Ian wrotre:
"The ontology itself should model names, and the RDF simply represents your
ontology in a computer interpretable format. End of. (01)
The ontology should model the key pieces and bits of heaven and earth (parts
of the world, domains of interest, knowledge areas, etc.) using language
constructs, natural or artificial... (02)
"The moral of this story is that you should concentrate on building a good
ontology rather than whining about the languages that can be used to do it.
> It's a poor workman who blames the tool."
Hard to disagree. (03)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ian Bailey" <ian@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <edbark@xxxxxxxx>; "'[ontolog-forum] '" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, February 02, 2009 11:11 PM
Subject: [ontolog-forum] RDF & RDFS (was... Is there something I missed?) (04)
> Hi All,
>
> Foolhardy as it almost certainly is, I couldn't resist putting my oar in.
> I've got the dubious privilege of having implemented one of the early OWL
> editors (now a freebie download on my website...sorry Peter, it's not open
> source, but that has more to do with the appalling state of the code than
> any will to power on my part). I've also been working with the Chris
> Partridge / Matthew West 4D extensional ontology approach for a good few
> years now, which is pretty far removed from the intent of the SWeb as
> stated
> by Sir Tim and the W3C. Matthew and Chris are looking for a better, more
> accurate model of business through extensional analysis. The SWeb, as far
> as
> I can deduce, is doing for data what HTML did for hypertext...i.e.
> allowing
> relationships to go outside the confines of the computer the data sits on.
>
> If you treat RDF and RDFS as simple modelling syntaxes (that's all they
> are), you can use them quite nicely to represent your ontology - even an
> extensional, 4D, higher-order ontology. It's less easy to do that with
> OWL,
> as that language tries to be a bit more clever (and as always with things
> that try to be too clever, shoots itself in the foot). It's just a
> syntax -
> the semantics should be in your ontology, not in the language you choose
> to
> publish it in. We use UML as the master for the IDEAS ontology. Again, if
> you use it carefully (in this case we have a UML profile that exactly
> replicates the ontic categories in the IDEAS Foundation), it's fine. Even
> more shocking, we use the UML to auto-generate an RDBMS implementation of
> IDEAS and an RDF Schema of the IDEAS ontology. These languages are just
> tools of the trade. Use them carefully and they'll do the job.
>
> I'm not wedded to the semantic web. I don't think there is even a common
> consensus for what it is. However, don't dismiss RDF and RDFS for that
> reason. They're just a neat(ish) way to express your models in XML (be
> they
> data models, ontologies, taxonomies, etc.) that lends itself well to
> distributed data. Yes, they use URLs, but if you don't like that you can
> always invent a fake namespace and just use whatever IDs you like within
> that namespace. To be honest, if I've learned anything from BORO it's that
> names are complex beasts, so any attempt to rely on an in-built mechanism
> in
> XML isn't going to get you very far. The ontology itself should model
> names,
> and the RDF simply represents your ontology in a computer interpretable
> format. End of.
>
> All implementation will involve compromise. If you don't think so, you've
> never worked on a commercial system. The trick is to implement in such a
> way
> that you do not restrict your ontology's expressiveness. If you can't see
> a
> way to do that in RDF/RDFS, then you probably need a bit more
> imagination -
> hire some engineers instead of computer scientists. RDF and RDFS are not
> perfect, and the flaws in OWL are recognised by everyone who has worked
> with
> it. Standards are never perfect. The trick is to stop whining about it and
> actually try it - then you start to realise that a few (acceptable)
> work-arounds can get you a long way.
>
> The moral of this story is that you should concentrate on building a good
> ontology rather than whining about the languages that can be used to do
> it.
> It's a poor workman who blames the tool.
>
> Cheers
> --
> Ian
> www.modelfutures.com
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ed Barkmeyer
> Sent: 02 February 2009 19:34
> To: Pat Hayes
> Cc: [ontolog-forum]
> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Is there something I missed?
>
> I think I have to agree that Pat H is right, unfortunately for Sir Tim
> and the "Semantic Web".
>
> I wrote:
>
>>> SemWeb is about creating and using knowledge models
>>> to mark up documents (and other resources) in order to improve
>>> information searches.
>
> Pat Hayes wrote:
>
>> No, really, this isn't accurate. The SWeb is about creating and
>> publishing K.models to be used by software agents on the Web,
>
> as distinct from software agents that are not "on the Web" (which made
> "Semantic Web technology" a brand new technology in 1995, utterly unlike
> the K-R and K-E work of the previous 20 years). This is precisely the
> funding hype. If Pat wants to insist that all knowledge engineering
> after 1995 will be called "Semantic Web technology", he is welcome to do
> that, and I will withdraw my objection. (But then he has to understand
> that the folks who make UML models in OWL to markup their documents have
> just as much right to expound on "ontologies" as any AI expert. He
> chose his company.)
