SUO: Re: SUO Ballot with 2 Questions
Eric and Mike,
I share your wishes and hopes. It would be
wonderful if there were a single perfect
(or at least very, very good) ontology that
everybody could agree was an outstanding
achievement worthy of universal acclamation.
Unfortunately, nothing like that exists. And
of the two content ontologies under consideration,
neither group of developers is willing to concede
to the other. Furthermore, there are many other
potential candidates that are not represented.
See John Bateman's ontology portal:
http://www.fb10.uni-bremen.de/anglistik/langpro/webspace/jb/info-pages/ontology/ontology-root.htm
John lists over 20 general ontologies, all of which
could be considered either competitors or potential
supplements to SUMO or OpenCyc. Many of the developers
of those ontologies, such as Nicola Guarino, for example,
have very serious complaints about both SUMO and OpenCyc.
I cannot imagine Nicola or others on Bateman's list
agreeing to endorse any ontology that does not allow
them an opportunity to contribute their ideas (which
motion #2 does). Unless we can provide a framework
that allows them to contribute modules to a larger
effort, they will go their own way. And they have
enough expertise to develop a serious independent
standard of their own -- which they are actively doing.
Motion #2 is, I believe, a good compromise for working
toward a consensus. It doesn't guarantee that an ideal
standard ontology will emerge, but without something
like motion #2, the SUO group will fall apart --
thereby shutting down this effort altogether.
The rules allow voters to change their votes before
the closing deadline. I address your concerns in
more detail below, and I hope that you will reconsider
your votes.
John Sowa
____________________________________________________________
Eric Peterson wrote:
> 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.
Motion #2 does *not* take us out of the standards arena.
It is a proposal to get the two primary content developers on
this list to work together toward a standard. Both of them
already have a subsumption hierarchy (Cyc's microtheories and
SUMO's 11 subtheories from which the full SUMO was derived).
The first step toward any kind of standard must be to evaluate
what already exists in those ontologies, analyze their relationships,
and relate them in a hierarchy -- from which any improvements to
either or both could be derived.
I admit that motion #2 does not "force" the developers to agree
on a joint standard. But the participants were adamantly
(especially Adam) against any motion that would force them to
do anything they did not want to do.
> 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.
Right now, there is no "marketplace" for upper level ontologies.
The biggest one, Cyc, has survived for 19 years on research
grants -- not from profits earned in any market. Neither Cyc,
SUMO, nor the dozen or more "competitors" on Bateman's list
could be considered winners in any kind of marketplace.
> 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.
My hope is that motion #2 can lead to something we can all
agree on. Before we can achieve a consensus on the results,
we at least have to get people to work together. So far,
motion #2 is the only proposal anyone has ever made that
has a chance of getting the three groups -- SUMO, OpenCyc,
and IFF -- to begin to work together.
> The SUO charter, I claim, is clearly against "registries" of competing
> ontologies in a standard. Please re-read it if you disagree.
The SUO charter is neutral on registries. Motion #2 does not
promote "competing ontologies" it promotes "cooperating ontologies"
from which a new standard can emerge. It is our best hope to get
the SUO group to work together -- and to attract contributors
from the other groups on Bateman's list.
Mike Pool wrote:
> I share Eric Peterson's concerns.
>
> I concur that ontologies should be modular and extensible
> as John Sowa and others have regularly noted. But it does not
> follow from this fact that the SUO IEEE effort should implement
> a system containing two upper ontologies, SUMO and OpenCyc,
> between which there is a great deal of conceptual overlap or
> that a SUO should take the form of a registry.
The overlap and competition between OpenCyc and SUMO (and
the other ontologies on Bateman's list) will not disappear.
If we are ever to achieve a unified standard of any kind,
we must begin from where we are: a disorganized mess.
The first step is to organize that mess, relate the pieces
to one another, and determine how we can reassemble the
pieces into something better than we started with.
The IF framework is a powerful tool that can help with
that process, and that is what we propose to use to
get from where we are to where we would like to be.
> Responding to a mandate to generate a SUO with a general
> registry containing distinct but mostly overlapping upper
> ontologies seems a bit like returning two taped together
> dictionaries and specifications on the kind of tape used
> in response to a request to generate a standard dictionary
> for the English language (a standard to which the desirability
> of extensibility and modularity would also apply).
The process of building any dictionary begins with analyzing
and organizing all the available resources -- such as a large
corpus of word usage together with masses of reference works
(e.g., earlier dictionaries and encyclopedias) and large
amounts of researh into particular issues of lexicography
and linguistics.
That is what motion #2 proposes that we do.
> FWIW, I encourage the OpenCyc group to resubmit OpenCyc as a stand
> alone ontology. I would readily vote for it as a good starting point
> for an upper ontology. Should it and the SUMO effort both be
> accepted as starter documents, each could be developed and the
> group could discuss and decide at the end of the day which is the
> most deserving of IEEE standard status.
I encouraged the OpenCyc group to submit a separate motion, but
they were comfortable with the joint motion.
A shoot-out between independent SUMO and OpenCyc projects
would be would be worse than useless. It would do nothing
to encourage either group to collaborate with the other,
nor would it make either ontology more attractive in comparison
to the other dozen or more ontologies on Bateman's list.