2025-08-12T10:44:56Z Andy Seaborne <andy@xxxxxxxxxx>:
jena-ontapi is a recently added module (Jena 5.1.0) that provides an ontology API which includes OWL2 support.
jena-ontapi is the replacement for org.apache.jena.ontology in jena-core.
It's not a perfect replacement but it is designed to be a natural replacement. jena-ontapi recently got assembler support so it should be complete.
The question is how to evolve from here to there.
It would be good to get feedback on jena-ontapi from ontology uses.
It is probably too hard to simply drop org.apache.jena.ontology (old) at Jena6 but at the same time there should be a signal that change is coming. I don't think that putting notes in the CHANGES and the [ANN] message is enough.
Deprecation is not a subtle way but it is one of the few ways we have of signalling the long-term direction.
PR: https://github.com/apache/jena/pull/3369
The PR deprecate OntModel, OntResource and a few other classes in jena-core (org.apache.jena.ontology) and also in ModelFactory (OntModel leaks a bit) then suppresses warning in the codebase to keep that clean - mostly tests.
This PR doesn't need to wait for Jena6. Given there is a update-lag at major versions, having it in Jena5 gets the message out. If feedback turns up likely future problems, we can adjust at Jena6.
Are there other/better ideas for smoothing the migration?
Andy
