the application of semantics to service-oriented systems and will provide intelligent mechanisms for consuming Semantic Web services. Service-oriented architectures anticipate a large number of ambient heterogeneous computational services that may be utilized in various combinations. However, a typical composition of services to meet a business goal often is an attempt to coordinate disparate resources from multiple sources — services that may not know, or fully understand, each other in advance. When planning to invoke multiple services, it is not always readily apparent whether the methods and outputs of one service meet the requirements of another. So some interpretation, mediation or common understanding is essential for any significant deployment. The SEE TC will define methods for using semantic technologies to solve these coordination and automation issues. The TC also will define the functional components of such an SWS system and the semantics descriptions of these components' interfaces. The TC will also define a formal description of execution semantics of such a system. In addition, the TC will define a generic and open framework, using metadata, to allow for new components to be plugged into the system and made available to the execution engine dynamically. Further, after providing the basic methods described above, or in parallel if appropriate, the SEE TC will seek to develop specifications addressing specific problem sets covering the spectrum from a general purpose environment to a specific business-domain-focused applications addressing financial, telecommunication, military and e-Government applications of Semantic Web Services technologies. In the course of existing research, it has become clear that Semantic Web services and Grid Computing are closely related research activities with many shared objectives. Both address distributed computing systems from different perspectives and we believe that they should be investigated in parallel as complementary technologies enabling the next era of internet applications. In our vision, the usage of arbitrary resources (physical or logical) for building complex business applications should be simplified, so that their discovery, deployment, composition, provisioning and management, can be performed by the means of semantic-enhanced services. To reach this goal, on the one hand, current Grid technologies need to be extended to support semantically enriched resource descriptions and services, e.g., to simplify their discovery and composition. On the other hand, Semantic Web services technology has to be extended to support resource management, including dynamic provisioning of services and resources, execution management, and support of security-related issues concerning virtual organization management. This TC aims to combine Grid Computing with Semantic Web Services technologies and to take advantage of their different perspectives to provide architecture of the infrastructure for machine-to-machine enabled communication and cooperation. The SEE TC's efforts will foster compatibility across specifications developed for Semantic Web Services, and where possible re-use existing standards and methods that already have been carried in areas of Semantic Web and Web Services. This TC will engage with industry, academic and research communities to facilitate understanding, awareness and possible collaborations regarding emerging semantic technologies and research applicable to semantically-aware Web Services. Scope Initial requirements have indicated that Semantic Web services systems should enable automatic or semi-automatic discovery, negotiation, selection, composition, mediation, invocation and interoperation of multiple services. The SEE TC will assess the subsequent and related works and implementation experience of existing efforts in a variety of sectors (financial, telecommunication, e-health and e-governament) to define and implement these functions related with Semantic Web Services. Based on those experiences, the detailed analysis of requirements for Semantic Web services Architecture will be provided. The SEE TC will provide a testbed for the Web Services Modeling Ontology (WSMO), which is anticipated as a contribution for use by the TC on a non-exclusive basis, and will seek to demonstrate the viability of using WSMO concepts, relationships and definitions as a means to achieve successful dynamic interoperation of multiple ambient services, whether or not they share a common design or source. The TC anticipates contribution of the draft WSMX specifications and WSMO ontology on a non-exclusive basis. Other contributions will be accepted for consideration without any prejudice or restrictions, and evaluated on their technical merit, as long as the contributions conform to this charter. Following a top-down, component based development approach, the TC will provide a whole framework capable of carrying out the dynamic discovery, mediation, selection, invocation and inter-operation of Web Services and any other functionality which will be