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Dear all,
. the matter of the SUO came up in an international teleconference last week at which I was the Australian representative.
. Another attendee expressed interest in my view because they had recently attended one of the conferences on the matter. I advised my involvement had shrunk to virtually nil, and expressed the view that good work was occurring, but that a tangible product had not yet been achieved. The attendee in turn felt that the project was being divided between competing commercial entities, and is not making headway, and was thinking of dropping out.
. As some of you have noticed, I tend to be more persistent than many others, but my main role in recent times had mainly been to interpose when disputes occurred, to return a balance to the group.
. The current dispute strikes me symptomatic of the troubles being experienced. I don't believe the ;legal avenues now being followed are likely to assist the group make headway.
. It seems to me the core of the matter is the fact that previous votes have indicated lacks of unanimity in clear preferential support or either the SUMO or IFF initiatives.
. If we are to vote again, I suggest we need to take into account the meanings of those who vote yes, no, abstain, or not at all, rather than relying on cast iron rules that may not do so. Unless there are overwhelming majorities of all the registrants in any direction, I suggest we will still have equivocal situations.
. If that happens again, or if we don't vote again, I suggest that we cease the bickering, and progress both initiatives on equal footings until there is considerable consensus that one or both have matured to a stage justifying a genuine change of status.
. In the main area of my interest, ISO/IEC 11179 Data Management, we have numbers of annexes setting out alternative representations of the metamodels, etc.
. I'd like to suggest an option I don't think has been considered. It is that the first edition of the SUO standard contains text to discuss the issues and principles involved, and the SUMO, IFF, etc., structures be set out in annexes, so that they can be tested out by the users. Then an informed review can be undertaken at the stage of revision for the 2nd version. -
. You may like to consider this.
Cheers Graham Horn
National Data Standards Unit
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
================================================
Phone: 02.6244.1094
Fax: 02.6244.1199
Email: Graham.Horn@aihw.gov.au
Knowledgebase: www.aihw.gov.au/knowledgebase/
-----Original Message-----
From: John F. Sowa [mailto:sowa@bestweb.net]
Sent: Tuesday, 22 January 2002 14:13
To: Robert Grayson Spillers
Cc: Frank Farance; Lowell; Lowell G Johnson; Judith Gorman; Robert Dwyer; Lyle Smith; e.herz@ieee.org; 'Standard-Upper-Ontology '
Subject: Re: [Fwd: SUO: Gathering questions and issues with IEEE motion]
Folks,
Why all this endless dispute?
The purpose of the regulations is to speed up the process and avoid endless wrangling, such as repeated requests for new votes. But this fighting over whether or not a new vote is required is even worse.
If we took another vote now, there are only three possibile outcomes:
1. SUMO wins by a clear majority.
2. SUMO loses by a clear majority.
3. We end up with another ambiguous situation.
In case #1, all dispute is finished, and work on SUMO can continue as before.
In case #2, all dispute is finished, but work on SUMO can still continue as before by those people who want to pursue it.
In case #3, SUMO is in a limbo status, but work on SUMO can still continue as before by those people who want to pursue it.
Bottom line: Thsoe people who want to contiue working on SUMO can do so in any case. We are still very far from having a suitable standard, and there will have to be more votes for an ultimate standard. So any of these current votes don't really mean very much anyway.
So let's just vote, and stop the endless wrangling.
John Sowa