DAML+OIL: an ontology language for the Semantic Web

TLDR

The Web’s enormous growth makes rapid, accurate access to information difficult, prompting the Semantic Web to capture term meanings and enable reasoning rather than mere presentation. This work aims to advance Semantic Web development by presenting DAML+OIL, a markup language funded by DARPA and positioned as the foundation for the W3C’s Ontology Web Language. DAML+OIL is developed through DARPA funding and contributions from industry, academia, and W3C, and its syntax and usage are illustrated with wine‑knowledge‑base examples.

Abstract

By all measures, the Web is enormous and growing at a staggering rate, which has made it increasingly difficult-and important-for both people and programs to have quick and accurate access to Web information and services. The Semantic Web offers a solution, capturing and exploiting the meaning of terms to transform the Web from a platform that focuses on presenting information, to a platform that focuses on understanding and reasoning with information. To support Semantic Web development, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency launched the DARPA Agent Markup Language (DAML) initiative to fund research in languages, tools, infrastructure, and applications that make Web content more accessible and understandable. Although the US government funds DAML, several organizations-including US and European businesses and universities, and international consortia such as the World Wide Web Consortium-have contributed to work on issues related to DAML's development and deployment. We focus on DAML's current markup language, DAML+OIL, which is a proposed starting point for the W3C's Semantic Web Activity's Ontology Web Language (OWL). We introduce DAML+OIL syntax and usage through a set of examples, drawn from a wine knowledge base used to teach novices how to build ontologies.