Re: onto-std / SUO lists
Bob,
I think actually both lists and their associated proponents are
attempting the same thing - to arrive at a single upper ontology that can
be either a de facto or de jure standard. As long as we achieve
this, I'll be happy regardless of which list gives birth to the
standard.
Adam
At 12:57 AM 6/13/2000 -0700, Robert Spillers wrote:
Lee Auspitz wrote:
- 4. The problem of two lists
- The decision about whether to use the new ieee or old KSL list has
been
- assumed to be merely clerical, but there is an element in the
formation of
- the old standards work that is missing in the new. The previous
effort,
- constituted as an ANSI ad hoc committee under a more general
committee
- headed by Tony Saris, began by agreeing that there was a crucial
- distinction to be drawn for an upper level ontology between a
standard and
- an exemplification of it. The standard in the case of an upper
level
- ontology was properly procedural: it would lay out the key topics--
a
- quite extensive list of which was developed-- for specification of
any
- ontology, but would not address content. A second prong of the
effort
- would propose a linking of consensus upper level terms with other
- artifacts in accordance with the standard and make the result
freely
- available for general use, along with an explanation of the design
choices
- made and the overall specifications they exemplified. If the
"reference
- ontology" were well formed it would become, as Wordnet had
become in its
- sphere, a de facto standard by virtue of shared use. Under Bob
Spillers'
- non-directive leadership and with an assist from IBM, whose
advanced
- technology work he headed at the Santa Teresa lab facility, and
further
- support from the Tschira Foundation in Germany (inspired by John
Sowa's
- initial work) considerable progress was made on both prongs of
this
- project, including work on algorithms for semi-automated alignment
of
- upper levels which had been designed for differing purposes.
- The new IEEE effort, in an apparent effort to cut to the chase, skimps the
- procedural dimension. To judge by the declaration of purpose, it hopes to
- stipulate the syntactics and semantics (but not the pragmatics) of a
- reference ontology, which it will call the standard. The narrowing of
- focus to a business/engineering context under ieee may indeed permit
- certain simplifications-- such as the elimination of natural language and
- cross language artifacts like Wordnet and Penman and the Japnese EDS as
- candiates for integration into the reference ontology. But the attempt to
- stipulate the reference artifact as opposed to the set of specifications
- it exemplifies as *the* standard strikes me as a step backward. It leaves
- out the pragmatic dimension of specifying not merely the domain (a
- semantic issue) but the purposes to which various sub-ontologies may be
- put (search, decision support, knowledge discovery nad logical inference,
- cross language work). On the syntactic level, it leaves out the
- specification of varieties of ontological inheritance beyond those
- embodied in the (first order logic?) artifact. And on the administrative
- level, it envisages a stipulative approach to a standard that is more
- appropriate to other areas. On the other hand, as the effort is open to
- all (as some of the previous meetings were not), its development will
- ultimately be influenced by the reasoned consensus of the participants.
- If there is overwhelming agreement that the main methodological issues are
- settled or irrelevant to the project as now envisaged, then the KSL list
- could be reserved for "merely academic" discussion while the ieee list
- could be the locus for implementation of a single standard. My view is
- that it is premature to think that the methodological/procedural prong has
- become obsolete.
-
Lee's comments are an excellent summary of the reasons for the (ANSI) Ad Hoc Committee on Ontology - which is still alive, although dormant for the moment. (I don't really care whether or not ANSI is a correct term in this context - some of you may remember that we started to call it the Rainy Day Coalition (it was raining cats and dogs the day of our first meeting at the Santa Teresa Lab) and not associate ourselves with any standards group.
Perhaps a way to approach the issue of lists is for those interested in the formal standards approach through the IEEE (as described by Jim Schoening, Frank Farance, Adam Pease, et al) should use the SUO list and those interested in the broader issues of ontological construction, structure and interpretation should use the onto-std list.
If one looks at the objectives of the two groups, I believe that the IEEE group's primary objective is a standards paper, developed within the proper administrative practice of IEEE, with which as many people as possible will agree. The Ad Hoc group's primary objective is a well constructed (and documented) Reference Ontology (RO) that will be widely used - and perhaps standardized (in the same sense as the IEEE group) by ANSI/ISO. I think it is fair to say that the ad hoc (onto-std) group is more concerned with theory and NLP than the ieee (SUO) group - at least so far.
Does anyone know of a way that one can post to either group and copy the other (when you believe the other group would be interested) without the recipients getting multiple copies?
Bob
-----------------
Adam Pease
Teknowledge
(650) 424-0500 x571