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Re: SUO: 21 May 2002 -- Unanswered Questions About SUMO Set Theory




Bill,

At 02:48 PM 5/21/2002 -0500, Bill Andersen wrote:

>On 5/21/02 14:17, "Adam Pease" <apease@ks.teknowledge.com> wrote:
>
> >> It seems to be recognized by many people who have chosen to join this 
> group
> >> that SUMO, OpenCyc or any similar effort will not achieve (3).
> >
> > That's an odd "recognition" since it flies in the face of at least
> > anecdotal evidence to the contrary.  We've used both Cyc and SUMO to
> > integrate existing applications.  The Cyc integration tasks are 
> described in
> >
> > Cohen, P., Schrag, R., Jones, E., Pease, A., Lin, A., Starr, B., Gunning,
> > D., and Burke, M. (1998), The DARPA High Performance Knowledge Bases
> > Project, AI Magazine, Vol. 19 No.4, Winter.
> >
> > <http://projects.teknowledge.com/HPKB/Publications/AImag.pdf>
> >
> > One might claim there's a better, or more efficient way to accomplish this,
> > but not that SUMO or Cyc can't successfully be used for this task.
>
>If you want anecdotal evidence then there is anecdotal evidence that Cyc has
>not been successful at this task.  If it were, the whole IT industry would
>be lining up to buy Cyc software and consulting.  This would be an unfair
>point if Cyc hadn't been around for so long.  Based on the fact that SUMO is
>essentially a Cyc-like architecture, I don't expect any better outcome for
>it.

Lack of universal acceptance does not equate to failure on a particular 
task.  Is the Linux operating system a failure because more people use 
Microsoft?  Of course not.

> > I think you may misunderstand the IEEE then.  IEEE charters groups to
> > achieve their PARs.  This is not just a discussion group.  If someone has a
> > project they believe in and want to make it into a standards effort, they
> > should do so, possibly by chartering a new IEEE group with a new PAR.  For
> > example, Jim Schoening was already involved in P1484, but didn't try to
> > push an ontology standard in that group since that wasn't the charter of
> > the group.  Instead, he started a new group. Mike Gruninger didn't try to
> > standardize KIF in this group, he's submitted a new work item for ANSI.
> > This isn't about my approach or anyone else's.  It's simply about following
> > a normal standards process.
>
>Correct - as far as it goes.  However, I don't think there's anything in the
>IEEE rules that allows *you* to arbitrate what is and is not in conformance
>with the PAR.  I, for one, do not believe that criticism, concisely,
>politely, and fairly expressed, that a given proposed effort will not
>achieve the goals of the PAR, ought to be beyond the purview of this group.

Nor do I.  You should be free to express that opinion, and I haven't 
suggested otherwise.  Nor do I appoint myself arbiter of conformance to the 
PAR.  I would hope that people, including yourself, would look at the PAR 
and ask whether they have the same goals.  If not, I would hope they would 
start up an effort that does meet their goals, rather than obstructing this 
effort.  If you do feel your goals are aligned with this PAR, then I would 
hope you'd make concrete efforts to achieve it.  I'm puzzled by your recent 
messages since I think we've always communicated well in the past, and 
you've also contributed to refining SUMO.

Adam


>  .bill

Adam Pease
Teknowledge
(650) 424-0500 x571