RE: A NEW FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT FORMAL MOTION: was RE: SUO: Re: SUO Ballot with 2 Questions

["West, Matthew R SITI-ITPSIE" <matthew.west@shell.com>]

Dear Eric,

See comments below.


Matthew West
Principal Consultant
Shell Information Technology International Limited
Shell Centre, London SE1 7NA, United Kingdom

Tel: +44 20 7934 4490 Other Tel: +44 7796 336538
Email: matthew.west@shell.com
Internet: http://www.shell.com


<snip>
> 
> I am for diversity of opinion, but if we don't believe in the basic
> sacraments, we shouldn't go in and disrupt the services of 
> those who do.
> 
> This is the Standard Upper Ontology Working Group.  Please 
> again notice
> the singular in the word "ontology".  The charter explicitly 
> reinforces
> that point as well:
> 
> http://suo.ieee.org/scopeAndPurpose.html
> ______________________________________________________________
> __________
> INTER-OPERABILITY: The standard will provide a basis for achieving
> Inter-Operability among various software and database applications. 
> 1) Application developers can define new data elements in terms of a
> common ontology, and thereby gain some degree of interoperability with
> other conformant systems. 
> 2) Applications based on domain-specific ontologies that are compliant
> with this standard will be able to interoperate (to some degree) by
> virtue of the shared common terms and definitions. 
> 3) The SUO will play the role of a neutral interchange format whereby
> owners of existing applications will be able to map existing data
> elements just once to a common ontology. This provides a degree of
> interoperability with other applications whose representations conform
> to SUO. This entails the SUO being able to be mapped to more 
> restricted
> forms such as XML, database schema, or object oriented schema. 
> ______________________________________________________________
> __________
> _
> 
> It wouldn't make sense to interoperate in this way with multiple
> competing ontologies.  You would need n^2 mapping axioms to link n
> competing axioms for a given definition.  Or you could map all n
> competing axioms into one interchange axiom, but them you end up
> creating a single interchange ontology to link your competing
> ontologies.  One way or another, scalable interoperability is best
> supported by a single upper ontology.
> 
> It's really that simple.

MW: Well not really. All the systems out there also use different
flavours of (usually implicit) ontology. So you have quite complex
mappings to manage, many of which will be essentially duplicates
of each other. On the other hand, if you cater for the major flavours
of ontology and map between them once, you greatly simplify the 
mapping process for those wishing to integrate, and do the hardest
parts for them. In addition, because this is done in a "standard"
way, you avoid the risks of mismapping that would follow from
many source models having to do more complex mappings.
> 
> 
> > AND to provide support for their position!
> > I have a few suggestions:
> > 
> > - Are not you confusing "content" with "form", i.e. an 
> UPPER ontology
> > should
> > not contain anything SPECIFIC for
> > any domain ("pet content"), only sort of "meta" ontological 
> statements
> > (think IFF ;-)
> 
> [ELP] Upper is about generality.  
> 
> The line you are quoting lends itself to some difficulty in
> interpretation:
> 
> "An upper ontology is limited to concepts that are meta, generic,
> abstract and philosophical, and therefore are general enough 
> to address
> (at a high level) a broad range of domain areas."
> 
> I might have said " meta, generic, abstract ***or*** philosophical".
> You can be "generic" about your meta axioms, but I don't think that's
> what the founding fathers/mothers meant.  And I've been told 
> that "and"
> linguistically means "or" sometimes.
> 
> > 
> > - If you don't understand your ennemies you have no chances 
> to defeat
> > them,
> > and obviously you have NO CLUE why, at least John Sowa and 
> myself, are
> > close
> > to killing you on the unique ontology idea.
> 
> [ELP] John has been talking the "merging" talk recently.  He 
> agreed with
> my motion to state that merging into one ontology is the 
> goal.  He even
> called it a "restatement" of the charter.

MW: Personally I am comfortable that contains different world views
AND the mappings between them is ONE ontology. Only if it is just
a bag of assorted disconnected stuff do I think your criticisms
apply. I would agree with you that this would not be a useful
outcome.
<snip>