Web Ontology Language OWL and its description logic foundation

Abstract

W3C Web Ontology Working Group have been developing the Web ontology language OWL, which is a semantic markup language for publishing and sharing ontologies on the semantic Web. OWL is designed as an extension of RDF/S (resource description framework/schemas) and is derived from the DAML+OIL Web Ontology Language. Its success will depend heavily on its underlying logic foundation, especially description logics (DLs), and reasoning services which can provide. An introduction to OWL and some discussions about relationships between OWL and its underlying description logic is described.