Good questions, Duane. (01)
Before I start to answer, let me pull out the our current
charter: (ref: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl#nid011 ) (02)
//
= Charter of the Ontolog Forum = (03)
Ontolog is an open forum to: (04)
* Discuss practical issues and strategies associated with
the development of both formal and informal ontologies used in
business. (05)
* Identify ontological engineering approaches that might be
applied to the UBL effort (and by extension, to the broader
domain of eBusiness standardization efforts).
// (06)
1. ref your question about formal definitions -- we don't really
have definitions of an "ontology" that is "adopted" by Ontolog
per se. For me (who roots for the 'augmentation' camp, and not
the 'AI' camp), I would start from Tom Gruber's definition that
an ontology is a specification of a conceptualization, and extend
from there to say that a 'formal' ontology is a specification of
a conceptualization represented in a formal logic language; and
an 'informal' ontology is a specification of a conceptualization
represented and shared in a language that may, or may not be
fully formal and computable. (07)
Of course, there are people who would argue that the latter can't
even be called an ontology (but then ... that would only be a
naming issue). (08)
One might refer to the Tom Gruber interview on AIS SIGSEMIS at
http://www.sigsemis.org/newsletter/october2004/tom_gruber_interview_sigsemis
(an article that Bob Smith alluded me to earlier, and which I
have seen quoted by Brand Niemann and Mary Pulvermacher of Mitre
since) when he did discuss formal, informal and semi-formal
ontologies (see para. 3 in the article). (09)
As for various discussions on definitions of ontologies, as well
as the treatment of the big 'O' (the philosopher's Ontology) and
the small 'o' (the computer scientist's ontology), that have
appeared in our space, I recall the following, which are all
worth referring back to (I'm sure I have missed some too): (010)
(a) Slides 9~13 of the presentation by Obrst/Park/Yim
(2-Apr-2002) that effectively started Ontolog (or the precursor
of it) - ref:
http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum//ontolog-forum/2002-05/msg00005.html (011)
(b) definition on the W3C OWL Use Cases and Requirements (mainly
Leo Obrst's contribution) (012)
(c) wikipedia entries - both big 'O' and small 'o' (013)
For both of the above, see:
http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?RecommendedReadingResource#nid04 (014)
(d) Bo Newman's post (ref. both big and small 'O'):
http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum//ontolog-forum/2002-10/msg00034.html (015)
(e) Bill McCarthy's post (ref. enterprise ontologies):
http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum//ontolog-forum/2003-01/msg00017.html (016)
(f) see also: Robert Garigue's post:
http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum//ontolog-forum/2005-01/msg00024.html (017)
2. As to why 'UBL' ... that's inherited (018)
(a) of course, because I copied that from the original charter
(see above), (019)
(b) for those who may not be aware, the Ontolog discussion
actually started at the UBL TC (the original list address was
<ubl-ontolog@xxxxxxxx> no less) in May 2002, and then spun off
from there (due to a mismatch of time-lines) and reconstituted as
the Ontolog Forum in Sep. 2002, and (020)
(c) the first and foremost Ontolog project, and the one its
members got together for, was actually to build the "UBL-Ontology". (021)
(d) we have been, and are still getting moral support from UBL
and its leadership ... which I deeply appreciate. (022)
3. ... Do we want to do this? (023)
I like it there (for the above reasons) ... but that's me. Maybe
we can talk about it, if people want to bring that up during our
Thursday (2005.02.02) planning session. (024)
Regards. =ppy
-- (025)
Duane Nickull wrote Tue, 01 Mar 2005 13:30:03 -0800:
> Peter:
>
> Some comments and questions inline:
>
> ProposedCharter = Ontolog is an open, international, virtual community
> of practice, whose membership will:
>
>>
>> * Discuss practical issues and strategies associated with the
>> development and application of both formal and informal ontologies.
>
>
> DN - is there a formal definition of "formal" vs. "informal" ontologies?
>
>>
>> * Identify ontological engineering approaches that might be applied
>> to the UBL effort, as well as to the broader domain of eBusiness
>> standardization efforts.
>
>
> DN - why would we distinguish UBL above others? Do we want to do this?
> (note - I have no opinion on this).
>
> Duane
>
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