Re: SUO: Why is IFF and the Lattice of Theories good for SUMO
Adam,
I am glad that you mentioned those projects,
because they follow a direction that is closely
related to IFF. So any examples taken from them
could be used to support the joint motion:
> I've never said that it isn't possible that
> IFF could be helpful. But absent any examples
> it seems speculative at best compared to other
> published work such as ISI's Ontomorph or the
> work of Gio Wiederhold and his students.
I explicitly worded the joint motion in a way
that does not presuppose any particular feature
of IFF that is not also supported by other
approaches for ontology merging and sharing,
including the ones you cite. (Nor does it
exclude any feature of IFF that may prove to
be useful as the standards effort progresses.)
Following is point #3 from the motion (Pat
Cassidy suggested some extensions to this point,
and I am writing a separate comment about that,
but it doesn't affect the IFF issues):
> The standard shall include the specification
> of a methodology for testing the modules for
> consistency, relating them to one another in
> a generalization/specialization hierarchy,
> and combining two or more modules to derive a
> new module that is larger and more specialized
> than the modules from which it was derived.
IFF is consistent with this point, and so are
many other approaches. But the question of how
much of IFF and/or other approaches to include
in the final draft of the standard will be
determined by the way that the work progresses.
That is why it is so important for the three
groups to collaborate. That will enable the
SUMO and OpenCyc developers (along with anybody
else involved with the SUO effort) to have a
say in determining how the standard develops.
I believe that we all agree that some sort
of methodology is needed to support the SUO
content. I tried to state the motion in a way
that would enable the specification of that
methodology to reflect the methods that have
proved to be the most useful, independent of
where they come from -- IFF or any other
project, including the ones you cite.
If you feel that the wording isn't sufficiently
clear, then please suggest a way of restating it.
John