RE: SUO: RE: Cyc Upper Ontology offer
John,
Your recommendation appears adequate to me, especially if the confusion
about the meaning of the Cyc legalese is clarified, e.g. to stipulate that
its terms apply in one direction only, i.e. to renamings and reformulations
starting from the Cyc material, but that the terms do not apply to
independent developments of syntax or semantics that happen to be equivalent
to the Cyc material.
Along these lines, the "About SUO" statement should reference Aristotle and
one Charles Sanders Peirce, among others, to the extent appropriate.
Phil Jackson
> -----Original Message-----
> From: sowa@bestweb.net [mailto:sowa@bestweb.net]
> Sent: Saturday, March 17, 2001 9:54 AM
> To: Philip Jackson; IEEE Standard Upper Ontology List; Doug Lenat
> Subject: RE: SUO: RE: Cyc Upper Ontology offer
>
>
> Pat, Graham, Jon, Phil, Doug, et al.,
>
> The problem of giving credit where credit is due has never been
> satisfactorily solved, since almost all good ideas have a long
> history that disappears somewhere in the murky mists (usually
> in something that Aristotle credited to the even murkier
> mists that preceded him).
>
> For the purpose of the SUO, I recommend a precedent that was
> pioneered by the COBOL project, which was originally sponsored
> by the US DoD, with contributions from IBM, Univac, Honeywell,
> and others. In order to get all those competing groups to
> cooperate and contribute their work to the common project,
> the CODASYL committee, which they formed, drafted a statement
> that listed the contributors and their languages -- COMTRAN
> (Commercial Translator), Flowmatic, and AIMACO (AIr MAterial
> COmmand compiler).
>
> For years upon years, that one-page statement was duly
> reproduced on page 2 of all the COBOL manuals and standards
> documents. I have not looked at a COBOL manual for a long
> time, so I don't know whether they still continue the practice.
>
> But I suggest that the SUO adopt a similar practice. Develop
> a document that lists all the contributors (both individuals
> and corporations), cites their work, makes an appropriate
> statement about the size of the contribution, and points to
> the original sources.
>
> Then on every product of the SUO or anything that uses the SUO,
> there would be a little menu item labeled "About...", which
> would include a pointer to the SUO-IEEE list of credits.
>
> John Sowa
>