An ontology-based framework for domain-specific modeling

Domain-specific languages (DSLs) provide abstractions and notations for better understanding and easier modeling of applications in a special domain. Current shortcomings of DSLs include learning curve and formal semantics. This paper reports on a framework that allows the use of ontology technologies to describe and reason on DSLs. The formal semantics of OWL together with reasoning services allows for addressing constraint definition, progressive evaluation, suggestions, and debugging. The approach integrates existing metamodels and concrete syntaxes in a new technical space. A scenario in which domain models for network devices are created illustrates the framework.