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SUO: Opposition to Motion

 
As you know Jim Schoening has proposed a motion to accept the document called SUMO ( Standard Upper Merged Ontology?) as an official document of the SUO Working Group with the stated intent that this document will be developed into the final SUO document.

I oppose this motion for a variety of reasons among them that this is a seriously flawed intellectual approach and is unsuited for most commercial purposes.  It also duplicates a currently available commercial implementation  that uses a similar approach, and has  similar problems, but the commercial product is much better engineered. (It is available without fee but with restrictions that will cause many potential users to decline.) Neither the commercial product, Cyc, nor Teknowledge's SUMO is suitable for a standard.  I will recap these reasons in a separate note but they were discussed extensively when TeKnowledge last offered this motion.

This motion creates a privileged position for a particular work in progress that is inappropriate and unnecessary.   For reasons that are very murky, Teknowledge wishes to have exclusivity.  This is not just one of many approaches that might in the future be developed into something more acceptable than its current status.    I quote from Jim's motion

         "Should the IEEE P1600.1 Standard Upper Ontology Working Group commence work on the Suggested Upper merged Ontology (SUMO) version 1.15 [June 22, 2001] posted at http://suo.ieee.org/Merge.txt, with the intent of
developing it into the final SUO document?
        Note 1: See background information below for more details.
        Note 2: This may be one of several candidate documents to be combined and aligned into the final SUO document via the consensus building process."
The SUMO is to be the exclusive approach that might accept other contributions if they are able to be merged with it.   Consensus is left undefined. However the IEEE does not leave it undefined.
    "Consensus means agreement among the majority. It does not mean unanimity. A balloting group does not need to achieve 100% approval, or even 95% or 90%. According to the IEEE rules, consensus is defined as a minimum 75% return of ballots from the balloting group, and a 75% approval rate from that 75% return group. If this is reached, then consensus has been achieved according to the IEEE definition."
In addition to achieving consensus the IEEE advises:
    "Lesson Learned: Just because you have over 75% approval doesn't mean you should automatically submit a standard for approval.    Making sure the technical comments  have been addressed is the most important issue, not just achieving 75% approval. "
(Emphasis is added in all of the above quotes)

The last two quotes are from the  IEEE Standards Companion http://standards.ieee.org/guides/companion/part5.html#consensus
The rules are for formal sponsor balloting and the 75% does not necessarily apply at this level at this time, but it does give an idea of the of what is expected before a proposed document is accepted as a standard..

I believe it is unwise to adopt a document for the purposes stated by Jim in this motion if it is not reasonably sure such a consensus can be eventuallybe reached. From our past experiences with this document and this group I think that it is highly unlikely that a consensus as defined by IEEE will be achieved.

In the motion Jim states

    "The wording of this ballot was developed and reviewed by the SUO Policies & Procedures Subgroup." 

Individual members of the P&P did contribute to the wording of the motion.  No vote was taken and no formal approval sought or given.  Sub-committees may not make or approve motions.  Sub-committees may only make reports and recommendations.  No report or recommendation of any type was voted or adopted.

I do not object, in fact I encourage, work being continued on the SUMO or any other document as long as its authors do not seek a privileged position.  Having this sort of privileged position will not add or detract from the progress of the work.  What is gained by putting the group through this divisive process again?

Bob

ps - I will send a separate message stating my objections on procedural grounds.
  

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