Editing Web Ontology Language (section)

==Ontology languages for the web==
In 2000 in the United States, [[DARPA]] started development of [[DARPA Agent Markup Language|DAML]] led by [[James Hendler]].<ref name="book:lacy:owl:c10">{{cite book |title=OWL: Representing Information Using the Web Ontology Language |last=Lacy |first=Lee W. |year=2005 |publisher=Trafford Publishing |location=Victoria, BC |isbn=978-1-4120-3448-7 |chapter=Chapter 10 }}{{self-published source|date=January 2018}}</ref>{{Self-published inline|certain=yes|date=January 2018}}
In March 2001, the ''Joint EU/US Committee on Agent Markup Languages'' decided that DAML should be merged with OIL.<ref name="book:lacy:owl:c10" />
The ''EU/US ad hoc Joint Working Group on Agent Markup Languages'' was convened to develop [[DAML+OIL]] as a web ontology language. This group was jointly funded by the DARPA (under the DAML program) and the European Union's [[Information Society Technologies]] (IST) funding project. DAML+OIL was intended to be a thin layer above [[RDFS]],<ref name="book:lacy:owl:c10" />
with [[Semantics of programming languages|formal semantics]] based on a [[description logic]] (DL).<ref name="Baader:2005">{{cite book |title=Mechanizing Mathematical Reasoning: Essays in Honor of Jörg H. Siekmann on the Occasion of His 60th Birthday |last1=Baader |first1=Franz |author-link1=Franz Baader |last2=Horrocks |first2=Ian |author-link2=Ian Horrocks |last3=Sattler |first3=Ulrike |author-link3=Ulrike Sattler |year=2005 |publisher=Springer Berlin |location=Heidelberg, DE |isbn=978-3-540-25051-7 |chapter=Description Logics as Ontology Languages for the Semantic Web 
|url=http://www.springerlink.com/content/mf848ceackyx |chapter-url=http://www.springerlink.com/content/axh20n8l34bc3ecb/ |editor1-first=Dieter |editor1-last=Hutter |editor1-link=Dieter Hutter |editor2-first=Werner |editor2-last=Stephan |editor2-link=Werner Stephan}}{{dead link|date=February 2020|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref>

DAML+OIL is a particularly major influence on OWL; OWL's design was specifically based on DAML+OIL.<ref name=horrocks-et-al>{{cite journal|last1=Horrocks|first1=Ian|last2=Patel-Schneider|first2=Peter F.|last3=van Harmelen|first3=Frank|title=From SHIQ and RDF to OWL: the making of a Web Ontology Language|journal=Web Semantics: Science, Services and Agents on the World Wide Web|volume=1|issue=1|pages=7–26|doi=10.1016/j.websem.2003.07.001|year=2003|citeseerx=10.1.1.2.7039|s2cid=8277015 }}</ref>

===Semantic web standards===
{{Further|Semantic Web}}
{{blockquote|The Semantic Web provides a common framework that allows data to be shared and reused across application, enterprise, and community boundaries.|World Wide Web Consortium|''W3C Semantic Web Activity''<ref name="semantic_web_activity">{{cite web |url=http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/ |title=W3C Semantic Web Activity |author=World Wide Web Consortium |date=2010-02-06 |access-date=18 April 2010 }}</ref>}}

====RDF schema====
{{Further|RDFS}}
{{blockquote|a declarative representation language influenced by ideas from knowledge representation|World Wide Web Consortium|''Metadata Activity''<ref name="metadata.activity">{{cite web |url=http://www.w3.org/Metadata/Activity.html |title=Metadata Activity Statement |author=World Wide Web Consortium |date=2002-08-23 |publisher=World Wide Web Consortium |access-date=20 April 2010 }}</ref>}}

In the late 1990s, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) ''Metadata Activity'' started work on [[RDFS|RDF Schema]] (RDFS), a language for [[Resource Description Framework|RDF]] vocabulary sharing. The RDF became a W3C [[web standards|Recommendation]] in February 1999, and RDFS a Candidate Recommendation in March 2000.<ref name="metadata.activity" /> In February 2001, the ''Semantic Web Activity'' replaced the Metadata Activity.<ref name="metadata.activity" /> In 2004 (as part of a wider revision of RDF) RDFS became a  W3C Recommendation.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.w3.org/Metadata/Activity.html |title=RDF Vocabulary Description Language 1.0: RDF Schema |author=World Wide Web Consortium |date=2002-08-23 | work=RDF Vocabulary Description Language 1.0 |publisher=World Wide Web Consortium |access-date=20 April 2010 }}</ref>
Though RDFS provides some support for ontology specification, the need for a more expressive ontology language had become clear.<ref name="book:lacy:owl:c9">{{cite book |title=OWL: Representing Information Using the Web Ontology Language |last=Lacy |first=Lee W. |year=2005 |publisher=Trafford Publishing |location=Victoria, BC |isbn=978-1-4120-3448-7 |chapter=Chapter 9 - RDFS}}{{self-published source|date=January 2018}}</ref>{{Self-published inline|certain=yes|date=January 2018}}

