I skipped that part (as a Canadian, I got the point). (01)
But feel free to edit it in any way that you chose. (02)
Other people who want to amplify it or add alternative ideas to it are
welcome.
The goal is to start to document some of the ideas that are out there in
a format that is not as argumentative as a forum
The forum is really a good place to have the back and forth discussions
that lead to consensus or more clearly defined disagreement.
The wiki is a place to summarize the agreements and the arguments before
we lapse into repetitive forum postings. I think that we have reached a
pretty good consensus about the 2 alternatives being proposed and I am
not sure that any more argument is going to change opinions, so we
should just write them down as neatly as we can and move on. (03)
I hope that those[PC] who propose other alternative ways forward will
contribute to this same page and provide thoughtful elaborations of
alternatives. If at some point we have to split the page or otherwise
reorganize the structure, that is fine. (04)
Ron (05)
Mike Bennett wrote:
> Thanks - when I get a moment I will edit out the snide remarks I was
> addressing to the American contingent, which were probably uncalled for
> anyway :-)
>
> Mike
>
> Ron Wheeler wrote:
>
>> I have added this to the Wiki under the section
>> http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConstructingAFoundationOntology
>>
>> Added some section headings and fixed 1 spelling mistake.
>>
>> Enjoy
>>
>> Ron
>>
>> Mike Bennett wrote:
>>
>>
>>> I agree. Speaking as one of those people from that part of the world
>>> that is not called America, we don't need Congress to make it all
>>> happen. Some of us even helped the US to win WWII if I recall :-)
>>>
>>> Where the action and the benefit is, as I see it, is in having something
>>> that existing standards bodies (both industry standards bodies and ISO)
>>> can use. Many of the standards groups have been using XML, and then UML,
>>> and are starting to recognise that meaning is the problem not
>>> technology. So there are plenty of examples, both as industry consortia
>>> and ISO committees (and ISO has a mechanism for industry bodies as well
>>> as countries to be involved in standards setting).
>>>
>>> If the financial industry is anything to go by (and I think it is), we
>>> have industry groups, all of whom are also engaged with the ISO process.
>>> Some standards have a message syntax but no business representation of
>>> what is in the messages, and don't see this as a problem. Others have a
>>> message or logical data representation but no business representation of
>>> semantics, and /do/ see it as a problem. Business data managers are
>>> starting to ask questions about what the techies have been doing in the
>>> standards world and why they haven't delivered something useful and
>>> maintainable in many cases. People are starting to recognise semantics
>>> as a vital component of business requirements.
>>>
>>> The opportunitity is not to (a) create some giant consortium to go out
>>> and map the world's semantics for them, or (b) get Congress (or
>>> Parliament or Duma or Knesset or Loyal Jirga or Althing) to vote
>>> billions of dollars for us all have fun doing it. Sorry to pop those
>>> particular bubbles.
>>>
>>> Where we can have fun and do something useful as I see it is:
>>>
>>> 1. Show some leadership in helping industry bodies to capture and model
>>> their business semantics in ways which are complete, logically
>>> consistent and can be owned, reviewed and updated by business SMEs (but:
>>> 1a. given that OWL and so on don't really meet that requirement,
>>> figure out a useful answer before the inustry bodies get bored and move
>>> away - currently they think OWL is it because this is the hot new thing
>>> in buzzword heaven);
>>> 2. Deal with the common terms that form the simple semantic building
>>> blocks that those different industry groups might want to build
>>> semantics from, for example financial building blocks (use XBRL - no
>>> question), maths terms, country, currency, all that simple stuff. Also
>>> common things like risk, payment, liability etc. that form the basic
>>> terms that any business entity has to relate to. Like "business entity".
>>>
>>> Granted that (2) reignites the "primitives" debate which isn't my
>>> intention here, but I do think that the SUMO ontology splits too early
>>> into industry verticals. As an example, to define financial instruments,
>>> one wants to use the basic concepts of contracts, contractual terms
>>> (which are a set of contractual clauses, and therefore a set),
>>> jurisdiction, equity (financial), debt (financial), cash flows,
>>> schedules (events + time), variable parameters (for interest rates,
>>> indices) etc. etc.
>>>
>>> If we can work out how to help with these two simple tasks, and help
>>> develop and improve the standards to accommodate 1a (for example I've
>>> been using an OWL-based thing but I've added the concept of archetypes,
>>> renamed everything in English, and output it in in diagrams and
>>> spreadsheets - surely OWL can be extended in these ways), then we will
>>> have something useful to offer which industry bodies in the different
>>> industry sectors might be able to cobble together a few grand to do.
>>> This is what I have been doing in the financial industry - through a
>>> US-based global industry body called the Enterprise Data Management
>>> Council, who tentatively found just enough money to keep me alive and
>>> dry while I had a go at putting something together. Assuming it works
>>> and and be shown to add value, we can keep this up without ever having
>>> to ask Congress to scrape together a few billion for us to keep body and
>>> soul together :-)
>>>
>>> Mike
>>>
>>> Anders W.Tell wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> Rich Cooper wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> I think we should focus on the why, the value, and the project level
>>>>> concepts of ontology engineering.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> I would like to propose a *supplementatry* strategy in a value based
>>>> approach. It is not always necessary to create large projects that
>>>> invents a new set theory, a new interchange format, a new foundational
>>>> ontology or to asks an organization to throw out their old works and
>>>> start fresh or any other heavy weight task.
>>>>
>>>> Why not suggest to the ontologicaly challanged to smoothly incorporate
>>>> *parts* of existing onto-logical methods , principles, etc into their
>>>> upcoming workstreams.
>>>>
>>>> A key part here is that the work products should be
>>>> compartmentalised/partitioned/contextualised/... so that the qualities
>>>> of understandability and acceptability are addressed. Mush of existing
>>>> work is too much, to big , too complex, too much "meta model or
>>>> ontology" (freighting words), for a business ontologies to comprehend
>>>> and use. Making the pieces smaller and documented with examples from the
>>>> spatio-temporal real word could go a long way.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> thanks
>>>> /anders
>>>>
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>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
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> (06)
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