Re: SUO: RE: Cyc Upper Ontology offer
>Dear all,
> . Marvellous! Thanks indeed to all involved in
>achieving this situation. I hope it clears the attorney, so we can use it.
>
> . Once that aspect is cleared up, how will this new turn of
>events affect the work of Ian Niles, Matthew West, and Robert Kent?
I imagine that its prime purpose was to render harmless to Cycorp the
SUO and all similar efforts, insofar as they might be seen as in any
way competitive. Notice that the agreement requires that any use of
any axioms which are *logically equivalent* to any part of Cyc, even
if translated into any other natural or artificial language, must be
credited to Cycorp. This means that if one uses any part of the Cyc
upper ontology and if they also assert that, say, every relation is a
thing, or that spatial containment is transitive, then they must
acknowledge that Cycorp owns the copyright to that assertion, even if
it is made in, say, EPISTLE, or even in English, and even if they had
said it before in other places; in fact, even if Aristotle had said
it before. The hubris of claiming ownership of all statements which
are logically equivalent to a fair amount of human common sense is
quite astonishing.
Pat Hayes
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