Re: SUO: Re: SUO Ballot with 2 Questions
John,
What you are writing here is in my opinion a suite of non sequitur. But
furthermore, I think that you are misrepresenting the purpose of this group.
Whatever starter is adopted, it doesn't seem to me that the mandate of this
group is to develop the original basis of the starter (i.e we won't develop
SUMO, we won't develop OpencCyc).
If I want to develop SUMO, I send an email to Adam and Ian. If SUMO passes, I'm
not going to develop SUMO. I'm going to squize SUMO for the SUO and Teknowledge
do whatever they want with their SUMO. (Unless they are appointed as editors of
the document and they choose to make their ontology whatever this group
suggests, I assume no relation with their product and future release. If Adam
wants any of his own modifications to be relevant to SUO, he will have to
discuss them here, and they will have to be agreed on here.)
Same with OpenCyc. The proposer of a starter document gives away stuff. If we
take them, we manage them into a SUO, they do whatever they want with their own
product development. We are speaking about contributions nothing else.
Look, this seems to me the basic way this group should function as an
independent entity with an independent output. If people are so worried about
being enslaved to the point that they give their benediction to any proposal
and play consensus builders for the sake of it, then I guess this effort should
indeed be shut down. It is also possible to start a Standard Ontology
Registry...
Best,
Pierre
>
> 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.
>
>
--
Pierre Grenon
IFOMIS Uni Leipzig
Haertelstr. 16-18
04107 Leipzig
http://people.ifomis.uni-leipzig.de/pierre.grenon/
pgrenon@ifomis.uni-leipzig.de
phone: 49(0)351971672
fax: 49(0)3519716179
submi!