Re: SUO: Re: SUO Ballot with 2 Questions
Mike,
> Please spare me the false dilemma and histrionics.
This is not a false dilemma, and it is "history", not
histrionics. Please look at the SUO archives to see what
was happening. All that discussion is on the record.
Without a joint effort, we go back to the status of a few
months ago, which was a moribund email list with ZERO
collaboration among the three groups. If you can think
of any other way to get the SUO Working Group to do some
actual work, please suggest it.
> Why would the creation of a registry generate some
> magical collaboration of the SUMO and OpenCyc efforts?
> How will the existence of a registry increase the number
> of people working on the respective efforts?
The idea of the registry was an afterthought, not the focus.
But it is, I believe, a good addition to the proposal.
> Secondly, even if it did make the contributors feel warm,
> fuzzy and collaborative, why is merger work between two
> candidates that have a great deal of conceptual overlap
> productive in efforts to generate a SUO?
Isn't it obvious that two groups of intelligent people who
have spent a great deal of time and effort in developing
ontologies might find it useful to share their experiences
with one another? If they overlap, but not completely,
can't they contribute to one another? Are the reasons for
the differences fundamental? Or are they just accidental?
> We could vote to spend time registering and merging all
> the ontologies listed at the Bateman URL that you gave,
> I just don't see the point if our desire is to create
> a good usable standard in a reasonable amount of time.
What do you consider a reasonable amount of time? Cyc
has spent 19 years of elapsed time and 650 person-years
of work. Yet they have not able to persuade the dozen
or more groups on Bateman's list to accept it.
Those other groups also have intelligent people, who have
reasons for their objections. It makes sense to listen
to them, find out what their reasons are, and accommodate
them, if possible, within a framework that everybody could
accept.
That is the point of motion #2. If you can think of
any better way to achieve those goals, please tell us.
The SUO group spent two months discussing the issues
that went into formulating motion #2. Why didn't you
contribute to that discussion and help to formulate
a better motion? If you can't think of anything better,
then please vote for the motion we spent two months
putting together.
John