>
> I agree that AI's time has come and that standardization of formal
> languages for certain kinds of reasoning engines is appropriate. And I
> agree that sharing and reusing ontologies is a great idea, if we can
> figure out how. But that has little to do with the World Wide Web
> (semantic or otherwise).
>
> My complaint is that the Web is not necessary to, and in many cases not
> significant to, a major part of the development and application of
> knowledge engineering. Document and service search is clearly a Web
> idea, and the Web is vital to it, and integrating the Web aspects into
> the languages and reasoning engines that have those purposes is
> critical. There are other distributed applications of ontologies that
> are designed to use the Web in important ways (software agents
> _integrally_ "on the Web", as distinct from agents that just use
> Internet technologies as a means of moving bits from a known remote
> source), but they are a very small part of the applications of knowledge
> engineering.
>
>> not
>> primarily as document markup. And performing inference from those
>> knowledge models is central in SWeb thinking.
>
> Performing certain kinds of inferences from knowledge models is why we
> build 'knowledge models', as distinct from other kinds of models.
> Document search (including service descriptions at some level) needs
> certain kinds of inferences, most of which can be performed by DL
> engines. Decision-making needs certain kinds of inferences that tend to
> exceed the capabilities of DL reasoners.
>
> When people use the term 'Semantic Web technologies' to mean both, it
> becomes synonymous with "knowledge engineering technologies", which
> covers a dozen distinguishable reasoning technologies of the last 30
> years. So if there is a distinction, I would like to know what it is.
>
>>> Most prior knowledge engineering was aimed at
>>> facilitating decision-making by automated means. Those are different
>>> ideas, and there is only some overlap in the requirements on the
>>> underlying technologies. In Mike's own terms, "trusting our business to
>>> <a knowledge engineering activity>" is NOT a SemWeb concern.
>>
>> Wrong; this is exactly what some people are aiming to do. Nokia phones
>> already trust their business to SWeb knowledge engineering, for (one)
>> example.
>
> So Nokia phones run some OWL/DL-based app that does something useful?
> They run some K-E app that uses the Web in making decisions? They run
> some K-E app that talks to Nokia servers, or telcomm servers, to make
> decisions? What does "trust their business to SWeb knowledge
> engineering" mean?
>
> When I use a K-E app to assign people and machines to tasks that
> directly affect revenue, I'm trusting my business to that app. When I
> use a K-E app to help choose a medical treatment, by eliminating ones
> that inferentially don't apply, I'm trusting more than my business to
> that app. But neither of those apps has any clear relationship to the
> Web.
>
>> I don't mean here to defend SWeb progress or technologies, only to set
>> the record straight on what the SWeb project is trying to do.
>
> I did mean to defend OWL/DL, because it is very useful for the purpose
> of document markup and much of the inferencing used in document search.
> That it may be much less useful for other K-E activities that are
> called "Semantic Web" activities by a broadening of the term is not a
> problem with the technology; it is a problem with creating erroneous
> expectations.
>
> If the "SWeb project" is now the umbrella for all knowledge engineering
> (which I believe is the case), the class "semantic web technology" has
> no useful common characteristics. And we all need to understand that
> some "SemWeb technologies" will be perceived as useless or misguided by
> people who have a different KE problem.
>
> I have watched very intelligent people run around painting their roses
> the funding color of the year for 30 years. They end up competing with
> a bunch of illiterate moneygrubbers with paper roses, because they won't
> agree to a criterion that would eliminate paper roses, if it might also
> eliminate old wood. And I believe "semantic Web" is now in that state.
>
> We are seeing, and will see more, apps that speak to other remote apps
> in their operating environment and use the knowledge thus gained, with
> inferencing technologies, to make decisions about working cooperatively
> toward shared and diverse goals. These things have nothing to do with
> the Web per se, and they need standards to know what constructs mean
> ("semantics"), but they have everything to do with knowledge sharing and
> decision making. And we are inventing terms like SmartCars and
> SmartGrid and SmartBuilding to describe these technologies. They may
> document their XML schemas using OWL information models, but the
> decision technologies are rules engines -- classical k-e with modern
> communications and processing speeds. Their apostles do not call them
> "semantic Web" technologies; they have no need to.
>
> -Ed
>
> --
> Edward J. Barkmeyer Email: edbark@xxxxxxxx
> National Institute of Standards & Technology
> Manufacturing Systems Integration Division
> 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263 Tel: +1 301-975-3528
> Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263 FAX: +1 301-975-4694
>
> "The opinions expressed above do not reflect consensus of NIST,
> and have not been reviewed by any Government authority."
>
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