Framework for ODRL Rule Compliance through Evaluation

Living Document,

This version:
https://w3id.org/force/
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(Ghent University - imec)
(Ghent University - imec)
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CC-BY-SA-4.0

CC0 To the extent possible under law, the editors have waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this work. In addition, as of 28 May 2025, the editors have made this specification available under the Open Web Foundation Agreement Version 1.0, which is available at https://www.openwebfoundation.org/the-agreements/the-owf-1-0-agreements-granted-claims/owfa-1-0. Parts of this work may be from another specification document. If so, those parts are instead covered by the license of that specification document.

Abstract

The Framework for ODRL Rule Compliance through Evaluation (FORCE) is designed to assist in ODRL policy development and enhance comprehension of ODRL evaluation outputs. Furthermore, it enables experimentation and prototyping of ODRL 3.0 proposals.

1. Introd­uction

TODO: write full text The Open Digital Rights Language (ODRL) is a W3C Recommendation

The current problem: the recommendation defines how to represent policies using the vocabulary using the model, the interpretation and evaluation of these policies and its accompanying rules are not standardized.

To this extend: Formal Semantics spec [odrl-formal-semantics]

Inspired by the ODRL Formal Semantics CG, Slabbinck et al. made in Interoperable Interpretation and Evaluation of ODRL Policies:

FORCE is build on top of an ODRL Evaluator to allow experimenting with ODRL policies and the evaluation process. This is made possible through a user friendly User Interface Furthermore, it is used as an experimentation platform to prototype and showcase future ODRL proposals that could be included for ODRL 3.0.

1.1. Terminology

The following terms are used to describe concepts in this specification.

ODRL Compliance Report
A vocabulary that is used to elaborate the result of an evaluation of an ODRL Policy, (optionally) ODRL Request and the State of the World. It elaborates not only whether a rule from a policy is active, but also why.
ODRL Evaluator
A system that determines whether the Rules of an ODRL Policy expression have meet their intended action performance.
State of the World
A set of knowledge representing real-world information aiding the evaluation of ODRL Policies. See the State of the World for ODRL Evaluator specification for further details.
TODO: add state of the world and refer to state of the world specification

2. ODRL Compliance Report Model

Compliance Report model
TODO: refer to custom spec

3. ODRL Test Suite

ODRL Test Suite
TODO: write full text

4. ODRL Evaluator

ODRL Evaluator architecture
TODO: write full text

Mention different steps

Elaborate the need for the time thingy Refer to repo how much we support

5. User Inteface

https://w3id.org/force/ESWC2025-demo TODO: rename to NXDG2025 demo

6. ODRL 3.0

[ODRL3.0PROPOSAL]

7. Supporting Materials

8. Namespaces

Commonly used namespace prefixes used in this specification:

@prefix dcterms:       <http://purl.org/dc/terms/> .
@prefix odrl:          <http://www.w3.org/ns/odrl/2/> .
@prefix odrl3proposal: <https://w3id.org/force/odrl3proposal#> .
@prefix report:        <https://w3id.org/force/compliance-report#> .
@prefix rdf:           <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#> .
@prefix skos:          <http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core#> .
@prefix xsd:           <http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#> .

Conformance

Conformance requirements are expressed with a combination of descriptive assertions and RFC 2119 terminology. The key words “MUST”, “MUST NOT”, “REQUIRED”, “SHALL”, “SHALL NOT”, “SHOULD”, “SHOULD NOT”, “RECOMMENDED”, “MAY”, and “OPTIONAL” in the normative parts of this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119. However, for readability, these words do not appear in all uppercase letters in this specification.

All of the text of this specification is normative except sections explicitly marked as non-normative, examples, and notes. [RFC2119]

Examples in this specification are introduced with the words “for example” or are set apart from the normative text with class="example", like this:

This is an example of an informative example.

Informative notes begin with the word “Note” and are set apart from the normative text with class="note", like this:

Note, this is an informative note.

Index

Terms defined by this specification

References

Normative References

[ODRL-FORMAL-SEMANTICS]
Nicoletta Fornara; et al. ODRL Formal Semantics. URL: https://w3c.github.io/odrl/formal-semantics/
[ODRL-Instantiation]
Ruben Dedecker; Beatriz Esteves. ODRL Policy Agreement Instantiation. URL: https://w3id.org/force/policy-instantiation
[ODRL-model]
Renato Iannella; Serena Villata. ODRL Information Model 2.2. URL: https://w3c.github.io/poe/model/
[ODRL-VOCAB]
Renato Iannella; et al. ODRL Vocabulary & Expression 2.2. URL: https://w3c.github.io/poe/vocab/
[ODRL3.0PROPOSAL]
Beatriz Esteves; et al. Open Digital Rights Language (ODRL) 3.0 Proposal. URL: https://w3id.org/force/odrl3proposal
[RFC2119]
S. Bradner. Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels. March 1997. Best Current Practice. URL: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2119
[SotW4ODRL]
Beatriz Esteves; Wout Slabbinck. State of the World for ODRL Evaluator. URL: https://w3id.org/force/sotw