Wednesday, February 05, 2003

OntoWeb web site is really half baked I tried to register to the OntoWeb Portal described in  Use Cases and Requirements for the Web Ontology Language (OWL) 1.0 and got this Zope error page. Among other quirks: The news page does not give any date for the items, and there's no RSS feed for the News. Not very appealing ! I wonder why they list such an unfinished demo in the use case draft ? This does not add any credence to the semweb initiative and invites the usual criticism that it is an accademic unpractical effort. At least they should state on the main web site page that this is an unfinished not fully functional site. Zope Error Zope has encountered an error while publishing this resource. Error Type: AttributeError Error Value: setMemberProperties Troubleshooting Suggestions The URL may be incorrect. The parameters passed to this resource may be incorrect. A resource that this resource relies on may be encountering an error. For more detailed information about the error, please refer to the HTML source for this page. If the error persists please contact the site maintainer. Thank you for your patience. Traceback (innermost last): File /usr/local/Zope-2.5.1-src/lib/python/Products/Hotfix_2002-04-15/__init__.py, line 51, in publish_module File /usr/local/Zope-2.5.1-src/lib/python/ZPublisher/Publish.py, line 114, in publish File /usr/local/Zope-2.5.1-src/lib/python/Zope/__init__.py, line 159, in zpublisher_exception_hook (Object: OntoWeb) File /usr/local/Zope-2.5.1-src/lib/python/ZPublisher/Publish.py, line 98, in publish File /usr/local/Zope-2.5.1-src/lib/python/ZPublisher/mapply.py, line 88, in mapply (Object: register) File /usr/local/Zope-2.5.1-src/lib/python/ZPublisher/Publish.py, line 39, in call_object (Object: register) File /usr/share/zope/lib/python/Products/CMFCore/FSPythonScript.py, line 90, in __call__ (Object: register) File /usr/local/Zope-2.5.1-src/lib/python/Shared/DC/Scripts/Bindings.py, line 252, in __call__ (Object: register) File /usr/local/Zope-2.5.1-src/lib/python/Shared/DC/Scripts/Bindings.py, line 283, in _bindAndExec (Object: register) File /usr/share/zope/lib/python/Products/CMFCore/FSPythonScript.py, line 124, in _exec (Object: register) (Info: ({'script': <FSPythonScript instance at 92c3400>, 'context': <CMFSite instance at 9db7eb8>, 'container': <CMFSite instance at 9db7eb8>, 'traverse_subpath': []}, ('password', 'confirm'), {}, ('password', 'confirm'))) File Script (Python), line 10, in register File /usr/share/zope/lib/python/Products/CMFCore/RegistrationTool.py, line 130, in addMember (Object: portal_registration) File /usr/share/zope/lib/python/Products/CMFCore/MembershipTool.py, line 407, in addMember (Object: portal_membership) AttributeError: (see above) 11:34:39 AM    comment []

OWL Use Cases and Requirements Published. 4 February 2003: The Web Ontology Working Group has released an updated Working Draft of Use Cases and Requirements for the Web Ontology Language (OWL) 1.0. The draft defines "ontology." It outlines six use cases, design goals, requirements and objectives for a language which can describe the semantics of classes and properties used in Web documents. Read about the W3C Semantic Web Activity. (News archive) [World Wide Web Consortium] It is good that W3C documents these use cases, especially with links to examples: this will make it easier for manager types in tech organizations to understand the value of the Semweb standardization effort, and what it could bring to their products if they adopt it today. Most relevant to my current main professional area of interest: 2.1 Web portal ... One example of an ontology based portal is OntoWeb. This portal serves the academic and industry community that is interested in ontology research. Another example of a portal that uses Semantic Web technologies and could benefit from an ontology language is The Open Directory Project; a large, comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web. It is constructed and maintained by a vast, global community of volunteer editors. RDF dumps of the Open Directory database are available for download   11:15:14 AM    comment []

SVG Open 2003: Call for Papers and Early Bird Registration [World Wide Web Consortium] SVG Open 2003: Call for Papers and Early Bird Registration. 3 February 2003: Early bird registration has started for SVG Open 2003, to be held in Vancouver, Canada on 15-18 July 2003, with additional half-day workshops and tutorials on 13-14 July. Co-sponsored by W3C, the SVG Open conference series is the premier forum for Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) developers to share ideas, examples and implementations. The call for papers is open through 28 February. (News archive) [World Wide Web Consortium] 11:00:57 AM    comment []