Sean,
Thanks for the history. I will respond to only your last point: (01)
> >From the perspective of "fundamental concepts" can I add this
> observation from my STEP experience:
> There is no such concept as 'property' - 'property' is only
> a language game that allows you to associate a descriptive value with what
is being
> described. There are product properties such as colour -"this car is
green";
> there are activity properties such as duration -
> "this task took 2 hours"; and there are properties that are common to
> both, such as cost - "this car cost $20000", "This task costs $200".
> What they have in common is phraseology, a language
> game we both understand. If there is no such concept as property, can
> you coherently claim that everything can be described in a few thousand
> fundamental concepts, since
> what distinguishes them is a language game?
>
There can be any number of concepts labeled 'property', all different. (02)
'Property' is a term that can be logically specified as:
1) a generic concept subsuming loosely related multiple more specific
concepts; or
2) an ambiguous linguistic term that can be used to refer to any one of
various logically well-defined concepts.
3) or both (03)
You have specified several type of concepts that are referred to as
'property'. Since this is one of the most fundamental of the concepts
people used in communication, there is no surprise that there are multiple
related more specific concepts. The same is true of other fundamental
concepts such as 'part'. That is taken into account in the estimate of
basic 'primitive' concepts. In COSMO, there are actually three
'property'-type concepts all having their own separate trees at the top
level (out of 21 top-level concepts - it's that fundamental): Attribute,
AttributeType, and AttributeValue (with relations among them). An agreed
foundation ontology may have even more. We still wind up with fewer than
10,000 basic logical specifications, in trying to represent the Longman
defining vocabulary of 2100 words.
How many basic concepts will actually prove adequate is a factual question
to be determined by experiment. In view of the immense value that a common
foundation ontology would have, it has been and continues to be a great
puzzle to me why anyone would not want to learn by a proper objective
project just what is possible. (04)
Pat (05)
Patrick Cassidy
MICRA, Inc.
908-561-3416
cell: 908-565-4053
cassidy@xxxxxxxxx (06)
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-
> bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Sean Barker
> Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2008 3:27 PM
> To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; cassidy@xxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [ontolog-forum] Fw: Fw: Semantic Webshortcomings [wasRe: ANN:
> GoodRelations - The Web Ontologyfor E-Commerce]
>
>
> Pat
>
> The STEP project started in the mid-eighties, or perhaps
> slightly earlier, and was born out of frustration with the existing CAD
> standard of the era, IGES. The early outcomes of the project were the
> data modelling language EXPRESS, which has been used independently of
> STEP, and the fundamental concepts. The first standard to come out in
> 1995 was AP 203, configuration controlled 3D mechanical geometry. Much
> of this is basic geometry, but perhaps the key set of concepts to come
> out of this is the six fold division of product, product-version,
> version-view, view-property, property-representation, and
> representation-presentation. This division is absolutely fundamental
> for
> coherent management of complex products, and the underlying ideas have
> lead on to massive changes in the way design and manufacturing is
> understood. One fundamental result is that virtually the only thing you
> can
> say unequivicooly
> about a product is its name - everything else depends on the view you
> take,
> and generally you
> need several views which are structurally and conceptually
> incompatible.
>
> Subsequently, a whole series of other AP's (application domains
> specific exchange standards) have been developed, and I will only
> comment on two.
>
> The first, the PDM schema, was a reharmonisation of AP 203 and
> AP 214, which had diverged because of the different ambitions of the US
> aerospace and European automotive industries. It describes the
> information needed to co-ordinate configuration change. The test
> implementation of this was a four way exchange - I don't know the costs
> on
> this, but the
> implementation involved a team of three or four people in each of four
> companies over a period of about a year. One of the key things that it
> demonstrated was that
> the semantics of the terms used depended on the business processes of
> the people doing the exchange, and that successful exchange is in part
> about process harmonisation.
