SUO: RE: SUO Ballot with 2 Questions
I vote NO and NO.
For me, motion #2 offers a very tempting carrot with recognizing
OpenCyc. If SUMO was more mature, I would view it as being equally
enticing.
But I can't give my vote to a resolution that takes us out of the
standards arena and transforms us into a group that tosses a couple of
competing ontologies into a subsumsion lattice, encourages other
competitors to join in, and declares victory. It is the job of the
marketplace to foster and support competition. Standards organizations,
on the other hand, are to take the winners of that competition and fold
in the virtues of worthy competitors into seamless "one stop shopping"
entities.
If I want a standard meter, I don't go and poke around an infinite
lattice of theories - or even a small finite one - to find a definition
that suits my fancy. I want one shared definition.
The SUO charter, I claim, is clearly against "registries" of competing
ontologies in a standard. Please re-read it if you disagree.
FWIW,
-Eric Peterson
> -----Original Message-----
> From: jim.s3@juno.com [mailto:jim.s3@juno.com]
> Sent: Friday, May 30, 2003 9:15 PM
> To: meersman@vub.ac.be; cmenzel@tamu.edu; miraglia@cyc.com;
> murray@ai.sri.com; iniles@teknowledge.com; m.obitko@sh.cvut.cz;
> lobrst@mitre.org; baonysh@afterlife.ncsc.mil; chris_partridge@csi.com;
> apease@teknowledge.com; Eric Peterson; sofia.pinto@dei.ist.utl.pt;
> piph@erols.com; mpool@iet.com;
> lakshmi.rebbapragada@mail1.monmouth.army.mil; Larry.Reeker@NIST.gov;
> jim.s3@juno.com; shams@pnu.ac.ir; sowa@bestweb.net; skydog@pacbell.net
> Cc: jawbrey@oakland.edu
> Subject: SUO Ballot with 2 Questions
>
> ATTN Voting Members of IEEE P1600.1 Standard Upper Ontology Working
> Group:
>
> 1. Please vote on the below two questions. Votes may be in the form of
> YES, NO, or ABSTAIN. The motion will pass if both (a majority of
voting
> members either vote or acknowledge receipt of the ballot) and (YES
votes
> are greater than [NO plus ABSTAIN votes]).
>
> 2. If you are unsure whether you are a voting member, see the list of
> voting members at http://suo.ieee.org/voting-members.txt.
>
> 3. If you choose not to vote, please acknowledge receipt of the
ballot.
>
> 4. The period for voting will end at midnight EDT on June 13, 2003.
If a
> majority of voting members have not yet voted or acknowledged, the
chair
> may extend the period for voting and may remind those who have not
> responded.
>
> 5. Please email your vote to Jon Awbrey (copied above) and me, but not
> the SUO list, unless you specifically want your vote (and any
comments)
> shared with everyone.
>
> Jim Schoening
>
> ------------------------------------------------------
>
> Ballot Question #1:
>
> "Should the IEEE P1600.1 Standard Upper Ontology Working Group
> commence work on the Suggested Upper Merged Ontology (SUMO) version
1.52
> [April 25, 2003] posted at:
>
<http://ontology.teknowledge.com/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/~checkout~/SUO/Merge
.
> txt?rev=1.49&content-type=text/plain> (containing the ontology) and
> http://ontology.teknowledge.com:8080/rsigma/FormalSUOdraft.rtf>
> (containing the text of the formal standards proposal) with the intent
of
> developing it into a final SUO document. There is further intent to
> collaborate with the SUO group working on a joint library of modules
> project.
>
> Background: Information which is not part of the motion or proposed
> starter document, but which may be helpful in appreciating its value,
is
> as follows. The SUMO was first released on Dec 9, 2000. The first and
> all subsequent revisions have been public releases. SUMO is being
used
> by (a small number) of companies and research institutions around the
> world. It has been subject to formal verification by an automated
> theorem prover. It has been divided into 11 modules to simplify
reuse.
> SUMO is small enough to be easily learned (approximately 1000 terms,
4000
> axioms, 750 rules) but large enough to cover, at a high level, any
domain
> of interest. It is well-axiomatized, including many rules, not just a
> type structure. The language it is written in is defined at
> <http://suo.ieee.org/suo-kif.html>. SUMO has been written
independently
> of any particular theorem prover and has been used in several
different
> systems including LOOM and SNARK. SUMO has also been used in the
> creation of a number of other freely available products, as listed
below
>
> - WordNet Mappings: We've now mapped, by hand, all of the
> approximately 100,000 WordNet synsets to SUMO concepts. In addition
to
> the nouns, we've mapped the verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.
> <http://ontology.teknowledge.com/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/SUO/>
>
> - SUMO-Compliant Domain Ontologies. These include ontologies for
> weapons of mass destruction and terrorism, Quality of Service
ontology,
> covering computer systems and networks, Ecommerce Services ontology,
> Ontology of biological viruses, Financial ontology, Ontology of
terrain
> features, an ontology of Government, and a Periodic table of the
> elements.
> <http://ontology.teknowledge.com:8080/rsigma/index.html#download>
>
> - LOOM Translator for SUMO
>
<http://einstein.teknowledge.com:8080/Sumo2Loom/Sumo2Loom_register.jsp?f
i
> leType=.tar&fileName=sumo2loom_b7.tar>
>
> - DAML translation of SUMO
> <http://reliant.teknowledge.com/DAML/SUMO.daml>
>
> - XML translation of SUMO
> <http://ontology.teknowledge.com:8080/rsigma/Merge-XML.txt> and KIF to
> XML translator
<http://ontology.teknowledge.com:8080/rsigma/KIF2XML.txt>
>
> - open source browser download for SUMO
> <http://virtual.cvut.cz/kifb/en/>
>
> - on-line SUMO browser
> <http://ontology.teknowledge.com:8080/rsigma/SKB.jsp?req=SC&skb=SUMO>
>
> All of these items are freely available through our Ontology home
page:
> <http://ontology.teknowledge.com> or directly at the links above.
>
> Please insert vote here (YES, NO, or ABSTAIN): ( )
>
> --------End Ballot Question #1----------------------------------
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> Ballot Question #2:
>
> Should the IEEE P1600.1 Standard Upper Ontology Working Group (SUO)
> commence work on a project to develop a standard for ontology
> specification and registration, according to the following guidelines:
>
> 1. The standard shall be based on the contributions of three
SUO
> candidate projects: IFF, OpenCyc, and SUMO.
>
> 2. The standard shall specify an ontology registry, such as
the
> metadata registries specified by ISO/IEC IS 11179-3, but with
extensions
> that are required to define ontologies and to relate them to one
another.
>
> 3. The ontology registry shall be organized as a collection of
> modules, related in a generalization/specialization hierarchy.
>
> 4. Each module shall consist of a theory together with
> documentation and other metadata. The theory shall consist of axioms
> and definitions stated in a logic-based language, such as those in the
> Common Logic (CL) framework.
>
> 5. The standard shall include the specification of a
> methodology for testing the theory part of any module for
consistency,
> relating theories to one another in the generalization/specialization
> hierarchy, and combining two or more theories to derive a new theory
> that is larger and more specialized than the theories from which it
was
> derived.
>
> Please insert vote here (YES, NO, or ABSTAIN): ( )
>
> --------End Ballot Question #2---------------------------------