SUO: RE: Question from a potenial SUO user
Jim Schoening wrote:
> All,
>
> Here's a question from a potential SUO user:
>
> How would one do conformance testing? If the SUO WG
> produced an IEEE standard, and a program mandated it for new
> systems/applications, how could one measure whether a new
> system conformed to the standard?
>
> The question comes from a senior technical leader on
> the Future Combat System (FCS), which has plenty of content
> on the Web.
>
> Jim Schoening
When Ada was being specified, the language was
copyrighted by the Ada Joint Program Office (AJPO)
so that the name "Ada" could only be used with
permission from AJPO. AJPO developed a conformance
test suite to identify nonconforming compiler
vendors. They withheld permission to use the
name "Ada" for those products that don't pass
conformance testing.
The same process could be used on an ontology
if it had the support of DoD, NSF, NASA, and
other government agencies.
In the case of Ada, there were several products
that met the conformance test, but when the
cold war ended, DoD's purchasing power went so
low it was no longer a motivator for compiler
vendors. So that history shows the need for
a purchasing organization to have great power
to motivate conformance tests as well as to
require conformance for the use of whatever
name is given to the copyrighted ontology.
I take it DoD's purchasing power has gone up
substantially since 9/11, but there is no
organization I know of comparable to AJPO
that could take the leadership role on making
a standardized ontology. At least not yet.
HTH,
Rich