SUO: Common logic standard for KIF, CGs, and other notations
As we discussed in earlier notes, the projects for developing ANSI
and ISO standards for KIF and CGs have been merged into a project
for developing a common model-theoretic semantics for KIF, CGs,
and other notations, including the traditional infix notation for
predicate calculus. Members of the CL (Common Logic) project have
have also been working with other groups to bring other logic-based
or logic-like notations, such as RDF, under the same semantic umbrella.
Users and developers of each notation will determine their own
syntactic conventions, but any semantic features represented in any
one of the notations could be mapped into the common semantics.
Following is a note from Nancy Lawler, who attended the ISO meeting
in Korea, where a NWI (new work item) was proposed to develop a
CL standard, which would map to KIF, CGs, and other notations.
The next ISO meeting will be held in January 2003 in Santa Fe,
New Mexico. For that meeting, we hope to have well developed
drafts of the CL standard with mappings to KIF, CGs, and infix
predicate calculus.
Meanwhile, I will be sending a series of notes to CG list to discuss
various topics about the standards that were brought up at ICCS 2002
in Bulgaria. Philippe Martin has already sent a note to CG list with
some comments that he raised in the meeting, and I plan to continue
that discussion in a series of notes to CG list. I hope that everyone
who has been using and developing CG systems will participate in that
disucussion to state their preferences, make suggestions, and help
to evaluate various proposals.
We would like to get firm decisions on a number of important issues
before the end of 2002 so that we can have a definitive statement
of the latest version for the January ISO meeting in Santa Fe.
John Sowa
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Common Logic/ KIF/ CG standard: status of proposed NWI
From: "Nancy Lawler" <nklawler@earthlink.net>
Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 02:25:04 -0400
To: <kif@philebus.tamu.org>, <cg@cs.uah.edu>
CC: <nklawle@super.org>, <sowa@bestweb.net>
TO: KIF, CG and Common Logic participants
Hi everyone.
I regret not making this year's Conceptual Structures conference, but
I hope there will be some time during its last two days for people to
discuss the fledgling ISO standardization effort for CGs, KIF and a
common semantics for them and other representations of logic.
Attached are two files. One is an rtf file "ISO WG2 Common Logic"
derived from the powerpoint slides I used to support a case for adoption
of a Common Logic/CG/KIF New Work Item at the ISO/IEC TC1 SC32 meeting
in Seoul in April. The other is the current draft of the NWI Proposal,
which I hope you will review. The NWI proposal is for a 3 part
standard. The rationale for separating the parts is that the KIF and CG
standards are more mature than the Common Logic part, and could proceed
to Committee Draft status ahead of it.
The proposal was considered by WG2 (metadata) of SC32, which has several
members, interested in ontologies for business objects. The NWI for
Common Logic had been considered at last year's Toronto meeting, but at
that time there was no consensus in favor of its adoption. The WG 2
chair pointed out that KIF and CGs have been brought up for ISO
consideration off and on for at least 10 years with never enough help
available for the editing. Other members had questions about
proliferation, redundancy, and whether there is an industrial
requirement for interoperability that warrants an ISO standard.
If the Common Logic part of the standard comes together, however,
this standard may be viewed as a way of managing proliferation of
logic-related standards, rather than contributing to it.
For WG 2 to propose a NWI, five countries need to agree to work actively
on the standard. Over several days of the Seoul meetings, I engaged in
formal and informal discussions of related technical, organizational and
historical issues with the other WG 2 representatives. Mike Gruninger
helped me to recruit interested people from England, Japan, and
Australia, who contacted their WG2 representatives. Without some
evidence that there are people within their countries who have a
requirement for a standard, the members would not have supported the
proposed NWI. The Japanese representative supported the proposal on the
condition that it not be called "Common Logic" since that sounded like
an attempt to standardize mathematics, which he would not support.
At the end, there were no countries objecting, and I expect that at
least the following will support it: US, Canada, Australia, Great
Britain, Japan, Korea.
Jean Berube of Canada and I agreed to be responsible for the standard
within WG2. Jean is very experienced in standards work at the ISO level
and took care of the Petri Net standard for that community. He also
participates in SC7, which will be handling OCL.
I anticipate continuity of funding for my participation in WG2 because
of US government interest in its 11179 Metadata registry standard, so I
expect to be able to help with this standard as well.
Progress will require that the researchers, vendors and developers for
Common Logic, KIF, CGs (and any other language to be brought in later)
decide among themselves on what changes they want and convey those to
the editors in WG2. None of these groups has a good process for doing
this now, however, and not enough members of the Conceptual Graphs
community have paid attention to the Common Logic effort.
In the case of contentious issues, individuals can also independently
lobby their country's representatives to SC32, who can comment on draft
standards during balloting. WG2 would then be responsible for resolving
ballot issues and meeting ISO requirements, such as technical quality,
multilingual interfaces, and coordination with other ISO standards. The
recently approved revision of Z, which now includes more detailed
semantics, will create some coordination requirements.
The committee did not propose a substitute name for "Common Logic", but
agreed that it can be balloted with the name "NWI for CG and KIF
(provisional title)". WG2-SED-024 is the number given the project
document in WG. ISO will give it its own number. After considering any
issues arising from this note, I'll coordinate with Mike Gruninger and
John Sowa and give the finished NWI to the WG2 Chair, Larry Fitzwater.
He stated that he needs the final NWI, and responses from 5 countries
that they agree on the title and scope, before he'll give it to ISO.
If all goes well, it would be possible to finish the 90 day balloting
before the January meeting of SC32 in Santa Fe.
Regards,
Nancy Lawler
US Department of Defense