From rekent@eecs.wsu.edu Tue Aug 4 18:07:56 1998 Date: Tue, 04 Aug 1998 15:56:55 -0700 From: "Robert E. Kent" <rekent@eecs.wsu.edu> Subject: OML, new version
Comments are solicited about the newest version of the Ontology Markup Language (OML) accessible at http://wave.eecs.wsu.edu/CKRMI/OML.html. OML was originally intended to be subservient to the more inclusive CKML (Conceptual Knowledge Markup Language) and to Conceptual Knowledge Processing (CKP). The earlier versions of OML were basically a translation to XML of the SHOE formalism (http://www.cs.umd.edu/projects/plus/SHOE/), with suitable changes and improvements.
However, the new version has taken on a life of its own, principally because of demands from the outside: coercion from the RDF/Schema community (viz., http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-rdf-syntax/ and http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-rdf-schema/) to get a semantics standard, solution of the PICS Rules problems about global censorship, and attempts by the conceptual graphs community and the CKP community to unite the expressive power of their formalisms (conceptual graphs and concept lattices).
As a result, OML version 0.2 has changed quite a bit. It is highly RDF/Schemas compatible, although it has its own solution to the namespace problem; but more importantly, we have incorporated our own version of the elements and expressiveness of conceptual graphs. In fact, the current version of OML may be the first time a framework using XML and equivalent to predicate logic has been placed on the Internet. For these reasons, at least four versions of OML are being considered, each designed for a different purpose: the full Standard OML is regarded as the most expressive and natural; Abbreviated OML is for interoperability with the conceptual graphs standard CGIF (http://concept.cs.uah.edu/CG/Standard.html); Simple OML is for interoperability with RDF with schemas; and Core OML is for logical simplicity.
Robert E. Kent email: rekent@eecs.wsu.edu School of EECS phone: (509) 335-4590 Washington State University fax: (509) 335-3818 Pullman, WA 99164-2752