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MDT/ODM-Proposal
Contents
Introduction
Ontology Definition Metamodel (ODM) is a proposed open source subproject of the Model Development Tools (MDT) project to provide metamodel implementations and sample tools based on the Ontology Definition Metamodel (ODM) OMG specification.
This project is in the Pre-Proposal Phase (as defined in the Eclipse Development Process) and this document is written to declare its intent and scope. This proposal is written to solicit additional participation and input from the Eclipse community. You are invited to comment on and/or join in the development of the project. Please send all feedback to the eclipse.odm newsgroup.
Background
The importance of supporting industry standards is critical to the success of the Modeling project, and to Eclipse in general. The role of the Modeling project in the support of industry standards is to enable their creation and maintenance within the Eclipse community. Furthermore, as standards bodies such as the OMG have a strong modeling focus, the Modeling project needs to facilitate communication and outreach through its PMC and project contributors to foster a good working relationship with external organizations.
The Ontology Definition Metamodel (ODM) is an adopted OMG specification that provides MOF metamodels, UML profiles, and mappings for several prominent knowledge representation / Semantic Web modeling paradigms. These include:
- the Resource Description Framework (RDF), which became a formal recommendation of the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) in 2004
- the Web Ontology Language (OWL), which also became a formal W3C recommendation in 2004, and is currently under revision
- ISO 24707 Common Logic (CL), which defines a family of first-order logic languages, and is the successor to the Knowledge Interchange Format (KIF)
The ODM was developed in collaboration with the original language authors for each of the languages represented, and as a result, the CL metamodel is identical to the metamodel in the ISO Common Logic specification, and the TM metamodel is almost identical to the model provided in the ISO Topic Maps specification. Various aspects of the ODM have been successfully applied on a number of academic projects world-wide, as exemplified through papers given in the Semantic Web Enabled Software Engineering (SWESE) workshop series (EDOC 2004, SWESE 2005, SWESE 2006, SWESE 2007, SWESE 2008). The ODM is just beginning to gain traction with early adopters in government and commercial sectors, but open source tools would certainly accelerate the adoption process.
A number of discussions among researchers, developers, and advocates of the ODM and related specifications – beginning at the International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC) in 2005, at several SWESE workshops, at EclipseCon 2008, at the Semantic Technology Conference 2008, and at several OMG conferences over the last two years – indicate that there is significant interest in development of tooling that supports the ODM itself as well as transformations to a variety of other specifications and capabilities that are available or planned under the Model Development Tools (MDT) umbrella. This is a proposal to provide support for ODM-based, semantic technology tooling at Eclipse.
Scope
The scope of the ODM subproject would include the following:
- sample tools and artifacts supporting the development of ODM-compliant terminologies, taxonomies, topic maps, and ontologies,
- semi-automated transformations across the knowledge representation paradigms that comprise the ODM, including the declarative subset of UML (the Unified Modeling Language) and MOF (the Meta-Object Facility),
- functionality to enable use of ODM-based vocabularies in other software engineering activities, such as for rule set development using the OMG Production Rule Representation (PRR) standard, or for example, in data modeling via mappings to the emerging Information Management Metamodel (IMM) standard
Relationship with Other Eclipse Projects
The UML2, UML2 Tools, and proposed MST project, all subprojects of the Model Development Tools (MDT) project (current or planned), provide tooling relevant to this effort. Additionally, some prototyping has been done using ODM as a basis for transformations on the Model to Model Transformation (M2M) / ATL project, which could benefit from this proposed effort. It is our intent to work collaboratively with teams from all of these projects to benefit from lessons learned and provide better technology as a basis for mappings and transformations on M2M/ATL in particular.
Obvious integrations with other Modeling subprojects will be explored as the project evolves.
This project replaces the earlier EODM project, which was built on an early draft of the ODM metamodel family.
Organization
Mentors
- Ed Merks
- Rich Gronback
Initial Committers
The initial committers for this project would be:
- Elisa Kendall (Sandpiper Software), proposed project lead
- Mark Dutra (Sandpiper Software)
- TBD
Code Contributions
Sandpiper Software would provide the current set of MOF metamodels and UML profiles, as well as related APIs, that comprise the current ODM specification. The company also plans to provide additional mappings, APIs supporting those mappings, and sample tools as they become available to support this effort.
Interested Parties
Thus far, interest in this project has been expressed by:
- Roy Bell (Raytheon)
- Roger Burkhart (John Deere)
- Steven Fonseca (Semantic Enterprise Information Technology)
- Reginald Ford (SRI International)
- David Martin (SRI International)
- Jishnu Mukerji (HP Software)
- Steve Schwab (Sparta)
Developer Community
The team of initial committers will explore statements of interest from additional developers experienced with metamodel and/or specification development or willing to gain such experience.
User Community
It is expected that the user community for this component will consist of tool builders who will create complete ODM-based, semantic technology solutions using the metamodel implementations, and technical business analysts and modelers who will use the sample tools to understand ODM by building or browsing terminologies, taxonomies, topic maps, and ontologies.
Tentative Plan
The first release of this project, including the baseline metamodels, profiles, and Java APIs that reflect the formal ODM specification, would be tentatively scheduled for June 2009, as part of the Galileo simultaneous release.