[owl-s] News and Future Plans

[Bijan Parsia]

Hi folks,

I've had my Zurichian meeting and I've talked (emailed) with Jim  
Hendler, and, alas, the current situation is there is no champion/ 
benevolent dictator for the OWL-S API at this point in time.

So, just so you all know who's who and where:

	Evren Sirin: OWL-S API creator and everything. Graduated and now  
works for Clark & Parsia, LLC. <http://clarkparsia.com/>. Just  
welcomed his first child.
	Bijan Parsia: OWL-S weenie and now lecturer at the University of  
Manchester in the UK. Obvious connections to C&P.
	Prof. James Hendler: Evren and Bijan's boss when they were at  
Maryland. Also, when at DARPA, started the whole OWL-S thing by  
funding it. Moving to RPI this Jan.

At this point, there exists literally no funding, not even of any  
kind, under the control of any of the three guys above, for work on  
OWL-S, much less the OWL-S API. At the moment, none of us are doing  
research that really demands the API, though C&P is pursuing  
something that might so fund it.

Michael Dänzer (of the University of Zurich) is not going to become  
the new OWL-S API god, though he'd be eminently capable and is  
interested. It just doesn't advance the getting the PhD cause and,  
like the rest of us, he has no specific funding. He did indicate that  
he'd be willing to take charge of the execution engine, as that is  
directly related to his research. I know others of y'all have  
indicates some interest, and I welcome a sort of divvying up of  
responsibility for sane chunks of the API.

I am pursuing a few avenues that would support Evren doing some  
passes on the API, but nothing has materialized as of yet.

So, the current plan is to migrate the API code and mailing list to a  
non-UMD site nominally run by C&P, though that's open. C&P will  
support Evren for a small amount of his time answering questions and  
giving advice about the API if a group of people wanted to work on it  
in a semi-coordinated fashion.

I wish I had better news, but that's the current (though perhaps  
changable) state of things. I'll be at ISWC and OWLED, and Evren will  
be at OWLED. Feel free to find us to chat if you're there  as well.

FWIW, Pellet is under active development at C&P and will remain so.  
With Michael on the execution engine, that means we have a couple of  
the components of the API in good repair somewhat naturally. Other  
bits don't change *that* much, really. So I think it's feasible to  
keep it useful for some time given the current circumstances.

We're happy to provide a bit of coordination, or to leave that to  
others.

Cheers,
Bijan.