revealed during the requirements analysis phase. While the focus of this group will remain on a high level semantic description of components interfaces, the TC will seek tight cooperation with any group working on semantics-enabled functional components that fulfill the requirements of such system. The SEE TC will not implement actual software products or solutions based on the specifications developed along the course of work of this group. Deliverables OASIS SEE TC will develop two Technical Specifications described below, and also may elect to issue Technical Reports and White Papers: Semantic Web Services Architecture and Information Model — final version available in December 2007 (the TC may issue intermediate versions as frequently as every 6 months) Services Specification - Execution Semantics for Semantics-Enabled systems — final version available in December 2007 (intermediate versions may be available as frequently as every 6 months) Technical Reports will be drafted as appropriate White Papers as appropriate IPR Mode SEE TC will operate under "RF on Limited Terms" mode. Anticipated Audience The anticipated audience for this work includes all OASIS Web Service and ebXML TCs, non-OASIS Web Service standards groups, Semantic Web Services research and interest groups, SOA architects and programmers, vendors and users. The work should be of interest to anyone involved with Semantic Web Services and more generally also in Service Oriented Architectures (SOAs). Language English. The TC may elect to form subcommittees that produce localized documentation of the TC's work in additional languages. Additional Information The following is informational only for the purposes of starting the TC, and will not be part of the TC's charter. Similar and Related Work and Liaisons All Web Services and Service Oriented Architecture groups are the primary target of this work. It is anticipated that liaisons may be needed for many SOA-related Technical Committees such as the following: OASIS SOA Reference Model TC OASIS ebSOA TC OASIS Web Services Resource Framework (WSRF) TC OASIS ebXML Registry TC OASIS UDDI TC OASIS FWSI TC OASIS SOA Adoption Blueprints TC OASIS ebXML BP TC W3C WS Description Working Group W3C WS Choreography Working Group W3C Resource Description Framework Web Services Modelling Ontology Working Group Web Services Modelling Language Working Group OASIS WSBPEL TC SWSI Meteor-S OWL-S Anticipated Contributions Overview and Scope of WSMX, http://www.wsmo.org/TR/d13/d13.0/v0.2/ WSMX Conceptual Model, http://www.wsmo.org/TR/d13/d13.1/v0.2/ WSMX Mediation, http://www.wsmo.org/TR/d13/d13.3/v0.1/ WSMX Architecture, http://www.wsmo.org/TR/d13/d13.4/v0.1/ Processes Mediation in WSMX, http://www.wsmo.org/TR/d13/d13.7/v0.1/ WSMO, http://www.wsmo.org/TR/d2/v1.2/ First Meeting Date: 11 November 2005 Time: 1:00 pm CET Telephone conference: immediately after the International Semantic Web Conference 2005 in Galway, Ireland (http://iswc2005.semanticweb.org/). Meeting Sponsor: DERI Ongoing Meeting Schedule (Subject to TC Approval) Meeting schedule will be biweekly conference calls as well as quarterly Face to Face meetings pending approval and adoption by the TC. Sponsor: DERI. Proposers Jürgen Angele, angele@ontoprise.de, Ontoprise, Germany Boualem Benatallah boualem@cse.unsw.edu.au, University of New South Wales, Australia Michael Brodie, michael.brodie@verizon.com, Verizon, USA Mark Burstein, burstein@bbn.com, BBN Technologies, USA Christoph Bussler chris.bussler@deri.org, DERI, Ireland Dario Cerizza, cerizza@cefriel.it, Cefriel, Italy Marin Dimitrov, marin.dimitrov@ontotext.com, Ontotext, Bulgaria John Domingue, j.b.domingue@open.ac.uk, Open University, UK Asuman Dogac, asuman@srdc.metu.edu.tr, Software Research & Development Center, Turkey Arik Elberse, elberse@nortel.com, Nortel, Ireland Jerome.Euzenat, Jerome.Euzenat@inrialpes.fr, Inria, France Dieter Fensel, dieter.fensel@deri.org, DERI, Austria Masahiro Hori, horim@res.kutc.kansai-u.ac.jp, Kansai University, Japan Mike Huhns, huhns@engr.sc.edu, University of South Carolina, USA Hong-Gee Kim, hgkim@snu.ac.kr, DERI, Korea Rafael Garcia Leiva, rafael.garcia@andago.com, Andago, Spain Sara Carro Martínez, scm@tid.es, Telefónica Investigación y Desarrollo Dugki Min, dkmin@konkuk.ac.kr, Konkuk University, Korea Colm O hEocha, Colm.O'hEocha@ie.fid-intl.com, Fidelity, Ireland Massimo Paolucci, paolucci@docomolab-euro.com Amit Sheth, amit@cs.uga.edu, LSDIS, USA Emanuele Della Valle emanuele.dellavalle@cefriel,Cefriel, Italy Kunal Verma, verma@cs.uga.edu, LSDIS, USA Alexander Wahler, wahler@niwa.at, Niwa, Austria Michal Zaremba, michal.zaremba@deri.org, DERI, Ireland TC Convener Michal Zaremba, michal.zaremba@deri.org, DERI, Ireland Proposed TC Chair or Co-Chairs Dieter Fensel, dieter.fensel@deri.org, DERI, Austria Michal Zaremba, michal.zaremba@deri.org, DERI, Ireland Prepared by Robin Cover for The XML Cover Pages archive. General references: (1) "Semantic Web: Projects, Initiatives, Specifications"; (2) "Markup Languages and Semantics"; (3) "XML and 'The Semantic Web'."