Re: SUO: Re: Keeping This List Focused
In the past, many of Jon A's messages have been criticized as being
"off topic" or even "off the wall." But he can write clear prose
when he sets his mind to it.
In particular, I strongly endorse his recent message (copied below),
which summarizes concerns that many of us have felt about the way
that the SUO project is being conducted.
First of all, I want to emphasize that the SUMO developers have done
some very good work by selecting and organizing a large collection
of axioms that can serve as an excellent resource for ontology
development.
But unlike some of the SUMO promoters, I do not consider SUMO to be
an integrated upper ontology, but merely a very useful catalog of
axioms that could be used to build ontologies. That does not diminish
the importance of the SUMO work in any way, since such a catalog is
very valuable. It should not, however, be considered a candidate
for a standard "upper ontology".
Jim S. has tried to keep the major list free of "discussions that
don't directly relate to the work of the SUO WG." But the question
of what "directly relates" depends on one's interpretation of the
goals. In particular, I would say that the piling up of axioms
for SUMO is less directly related to "the work of the SUO WG"
than the question of how those (or any other) axioms should be
organized.
One very serious issue that must be addressed is the question of
how the SUO relates to the OpenCyc project. For more info,
see the FAQ list of OpenCyc:
http://www.opencyc.org/faq1.html
They are promising to release 6,000 concept types (with axioms)
"very soon now." When that happens, there are very serious questions
of how and whether those concepts and axioms can be shared, integrated,
or somehow used with SUMO. With the current monolithic structure of
both Cyc and SUMO, such sharing is unlikely. But with other ways
of organizing the ontology, such sharing would be much easier.
Discussion of how the ontology should be organized to facilitate
sharing are, I believe, central to "the work of the SUO WG."
There are other issues that are also important, and I agree with
Jon's note below that their proponents should not be silenced
or exiled to outer Siberia.
John Sowa
> ¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤
>
> Jim, All,
>
> The IEEE SUO WG is chartered to develop a standard, true.
>
> The IEEE SUO WG is not chartered to develop a standard, any standard.
>
> The presumption of the charter is that it be a good standard, one that
> has a chance of being voluntarity adopted by the community of practice.
>
> I believe that most members of this group share or espouse the aim
> that the standard we arrive at in the end should be qualified to be
> a widely respected and internationally supported ontology standard.
>
> Many members of this group have serious concerns about the process
> that will be needed to fulfill this charter or to achieve this goal.
>
> In particular, many members of the group have serious reservations
> about the advisability of narrowing our focus in the way that you
> are suggesting at this time. The state of consensus in the group
> about how to proceed simply does not justify any degree of narrow
> exclusivity at this stage. The idea that discussions of ontology
> should be marginalized in the way that you recommend strikes me
> as just a little bit strange.
>
> You and Adam Pease have gotten into the habit of directing people,
> entirely by personal fiat, to leave the discussion for what you
> judge or pre-judge to be their lack of focus or their defects
> of relevance. I believe that this is highly inappropriate.
> If you have specific reasons for your presumed estimations
> of relevance then all reasonable people will of course
> want to hear them.
>
> For my part, I believe that it would be healthy for us, conducting ourselves
> as reflective and critical practitioners are supposed to do, to open up a
> discussion of how the heck we go about rationally evaluating qualities
> like relevance and suitability to a purpose, anyway. The exercise
> would work, not merely to remedy the evident problems in our group
> process, but also serve the quality of the prospective standard.
>
> I think that I can speak for many people when I say that, when we voted
> for whatever "working documents" that we voted for, that we did so in
> the spirit of "not blocking inquiry" on a plurality of many fronts.
> I do not sense that many of us anticipated that we would be quite
> so quickly punished for the good deeds of our tolerance, nor
> quite so fastly chained to these non-blocks of inquiry.
>
> In short, I do not think that the particular brands
> of narrow passage that you are presently suggesting
> are good ways to arrive at the prospective end that
> all of us so earnestly desire, nor any ways at all.
>
> Jon Awbrey
>
> ¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