DAML

DAML-ONT and OIL

This page attempts to provide information concerning OIL- The Ontology Inference Layer - from the perspective of a reader interested in DAML and its evolution. There is an active discussion going on the www-rdf-logic mailing list concerning the evolution of the DAML ontology language and its relations to OIL, thus it may be useful to read some background information.

OIL is a language built on a long history of research in description logics. Description Logic is a subfield of knowledge representation and as such aims to provide a vehicle for expressing structured information and for reasoning with the information in a principled manner. Description logics may be viewed as providing a formal foundation for frame-based systems, object-oriented representations, semantic data models, and type systems. OIL is an effort to produce a well defined language for integrating ontologies with web standards (in particular RDF/RDFS and XML/XMLS). It is a web-based representation and inference layer for ontologies using the constructs found in many frame languages and reasoning and formal semantics in description logics.

There is a main OIL site which contains a number of documents of interest. Perhaps the most interesting documents are the:

• white paper that is aimed as a gentle introduction. It is meant for casual readers and those interested in an informal introduction. This is entitled: An informal description of OIL-Core and Standard OIL: A layered proposal for DAML-O. Authors: Jeen Broekstra, Stefan Decker, Michael Erdmann, Dieter Fensel, Carole Goble, Frank van Harmelen, Ian Horrocks, Michel Klein, Deborah McGuinness, Enrico Motta, Peter Patel-Schneider, Steffen Staab, and Rudi Studer.
• syntax specification. This provides a BNF notation for the terms. It is meant for readers interested in the full specification. Authors: Frank van Harmelen, Ian Horrocks, and Michel Klein
• semantics specification: html version, pdf version. This provides a formal specification and semantics for OIL. It is a model-theoretic specification for the meaning of the OIL constructs and specifies the inference implications of the statements. This is meant for serious readers. Author: Ian Horrocks.

Acknowledgements

This collection pulls together an incomplete list of pointers to many other people's work. It draws heavily on a long history (over 20 years) of work in description logics. Most recently it leans on work done by the authors of OIL: Jeen Broekstra, Stefan Decker, Michael Erdmann, Dieter Fensel, Carole Goble, Frank van Harmelen, Ian Horrocks, Michel Klein, Deborah McGuinness, Enrico Motta, Peter Patel-Schneider, Steffen Staab, and Rudi Studer.

Notes