Re: SUO: Vote on IFF
I vote YES on the following question:
"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 <http://suo.ieee.org/Kent-IFF.pdf> ,
with the intent of developing it into the final SUO document?
I also endorse the following comments by Richard Martin:
> Now I stand on the tight wire twixt the monolithic SUMO and the IFF
> trunk of category theory, awestruck at the chasm around me. Which way
> do I go? While I can not build a bridge from the middle to each
> extreme, I can ask that each extend toward the other to ease my journey.
> I expect to cross this bridge many times with a host of others.
Although I believe that IFF, in its current state is far from sufficient
to serve as a foundation for the SUO ontology, I believe that it is at
least as adequate as SUMO and that both of them have complementary
strengths and weaknesses. I am therefore voting YES for the IFF in
order to put both SUMO and IFF in perspective: individually, they
are both inadequate, and I strongly urge that BOTH proposals be
reconsidered together.
Bottom line: I hope that IFF attains the same status as SUMO, and
that a future SUO ballot will merge both projects. Such a merger
will require a major reorganization of both IFF and SUMO, but without
such a reorganization, both projects are inadequate.
John Sowa