Rich, As I mentioned before, a foundation ontology is a very different kind
of standard that those that have been adopted before, and analogies areas
likely to mislead as to enlighten. If we must use an analogy, the
foundation ontology can be viewed as a language for computers to share
information. Unfortunately. "language" has been used in computer science to
describe *grammars*, without any significant built-in vocabulary. For
computer languages, the built-in vocabulary deals with objects inside a
computer; how they represent things *outside* the computer depend
idiosyncratically on the individual programmer. A full language, including
the basic vocabulary , is useful mostly for communication among agents. To
be useful there need to be multiple agents that communicate using the
language. But adopting a language by a natural process of accumulation of
users (from the first two) can be a very long process - it probably took
thousands of years for human languages to evolve their current ability to
describe the world. We can do it a lot faster if we kick-start the user
community by having a large group of developers and users agree on the basic
vocabulary. It can evolve from that point, but to evolve, anything has to
first survive. Having a starting community of over a hundred users gives
the standard a chance to survive and show its capabilities. (01)
Pat (02)
Patrick Cassidy
MICRA, Inc.
908-561-3416
cell: 908-565-4053
cassidy@xxxxxxxxx (03)
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-
> bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Rich Cooper
> Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2009 3:10 PM
> To: sean.barker@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; '[ontolog-forum] '
> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Fw: Next steps in using ontologies as
> standards
>
> Ontologists:
>
> Past history indicates that the killer app comes first, and the
> standards
> follow. Wirth's Pascal solved a lot of problems in programming
> language
> design in the late seventies, showing that a programming language could
> be
> both elegant and effective. Ada resulted from the failed DoD attempt
> to
> standardize Pascal and turn compilers into a commodity.
>
> C, which was licensed for $1 to universities in its early days, made
> that
> language widely used, though not standardized. C++, a freeware layer
> on top
> of C, added the object oriented layer that took off from there. C++ is
> now
> the most widely used programming language, but the AT&T product came
> first.
>
>
> SQL was built on the need for a database technology. Precursors to
> that
> technology were already in use in commercial applications as flat files,
> B-Trees, indexed sequential access methods, and many other partial
> solutions
> to the problem of flexible persistent data storage. The so-called
> standard
> SQL 92 has been a failure in that its standard was so loose that SQLs
> by the
> DBMS vendors have significant differences, which has impeded truly
> nonproprietary killer apps. But the market for solving persistent data
> storage problems led to widespread market dominance.
>
> The point is that the market determines success first, without
> standards.
> Standards are only practical after one or more killer apps have shown
> what
> can be done. When standards are posted before the killer app comes out,
> little or no impact is felt in the community. Investors have more
> proven
> vehicles for their assets.
>
> Nothing equivalent to these older products has been produced for
> ontologies
> yet. There is, IMHO, no killer ontology app at this time. There is
> need
> for integrating multiple databases and for unifying poorly automated
> processes, but unifying ontological approaches don't yet exist. The
> technology has not been demonstrated in practice.
>
> So it seems extremely premature to discuss standard ontologies until
> there
> are killer apps to make the market pay attention. After the usefulness
> of
> ontologies are demonstrated (not anticipated or projected), there will
> be
> fruitful efforts to use some ontologies on a widespread basis. Even
> ten
> million dollar projects funded by the government will not be enough to
> result in a standard before that time. But it might be enough to
> produce
> that one killer app to get things moving.
>
>
>
> Sincerely,
> Rich Cooper
> EnglishLogicKernel.com
> Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
> sean.barker@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2009 11:10 AM
> To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [ontolog-forum] Fw: Next steps in using ontologies as
> standards
>
>
>
> John
>
> I'm not sure that I agree with you (though whether I do may
> depend on how we ground terms like "experience").
>
> The STEP Product Life Cycle Support standard was developed to
> fill a gap between a large number of logistics products, none of which
> cover the whole scope of PLCS. One of its starting point was the
> existing STEP standards, particularly for product structure, which
> have
> been in use for some ten years in industrial strength applications. It
> also pulled in a lot of other standards, but still required a high
> level
> of innovation.
>
> PLCS has worked because it combined two groups - some 40 domain
> experts and a dozen data modellers (who also had years of experience
> in
> the aerospace/ship/vehicle industries). The modellers' job has been
> not
> only to represent the user requirements, but also to keep the domain
> experts honest, not biasing the model too much to their own company's
> way of working. Conversely, the modellers had to be able to explain
> back
> to the domain experts what the models actually said, and how they
> could
> be used to cover what the experts want to say.
