A NEW FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT FORMAL MOTION: was RE: SUO: Re: SUO Ballot with 2 Questions
Please see below:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: West, Matthew R SITI-ITPSIE [mailto:matthew.west@shell.com]
> Sent: Friday, June 06, 2003 5:33 AM
> To: Eric Peterson; John F. Sowa; Mike Pool; apease@ks.teknowledge.com;
> clegg@cyc.com; John DeOliveira
> Cc: Patrick Cassidy; standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org
> Subject: RE: SUO: Re: SUO Ballot with 2 Questions
>
> Dear Eric,
>
> Perhaps I am just a pragmatist, and will settle for what can be
> done rather than go for what I know cannot be done.
>
> What cannot be done (today or in the next 5 years) is to create
> a single canonical ontology that will gain universal, or even
> very widespread acceptance.
[ELP] Right. I don't think that the most optimistic of us would think
anything of the sort.
Given that, and given my increasing concern about our present direction
and progress, I formally move that:
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WHEREAS, committees are very special purpose organizations and by their
nature are good at only certain sorts of tasks, and
WHEREAS, a standards committee is about the most ill suited body
imaginable for crafting/engineering or perhaps even merging components
into a large and complex standard (such as an SUO), and
WHEREAS, only unified hierarchical bodies such as companies are known to
craft/engineer large technical results of quality, and
WHEREAS, standards veterans are observed to agree that standardization
can not happen without a de facto standard, and
WHEREAS, from these assertions, it follows that there are just two
reasonable courses of action for the SUO:
That we
1) Go back and develop ontologies in our own preferred religious camps,
hopefully learn a bit from each other and wait (i) until the marketplace
(in the widest sense of the term "marketplace" to include academia and
government organizations) learns what formal ontologies are, (ii) until
formal ontologies exhibit some serious popular usage, and (iii) until a
leading ontology emerges. This group could continue to be a valuable
forum for the sifting of ideas and the fostering of colaborations, but
it would no longer call itself a standards group.
2) Or, determine the best of breed ontology as our first and chief order
of business. This would be accomplished by agreeing on metrics and
weightings of metrics and by scoring candidate ontologies accordingly.
This, after some review and revision period would be the initial version
of the standard. Merging of other bodies of axioms would then be the
job of the marketplace. They can afford it and they can command/achieve
enough unity to do it. And it is decidedly clear that we can do
neither. When these merges or other changes are proven in that
marketplace, then they would be suitable candidates for later versions
of the standard.
Now, therefore be it
RESOLVED, that the immediately preceding choice "2)" concerning the
choice of a best of breed, and a subsequent revision period be the prime
focus of the SUO.
-Eric