It seems that the majority of the opinions expressed (whether that is
true indication of truth is not settled) seems to be that a single
foundation ontology seems highly problematic for various reasons:
1) Political
2) Practical
3) Budget not there for another attempt
4) Less than stellar success or acceptance of previous attempts. (01)
On the other hand, it would not be out of place to to start to outline
how such a project could work. The Wiki would be a good place to
document some of the possible approaches (budget, potential sponsoring
agencies, organizational alternatives, technology requirements,
alignment with the ontology repository project goals ) and the
objections that might be raised by funding agencies or prospective users. (02)
Ron (03)
Patrick Cassidy wrote:
> There is one problem I have with this effort at using ontologies to help
> define or organize standards; there is as yet no standard for an ontology
> that has a enough content to actually represent all the things that the
> non-ontology standards talk about. Apart from the droll situation of a
> community without a standard trying to formalize the knowledge of
> communities with a standard, there is the practical question of whether we
> intend to recommend one foundation ontology as the basis for the
> formalization, or take a hands-off position and let a thousand incompatible
> flowers bloom? I don't recall whether there is a consensus on this point.
>
> As you know, I feel strongly that getting some agreement among at least one
> large user community on the content of *some* foundation ontology should be
> a very high priority objective until it is accomplished, regardless of how
> often we have talked about it. Other tasks are IMHO at least secondary, and
> perhaps dependent on the first.
>
> 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 Michael Gruninger
>> Sent: Monday, February 09, 2009 4:38 PM
>> To: [ontolog-forum]
>> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] standard ontology
>>
>> Hi Pat,
>>
>> I see the following tasks and questions as being in the scope of the
>> upcoming Ontology Summit
>> Towards Ontology-based Standards:
>>
>> - Design ontologies that formalize concepts within existing standards
>>
>> - Ontological analysis of existing standards (i.e. identify potential
>> problems
>> and semantic ambiguities) and the subsequent use of ontologies to
>> reengineer existing standards
>>
>> - Can existing ontologies be used to support the integration of
>> existing
>> standards?
>> If not, what ontologies are needed?
>>
>> - What ontologies should we be designing to lay the foundations for
>> emerging standards
>> and standards that are are currently under development?
>>
>> The standards within this scope are often in specific industrial
>> domains
>> (e.g. STEP and other SC4 standards) rather than the upper-level arena.
>> On the other hand, OMG efforts such as SVBR would also be in the scope,
>> and these are more general.
>>
>> - michael
>>
>>
>> Pat Hayes wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Umm... I am confused (and I apologize for missing the telecon that
>>> might have unconfused me.) The topic for the current Summit mixes the
>>> topics of 'ontology' and 'standards'. But this can be understood in
>>> several rather different ways.
>>>
>>> (1) Using ontologies as a tool in the business of writing standards.
>>> Here, 'writing standards' is a broadly conceived topic area, and the
>>> standards might refer to almost anything. For example, someone might
>>> argue that the business of writing standards for future high-speed
>>>
>> USB
>>
>>> communication protocols would benefit from the participants writing
>>> and using ontologies, or perhaps a particular ontology.
>>>
>>> (2) Defining, or approaching the definition of, a standard ontology.
>>> This would presumably be some variety of 'unified upper level' or
>>> 'comprehensive' ontology, or perhaps a collection of related
>>> ontologies, etc.., of the kind developed as part of the Cyc project
>>>
>> or
>>
>>> the SUMO effort, or as proposed by Pat Cassidy or Azamat in previous
>>> postings.
>>>
>>> (3) Standardizing the business of writing ontologies themselves. This
>>> would presumably link with our previous focus on ontology
>>> repositories, where a strong theme emerged of "quality control" for
>>> ontologies, and several nascent ontology-writing methodologies, or at
>>> least collections of good-practice rules and maxims, seemed to be
>>> visible in the general intellectual murk.
>>>
>>> If I follow Azamat and Ravi's messages, below, they seem (?) to be
>>> talking about (2), but I'm not sure that this is the intended
>>> interpretation for the Summit.
>>>
>>> Pater, can you confirm/clarify?
>>>
>>> Pat Hayes
>>>
>>>
>>
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