RE: SUO: Re: SUO Ballot with 2 Questions
I'm quite encouraged to hear that our long range goals are more in line
that I thought they were.
But as to the near term, please see below.
<snip>
[John S.]
> I agree that if we stop with just a registry, we won't
> have a standard. But a registry is an essential step
> toward the development of a good standard:
>
> 1. What we have today is a chaos of dozens of unrelated,
> incompatible, and competing ontologies.
[ELP] Agreed.
>
> 2. The registry provides an organization that relates
> different ontologies to one another and to shared
> and sharable components.
[ELP] If your first point really is true, then the "organization" that
the registry lattice will provide will be rather uninteresting and flat.
The only two cases where I can see us getting more than one lattice
layer (not counting top and bottom) are when:
i) There is a preexisting lattice of cooperating dependant
(micro)theories
ii) Someone creates a monotonically altered variant of an existing
(micro)theory
The "dozens of unrelated, incompatible, and competing ontologies"
inherit from "Top".
So I'm sorry. I'm not seeing the organizational value.
>
> 3. Without a registry, there is no way out of the
> current chaos. Each group will continue to pursue
> its own independent direction.
[ELP] See above.
>
> 4. With a registry, there is a systematic way of relating
> different contributions. It provides the raw material
> from which newer, better ontologies can be developed.
[ELP] See above.
<snip>
[ELP] Regards,
-Eric