>
> The second, PLCS, covers the support world. The first couple of
> years of work involved some thirty or so subject matter experts
> agreeing
> a standardised model of process flows for the support business. The
> next
> stage involved some ten data modellers over two years, most of whom had
> significant industry experience, and understood the SME terminology.
> On average, the people were about half time on the project. It
> also involved re-engineering STEP to add some fundamental concepts
> which
> are not part of the design world, and didn't come up in the
> manufacturing APs. One way of looking at PLCS is that it reifies the
> implied
> metaphysics
> of the product development world - arguments about the nature of
> identity
> took several months to resolve.
>
> The costs of $500,000,000 covers development of detailed
> exchange standards and implementations of those standards, so more than
> just the core of fundamental concepts. However, without implementation
> and testing, the standard would have been wrong, the expectations for
> it
> would have been wrong, and the funding would have dried up years ago.
>
> Four things that need to be factored in to your costs are:
> 1) International co-operation at least doubles measurable time-scales
> and costs (as opposed to the quadrupling time scales and costs when
> national standards are created and then need harmonizing).
> 2) Not all contributors to development will have the same level of
> expertise and commitment, and initially this can be a drag on the
> project.
> 3) There will be at least one breakaway group who think they can do it
> better, and may well point this out vociferously when it comes to
> getting something agreed.
> 4) The vendors will go off and do their own thing, negating all your
> work, unless you have some serious political clout.
>
> The problem is that once all these things are taken into
> account, the payback time is longer that the three years that is used
> for many industrial funding decisions. Previous e-mails have pointed
> out
> why there is no hope of getting the academics to do anything useful,
> because their criteria are academic brownie points not business cost
> reduction. And without credible demonstrators throughout the
> development
> process (which need to be factored in to costs) funding dries up.
>
> And STEP - 25 years on, and the big business and the defence
> ministries are still funding its development. The biggest problem is,
> where it is used, it works - however, there is very little wow factor
> in
> showing a chief exec two identical computer screens, which is all we
> are
> trying to do.
>
> >From the perspective of "fundamental concepts" can I add this
> observation
> from my STEP
> experience: There is no such concept as 'property' - 'property' is only
> a
> language game that
> allows you to associate a descriptive value with what is being
> described.
> There are product properties
> such as colour -"this car is green"; there are activity properties such
> as
> duration -
> "this task took 2 hours"; and there are properties that are common to
> both,
> such as cost -
> "this car cost $20000", "This task costs $200". What they have in
> common is
> phraseology, a language
> game we both understand. If there is no such concept as property, can
> you
> coherently claim that
> everything can be described in a few thousand fundamental concepts,
> since
> what distinguishes them is a language game?
>
> Sean Barker
> Bristol
>
>
> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Patrick
> Cassidy
> Sent: 18 August 2008 22:46
> To: '[ontolog-forum] '
> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Fw: Semantic Webshortcomings [wasRe: ANN:
> GoodRelations - The Web Ontologyfor E-Commerce]
>
> Sean,
> It's hard for me to imagine why a *basic* data model (5000-1000
> elements) would cost that much. Do you have any references that
> describe the history of the project, how it was constructed, and with a
> cost tag on each phase?
> I have a feeling that a lot more than just construction of the basic
> model is included in that number. Cyc has about 600 person-years,
> which
> should not be over $60 million, and a lot of that was specialized, well
> outside the boundaries of the foundation ontology.
> The five million dollar cost is the cost of demonstrating agreement
> (not necessarily universal) on the most basic 2000 elements, which
> would
> demonstrate the feasibility and utility of extending the ontology to a
> full foundation ontology, and providing the proposal how to proceed.
> To
> include several demonstration applications and a usable natural-
> language
> interface (converting definitions in a controlled vocabulary to the
> logical form, and finding the nearest existing element(s) to the
> proposed new element, I am estimating at another 10 to 20 million.
