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Re: [ontolog-forum] standard ontology

To: "[ontolog-forum] " <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "Conklin, Don" <don.conklin@xxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 13:52:55 -0700
Message-id: <D17FEEBBEC904A4893DAD46D94AE1CC30E398957@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Pat,    (01)

I was actually trying to sidestep the issue of the practicality of the
FO itself. Having worked with ontologies since my DAML days, I see the
few enterprises that dabble in this area taking a vertical approach to
ontology development. That is, a rich lower level representation and a
sparse higher level representation.     (02)

There are not a lot of people who understand the problems, perhaps
intractable, in developing a universally acceptable higher level
ontology. As philosophically satisfying as it might be to think that
such a thing could be created (and I am highly skeptical that could be)
I suspect the bottom up approach will prevail, even though it may take
longer and cost more than the top down approach. Commercialization of a
technology presupposes a large group of people competent in its
application to real world problems.    (03)

I do agree that accurate extraction of structured data from unstructured
text using natural language understanding based on semantic technologies
represents an attractive domain of ubiquitous interest.     (04)

As a Russian general one said "Better is the enemy of good enough." I
think ontologies will be applied pragmatically for the things they do
better than say relational DBs. Over time some standardization may
evolve as a core of a higher ontology. I just don't think it's going to
get any prettier than that.     (05)

Show me a compelling business case and I'll advocate it as best I can.     (06)

Don Conklin
Lockheed Martin, ISGS-Defense
Virginia Beach, VA
1+757-675-5947    (07)


-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Patrick
Cassidy
Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2009 3:34 PM
To: '[ontolog-forum] '
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] standard ontology    (08)

Don,
  I agree that initial adoption outside of the user community created by
funding the initial project is likely to be slow, until some publicly
testable interesting applications are developed.  My best guess is that
some
degree of language understanding will the first application to pique
interest.  When it becomes clear that ontologies are useful locally, and
even more useful to enable semantic interoperability, I would expect an
accelerating pace of adoption, helped by utilities, books on the topic,
university IT departments starting to teach the technique, etc.    (09)

I don't know how long all this will take, but I do feel confident that
by
not directly creating  an FO with a wide user community, the achievement
of
semantic interoperability will be a lot slower.    (010)

Pat    (011)

Patrick Cassidy
MICRA, Inc.
908-561-3416
cell: 908-565-4053
cassidy@xxxxxxxxx    (012)


> -----Original Message-----
> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-
> bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Conklin, Don
> Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2009 3:07 PM
> To: [ontolog-forum]
> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] standard ontology
> 
> Commercial organizations do not typically look much beyond the next
> fiscal quarter. The FO would have to offer immediate financial benefit
> to gain funding support. Aside from the various objections to the FO,
> even if one were to appear, its adoption would proceed at a glacial
> pace. This is because the legions of ontology developers don't yet
> exist
> to apply the technology to the domains the corporations work in
> (biomedical and certain government orgs excepted). Also, the
supporting
> applications and products are not known or trusted by the commercial
> world. (Let's not quibble about some vendors that claim semantic
> capabilities.) No one, especially corporations, are eager to step away
> from millions already invested in COTS solutions that work today. The
> large figures of savings quoted in  earlier emails boil down to much
> smaller figures for individual companies. Show my company how the FO
> will save them millions in the next two-three quarters without adverse
> impact and they might express interest.
> 
> Don Conklin
> Lockheed Martin, ISGS-Defense
> Virginia Beach, VA
> 1+757-675-5947
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Patrick
> Cassidy
> Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2009 2:12 PM
> To: edbark@xxxxxxxx; '[ontolog-forum] '
> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] standard ontology
> 
> >
> > Patrick Cassidy wrote:
> >
> > > What do you think that people *would* use that would provide them
> > accurate
> > > semantic interoperability?
> >
> > The ontology they developed.
> >
> > -Ed
> >
> > --
> > Edward J. Barkmeyer                        Email: edbark@xxxxxxxx
> [[PC]] If that is the case, then you are asserting that the only
people
> who
> would use a FO for interoperability are those who participate in its
> development.  I agree that that is what is true **at the present
time**,
> and
> that is the reason that a user community can only be developed quickly
> by
> funding it.  Over time, after publicly available applications
> demonstrate
> its utility, I would then expect it to attract users who did not
> participate
> in its development.
> 
> Without funding an FO community, I expect we will get a widely used FO
> eventually, but only after having wasted many billions in efficiency
> loss,
> and spent even more than 30M trying less functional alternatives.
> 
> Pat
> 
> 
> Patrick Cassidy
> MICRA, Inc.
> 908-561-3416
> cell: 908-565-4053
> cassidy@xxxxxxxxx
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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