On Marrying Ontological and Metamodeling Technical Spaces

In software engineering, the use of models and metamodeling approaches (e.g., MDA with MOF/UML) for purposes such as software design or software validation is an established practice. Ontologies constitute domain models formalized using expressive logic languages for class definitions and rules. Hence, when seen from an abstract point of view, the two paradigms and their various technological spaces seem closely related. However, in the state-of-the-art research and practice the two technologies are just beginning to converge and the relationship between the two is still under exploration. In this paper, we give an outline of current ontology technologies, such as the Semantic Web standards for a Web Ontology Language (OWL). Then, we describe a domain analysis of the different technical spaces, explaining the features of the different paradigms. Eventually, we describe some avenues for integrating various ontological technical spaces into metamodeling technical spaces.