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Re: [ontolog-forum] Truth (Tim B-L's vision for the SW in 2000)

To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
From: John F Sowa <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2012 11:16:35 -0400
Message-id: <4FFC4753.9060601@xxxxxxxxxxx>
On 7/10/2012 1:58 AM, Chris Mungall wrote:
> Boris Motik developed HermiT, which I would consider a very useful 
>application.
>
> For the Gene Ontology (a major application in molecular biology) we rely on 
>HermiT to verify
> every change made to the ontology. This counts as a useful application to us.    (01)

Thanks for the info.    (02)

I want to emphasize that my "rants" are not against DLs.  I also
apologize for calling the following paper a "disease":    (03)

http://dip.semanticweb.org/documents/Boris-Motik-On-the-Properties-of-Metamodeling-in-OWL.pdf    (04)

My initial impression was caused by a revulsion to its underlying
assumptions.  But I admit that it's not a bad paper of its kind.    (05)

> I like LOOM, I will have to give it another try.    (06)

Unfortunately, LOOM and PowerLoom come from an older era.  Their major
strengths are their *integrated* approach that combines a DL for the
T-Box, a rule-based language for the A-Box, and bindings to programming
languages and databases.  But these tools are not integrated with the
SW tools.    (07)

JFS
>> It makes me angry that [the DL theoreticians] have been destroying
>> what might have been a very useful development, if they had left
>> the SW to the engineers.    (08)

CM
> I think that's a bit much.    (09)

Please look at the DAML proposal in February 2000 with Tim Berners-Lee
as the principal investigator:    (010)

    http://www.w3.org/2000/01/sw/DevelopmentProposal    (011)

Note that it explicitly states:    (012)

    Semantic Web = Unifying logic for classical logic    (013)

It also mentions higher order, first order, and propositional logic.
But it *never* mentions the dreaded word 'decidability'.    (014)

Tim B-L demonstrated his engineering credentials in developing the WWW.
The 2000 DAML proposal includes an early version of the layer cake,
which was more integrated and richer than the more widely circulated
layer cake of 2001 or the watered-down version today.    (015)

If Tim B-L had been able to continue the DAML project along the lines 
described in that report, the SW might have become a truly integrated
logic-based system -- much more powerful than PowerLoom.    (016)

Instead, the "Decidability Thought Police" hijacked the SW.  They tell
people that OWL is the successor to DAML + OIL.  But that is false.
The combination of RDF(S) + OWL + SPARQL is a tiny fragment of
what Tim B-L and his colleagues proposed for DAML in 2000.    (017)

Please read that report and think of what might have been.    (018)

John    (019)

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