Will .NET support semantic web standards?

Will .NET support semantic web standards?

• Gerben Rampaart

  Made a query to www.biomedcentral.com looking for computing information in terms of quality control.

  This led me to http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2105-7-212.pdf which I found to be an interesting read although it has left me with more questions that requires even futher investigation. However, as OWL is likely to be a major player in future internet technologies (in a similar way that XML is now an important player) and considering the importance that Microsoft places in dotNet, perhaps the is a case for dotNet to go "hand-in-hand" with OWL in a way not dissimilar in how dotNet goes "hand-in-hand" with so many other current technologies.

  A roadmap appears to be necessary.

  Richard A. Abbott

  
  

• sylvarion

  Hey there:
  Has there been any movement on this front
  I notice that there is RDF support in the Connected Framework library, although this isn't quite suitable for xxxInformatics work, I don't believe.

  Among other things, the requirement for Sharepoint is a non-starter.

  This topic is of great concern to me, and is typical of the issues I run into on a daily basis - the lack of support or availability in MS products
  of open standards support.

  I've put a lot of effort into leveraging what I can from .net, but in terms of the semantic web, mapping technologies, etc. etc. etc. you all are being
  left in the dust by the legions of Java programmers out there, let alone RoR etc.

  
  

• tomeq10

  Thanks for the speedy reply!
  
  I have investigated using IKVM to run Jena under .NET, with some limited success, but I imagine that using it for real will not be easy (in terms of debugging, and I'm sure the database access will need to be redone). But it's a possibility.
  
  We are working in bioinformatics and other fields; we are interested in building general tools for investigating and creating ontology-structured data. At the moment we are prototyping in .NET with some products in mind. We have other Microsoft-centered products so would like to stay on that platform if possible, but the Java world seems way ahead in this realm.
  
  It's my impression that Semantic Web technologies are beginning to take off in a few specialized fields (like bioinformatics); as a way of sharing small pieces of data on the web (ie for calendering), and also as a way of doing data integration for large complex enterprises (finance, manufcturing, intelligence). A recent conference indicated that commercial interest is picking up. It would be very nice if .NET and Microsoft were keeping up with this wave.
  
  
  

• Nobby

  This is the right place to ask this question.

  There are no plans to support RDF/OWL in the core of .NET at this time. I hadn't realized that there aren't any open source inferencers available for .NET. You might investigate the http://www.ikvm.net/ technology to get the Java open source implementations you are interested in to run in the .NET evironment.

  I'd be interested in knowing more about your use case, because to be honest we don't hear very many requests for RDF/OWL support in the XML team. Do you work in an industry with a well-defined ontology Do you have a successful Java application that you are trying to get to work in the .NET environment Or perhaps you are in research / prototyping mode Obviously if the Semantic Web ever really does take off there is no question that we should/would support it in .NET, but we are not seeing very many signs of that happening. Is that about to change, do you think

  
  
• Will .NET support semantic web standards?