====Web-Ontology Working Group====
{{blockquote|As of Monday, the 31st of May, our working group will officially come to an end. We have achieved all that we were chartered to do, and I believe our work is being quite well appreciated.|James Hendler and Guus Schreiber|''Web-Ontology Working Group: Conclusions and Future Work''<ref name="web-ont" />}}

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) created the ''Web-Ontology Working Group'' as part of their Semantic Web Activity. It began work on November 1, 2001 with co-chairs James Hendler and Guus Schreiber.<ref name="web-ont">{{cite web |url=http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/WebOnt/#L151 |publisher=W3C |title=Web-Ontology (WebOnt) Working Group (Closed) }}</ref> The first working drafts of the [[abstract syntax]], reference and synopsis were published in July 2002.<ref name="web-ont" /> OWL became a formal [[Web standards|W3C recommendation]] on February 10, 2004 and the working group was disbanded on May 31, 2004.<ref name="web-ont" />

====OWL Working Group====
In 2005, at the ''OWL Experiences And Directions Workshop'' a consensus formed that recent advances in description logic would allow a more expressive revision to satisfy user requirements more comprehensively whilst retaining good computational properties.
In December 2006, the OWL1.1 Member Submission<ref name="owl1.1">{{cite web |url=http://www.w3.org/Submission/2006/SUBM-owl11-overview-20061219/ |title=OWL 1.1 Web Ontology Language |last1=Patel-Schneider |first1=Peter F. |author-link1=Peter F. Patel-Schneider |last2=Horrocks |first2=Ian |date=2006-12-19 |publisher=World Wide Web Consortium |access-date=26 April 2010 }}</ref> was made to the W3C. The W3C chartered the ''OWL Working Group'' as part of the Semantic Web Activity in September 2007. In April 2008, this group decided to call this new language OWL2, indicating a substantial revision.<ref name="grau.2008">{{Cite journal | last1 = Grau | first1 = B. C.  | last2 = Horrocks | first2 = I. | author-link2 = Ian Horrocks| last3 = Motik | first3 = B. | last4 = Parsia | first4 = B. | last5 = Patel-Schneider | first5 = P. F. | last6 = Sattler | first6 = U. | author-link6 = Ulrike Sattler| doi = 10.1016/j.websem.2008.05.001 | title = OWL 2: The next step for OWL | journal = Web Semantics: Science, Services and Agents on the World Wide Web | volume = 6 | issue = 4 | pages = 309–322 | year = 2008 | url = http://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/boris.motik/pubs/ghmppss08next-steps.pdf}}</ref>

OWL 2 became a W3C recommendation in October 2009. OWL 2 introduces profiles to improve scalability in typical applications.<ref name="w3.org" /><ref name="owl2-profiles"/>

===Acronym===
{{blockquote|Why not be inconsistent in at least one aspect of a language which is all about consistency?|Guus Schreiber|''Why OWL and not WOL?''<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/CorePresentations/RDFTutorial/Slides.html#%28114%29 |title=Why OWL and not WOL? |first=Ivan |last=Herman |author-link=Ivan Herman |work=Tutorial on Semantic Web Technologies |publisher=World Wide Web Consortium |access-date=18 April 2010 }}</ref>}}

OWL was chosen as an easily pronounced acronym that would yield good logos, suggest wisdom, and honor [[William A. Martin]]'s ''One World Language'' knowledge representation project from the 1970s.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-webont-wg/2001Dec/0169.html|title=Re: NAME: SWOL versus WOL|work=message sent to W3C webont-wg mailing list on 27 December 2001}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Ontologe Reasoning: The Why and The How|url=http://www2.informatik.hu-berlin.de/~wandelt/SW201213/5OWLDL.pdf|access-date=January 28, 2014|author=Ian Horrocks|author-link=Ian Horrocks|page=7|year=2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://groups.csail.mit.edu/medg/owl-overview.html|title=OWL: the original|access-date=March 22, 2020|date=July 7, 2003}}</ref>

===Adoption===
A 2006 survey of ontologies available on the web collected 688 OWL ontologies. Of these, 199 were OWL Lite, 149 were OWL DL and 337 OWL Full (by syntax). They found that 19 ontologies had in excess of 2,000 classes, and that 6 had more than 10,000. The same survey collected 587 RDFS vocabularies.<ref>{{Cite book | last1 = Wang | first1 = T. D. | last2 = Parsia | first2 = B. | last3 = Hendler | first3 = J. | doi = 10.1007/11926078_49 | chapter = A Survey of the Web Ontology Landscape | title = The Semantic Web - ISWC 2006 | series = Lecture Notes in Computer Science | volume = 4273 | page = 682 | year = 2006 | isbn = 978-3-540-49029-6 }}</ref>