Re: SUO: Standard Upper Ontology Procedures
I agree with Jon on the following two points:
JA> We already have lots of procedures and
> routines for voting on starter documents.
> I suggest that we not haggle over those
> sorts of issues anymore, indeed, I have
> come to revise my own opinion about what
> qualifies as a starter document to what
> already seems to be the de facto norm,
> that just about any working effort or
> historically established project is
> worth discussing in this forum.
I believe that any serious work on any subject
related to ontology should be seriously considered
as a potential contribution to the SUO effort.
JA> What does this particular ontology project want to be? How does
> it want to define itself, its aims, its own criteria for success,
> and how does that project for being relate to the other projects?
Those are questions that have not been adequately answered,
and the directions taken by some (or perhaps all) of the current
starter candidates do not cover the full range of what should
be done.
I would recommend the following book about the development of
the Oxford English Dictionary as something to consider:
Simon Winchester, _The Meaning of Everything_,
Oxford University Press, 2003.
This is a fascinating account of the development of the OED
from its proposal in 1869 to its completion in 1928 -- a period
of 59 years. The time from the first publication of the first
fascicle in 1882 to the final fascicle in 1928 was 46 years.
That time period should be compared to the 19 years for the
development of Cyc, which is very far from satisfying anybody
who is looking for an ontology that could be considered worthy
of being a "standard".
I do not see any reason for assuming that the deveopment of a
good SUO would take much less time than the development of the OED.
John Sowa