SUO: RE: Vote 2001-02: IFF Foundation Ontology
Dear Colleagues,
I vote NO for the IFF to be a starter document to be developed into
the SUO.
Comment
I am very much more in sympathy with the IFF than with SUMO, in that
it has a clear principled approach to what is being done, and I
wish to support its further development. However, for the current
document you need to be an expert in category theory to understand
it. My experience is that people are reluctant to understand things,
particularly foundations that they do not understand, even taking
account that the foundation will be invisible to most users.
This suggests one of two approaches:
1/ Use a different start point as foundation (e.g. set theory - such
as proposed by Chris Menzel).
2/ Make the category theory foundation more intelligible to non-experts.
My preference is for the latter, with perhaps Chris's work integrated in
at some level.
I can imagine contributing to this work, once it has reached a stage of
development where I can understand it.
Matthew West
Principal Consultant
Shell Information Technology International Limited
Shell Centre, London SE1 7NA, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 20 7934 4490 Other Tel: +44 7796 336538
Email: matthew.r.west@is.shell.com
Internet: http://www.shell.com
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Schoening, James R CECOM DCSC4I
> [mailto:James.Schoening@mail1.monmouth.army.mil]
> Sent: 10 August 2001 03:47
> To: 'standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org'
> Subject: SUO: Vote 2001-02: IFF Foundation Ontology
>
>
>
> ATTN Voting Members of the SUO WG,
>
> 1. Please immediately acknowledge receipt of this email
> letter ballot. If I
> do not receive such acknowledgement within 5 days, I will
> contact you again.
> We want to make sure all voting members receive this ballot.
>
> 2. This message is to ballot the question, as proposed by Robert Kent:
>
> "Should the IEEE P1600.1 Standard Upper Ontology Working
> Group commence work
> on the IFF Foundation Ontology version 1.0 [July 20, 2001] posted at
> http://suo.ieee.org/Kent-IFF.pdf, with the intent of
> developing it into the
> final SUO document?
> Note 1: See the background information below for more details.
> Note 2: This may be one of several candidate documents, any
> one of which may
> become the final SUO document, or may be combined and aligned
> into the final
> SUO document via the consensus building process. No one
> candidate document
> will have preferential status relative to the others."
>
> 3. By Thursday, August 30, 2001, please vote YES (comments optional),
> NO(comments required), or ABSTAIN (comments optional). Votes
> should be sent
> directly to me (to reduce list traffic), but please post your comments
> directly to the list so they have a chance to be resolved.
> Comments sent to
> me will be forwarded to the SUO list.
>
> 4. Per the SUO Chair's interpretation of Robert's Rules of
> Order (with input
> from members of the SUO P&P Subgroup), the following items
> will be followed:
> This vote will pass if it receives a majority of YES vs. NO
> votes. ABSTAINS
> and non-votes are not counted in determining majority. The
> Chair may vote to
> make or break a tie. As all voting members will have received and
> acknowledged receipt of this ballot and will therefore have
> an opportunity
> to vote, there will be no quorum of votes required for this
> motion to be
> determined. None of these items are considered to be changes
> to existing
> policies and procedures, only interpretations.
>
> 5. Non-voting participants are welcome to express opinions and submit
> comments to the SUO list.
>
> 6. Background:
>
> a. The purpose of this vote is to determine the level of
> consensus we have
> for focusing work on this document. In other words, we need
> to decide if we
> are going to go down this path or not. A working group may
> decide to work on
> more than one document.
>
> b. The primary purpose of this vote is NOT to propose
> improvements to the
> document, unless they are major enough for you to vote
> against focusing work
> on this document. However, such general improvement comments
> are welcome and
> will be resolved (but not unless and until the vote passes,
> since there
> would be no sense resolving comments if the group does not
> want to proceed
> with this document.
>
> c. If this vote passes, this document will change from being
> the work (and
> under the control) of a group of individuals to being the
> work (and under
> the control) of the SUO WG. A Technical Editor will be appointed or
> elected, who will incorporate WG-approved changes into the
> document. This
> does not require frequent formal votes for every change. A
> better approach
> for daily or weekly updates is to develop consensus by
> resolving objections,
> as we did when revising the Scope and Purpose. In other
> words, (1) the
> Technical Editor leads the discussion by processing the issues and
> suggestions; (2) the issues/suggestions identify proposed additions,
> changes, or deletions to the wording in the document; (3) the
> Technical
> Editor asks the WG for any objections. Items that do not have clear
> consensus would be accumulated for later, more formal
> processing, i.e., the
> proposer of the issue/suggestion is responsible for making a
> formal proposal
> (with a WG vote) for the proposed change.
>
> Jim Schoening
> Chair, SUO WG
>
>