>
> A great deal depends on how one plans to proceed. After 13 years of
> discussion about "upper ontologies" and large already-existing
> inventories of logically-defined basic concepts from the current most
> well-known ones, I think we can devise a process that is a lot more
> efficient than starting from scratch.
>
> Pat
>
> Patrick Cassidy
> MICRA, Inc.
> 908-561-3416
> cell: 908-565-4053
> cassidy@xxxxxxxxx
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-
> > bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Sean Barker
> > Sent: Monday, August 18, 2008 2:14 PM
> > To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; cassidy@xxxxxxxxx
> > Subject: [ontolog-forum] Fw: Semantic Web shortcomings [wasRe: ANN:
> > GoodRelations - The Web Ontology for E-Commerce]
> >
> >
> >
> > Pat,
> > The investment to date in the STEP data model has been estimated at
> > over $500,000,000, and that is limited to the fairly narrow field of
> > Europe/US Defence/Aerospace/Automotive product data. $5,000,000 for a
> > foundation ontology sounds like a gross underestimate.
> >
> >
> > Sean Barker
> > Bristol
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Patrick
> > Cassidy
> > Sent: 18 August 2008 15:54
> > To: '[ontolog-forum] '
> > Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Semantic Web shortcomings [wasRe: ANN:
> > GoodRelations - The Web Ontology for E-Commerce]
> >
> >
> > *** WARNING ***
> >
> > This mail has originated outside your organization, either from an
> > external partner or the Global Internet.
> > Keep this in mind if you answer this message.
> >
> > All those points about how traditional standards are developed are
> > valid, but a foundation ontology for semantic interoperability is not
> > like a traditional standard. It's orders of magnitude more complex.
> > There are already several possible starting points - Cyc is the most
> > highly developed, but has been badly hindered by its commercial
> origin
>
> > and continuing lack of full openness in development. The fact that
> > nothing has gained traction in over ten years should be an indicator
> > that a new initiative is needed. To me the obvious thing to try is
> to
>
> > get together a large group of ontology developers and users and find
> a
>
> > common *basis* (the foundation ontology) for creating logical
> > representations of the meanings in all of the concepts that that
> group
>
> > is interested in. Such a project would cost over 5 million dollars,
> > and such a project has never been funded - even though the benefits
> of
>
> > success would dwarf the cost of development. When that tactic has
> > been tried and fails to get a large and growing user community, then
> > and only then would I look for alternative methods that would be
> > invariably more costly, slower and less likely to achieve the optimal
> > solution.
> > Whatever is developed by the starting project can evolve and adapt
> > just as well - probably better, having been carefully thought out at
> > the basic level - as anything mashed together by a less organized
> project.
> > Acceptance in the commercial field would follow after non-commercial
> > development and applications have shown its usefulness. Possibly the
> > closest analogy would be the Linux operating system, where the core
> > was developed by one person and is maintained by a tightly organized
> group.
> > But even Linux is simpler than a foundation ontology.
> > One consideration that seems to be ignored by those who are
> waiting
>
> > for some standard to evolve from an unorganized collaborative process
> > is that there is a very large cost in lost opportunity for every day
> > the adoption of the standard is delayed. The cost of just the lack
> of
>
> > interoperability of relational databases in the US has been estimated
> > at over 100 billion dollars per year. The current lost opportunity
> > cost for one hour would pay for a project to try to reach such an
> > agreement.
> > The benefits are so enormous that I think that *every* plausible
> > tactic to achieve agreement on a foundation ontology should be
> funded.
>
> > This notion doesn't seem to have been accepted yet by any funding
> agency.
> > Waiting for something to somehow appear by a process that has never
> > produced any comparably complex artifact is not in my estimation a
> > cost-effective tactic.
> >
> > Pat
> >
> > Patrick Cassidy
> > MICRA, Inc.
> > 908-561-3416
> > cell: 908-565-4053
> > cassidy@xxxxxxxxx
> >
> >
> >
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