One of the broadest and most promising research initiatives being actively pursued, the Semantic Web ideally should combine the best of AI research with the best of Internet research. But does it? A rich history of AI research stands behind the Semantic Web initiative. This article discusses the Semantic Web's relevant aspects and analyzes distributed artificial intelligence and Open Information Systems Semantics vis a vis the Semantic Web. The authors present several research issues that follow from the relationship between the Semantic Web initiative, open information systems semantics, and distributed AI. They emphasize how we can significantly advance the former by taking to heart the lessons learned from the latter two.