[Pellet-users] question about query language

[Bijan Parsia]

To expand a bit more on Kendall's already comprehensive post. I'm the point person on the SPARQL/OWL Task Force and will be writing the spec (soon I hope) (I was on the DAWG). SPARQL is already a de facto syntax for conjunctive query in OWL engines, e.g., Pellet and KAON2 support it, and racer has plans too. Now they support different bits of what I expect will be the ultimate langauge.

A lot of people want to be able to migrate their sparql skills up the expressivity stack. Esp. in the health care and life sciences field.

Frankly, I'd say that OWL-QL is a total dead letter, and very unlikely to get any uptake. AFAIK, there were only some very experiemental (but not in an interesting way) prototypes.

I would strengthen Kendall's claim that SPARQL as specced now doesn't support OWL...it really doesn't. It's not *just* that it doesn't support owl semantics (which it doesn't, as kendall pointed out) but there are several concepts that OWL needs (e.g, non-distinguished variables) that the SPARQL spec doesn't have.

In the end, I hope SPARQL/OWL will provide for a smooth transition from querying an RDF kb as a graph to querying it as an OWL ontology. It's a pretty realistic goal for large chunks of SPARQL.

Cheers,
Bijan.