>
> The spine of STEP's model of a product is the six element
> sequence of product, version, view, property, property-representation
> and presentation. These form an ontological vocabulary used to apply
> STEP to parts, interfaces, documents, slots etc. Although STEP uses
> an
> Entity-Relation modelling language, models are written by combining
> *modules*, rather than down at the entity level (this also allows
> relationship subtyping as well as entity subtyping). That is, the
> vocabulary relates directly to the things modelled. Using a simpler
> model than STEP would not have worked, since then the modellers would
> have to spend a great deal of ingenuity "interpreting" the model to
> make
> it work - most of the interpretation of the PLCS model is about
> finding
> honest routes through it. The biggest area of difficulty is
> maintaining
> consistency with the STEP standards already in use, where the concepts
> turn out to been modelled in a form that is too specific to the
> original
> applications.
>
> It should be possible to translate PLCS directly into some
> ontology language, such as RDF-S. As a starting point for an ontology,
> it would make sense, since the cost of formalising domain knowledge is
> by far the major cost in any model. However, the problem is not simply
> a
> translation of the model to an ontology, but also of the ontology back
> to language which is understood by our non-geek domain experts.
>
> That is to say, I think the problem of creating standards is not
> about being pro-active or reactive, or about testing what has been
> produced, or starting with existing technologies. It is about two way
> communication between modellers and domain experts. I have found it
> hard
> enough to work out what the ontology community is banging on about,
> and
> almost as hard explain it to my more sophisticated users. Creating
> ontologies based on existing standards sounds like a good idea - a
> chance to clear out the Augean stables. However, the real challenge
> will
> be getting the ontology community to understand the experts in the
> field, and make sense in return.
>
> Also, since I've been writing this, Pat Cassidy and Ed's postings have
> arrived. Pat - based on PLCS, I'd say your costs and timescales are
> too
> low. And, if it fills a big enough hole (which PLCS does) marketing is
> less time critical. Ed - getting the CAD implementers to agree a
> standard is not the problem - they agree lots of them; its getting
> them
> to implement them that is the hard problem, since if you can get
> information out of their system, they see it as a threat to their
> market
> share. In practice, a lot of work on the CAD standards was and is done
> users and other-than-CAD-system vendors.
>
>
> Sean Barker
> Bristol, UK
>
>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
> > John F. Sowa
> > Sent: 06 January 2009 14:16
> > To: [ontolog-forum]
> > Cc: janez.potocnik@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> > Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Next steps in using ontologies
> > as standards
> >
> >
> > *** 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.
> >
> > Azamat,
> >
> > I have some concerns about such pronouncements, which sound
> > good on the surface:
> >
> > > I hold with Ravi that it is a great undertaking. Though to
> > > become such, the initiative needs deliberate planning...
> > >
> > > the Forum has time to debate and decide on a principal matter:
> > > which general world model is most fitting to science,
> > arts, > technology, commerce and industry, to conclude if
> > "Standard > Ontology: a single malt or blended".
> >
> > The standards that have proved to be the most valuable in
> > practice have been based on successful technologies that many
> > independent groups have adopted, used, developed, and
> > extended on major applications. In most cases, those
> > standards started with a successful implementation (e.g., SQL
> > or HTML), polished up the rough edges, made it more
> > systematic, and added new features.
> >
> > About 20 years ago, some people working on standards got the
> > idea that it would be good for the standards organizations to
> > take a "proactive" stance in developing and promoting
> > cleaner, more elegant systems that take advantage of the
> > latest theories and practices. But the results have been
> > decidedly "mixed".
> >
> > I once thought that "proactive standards" seemed promising,
> > but after observing many attempts, I have very serious doubts.
> > Among the problems with proactive standards is that they are
> > inevitably designed by committees. The basic strength *and*
> > weakness of a committee is the diversity of people with
> > different backgrounds, views, and requirements. That gives
> > them great strength in *evaluating* proposals from many
> > different points of view. But it also means that committees
> > inevitably have "too many cooks" who "spoil the broth" when
> > they try to do the design.
> >
> > I don't believe that any proposed system should be adopted as
> > a standard until *after* there has been a considerable amount
> > of experience in using and testing it on a wide range of
> > practical applications. Instead of "deliberate planning", we
> > need extensive testing, comparison, and evaluation of
> > proposed alternatives on major applications.
> >
> > John
>
>
>
> 50% off Norton Security 2009 - http://www.tiscali.co.uk/security
>
> ________________________________________________
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>
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