Sean,
All of your arguments assume that some company or small group of
companies would develop the FO - of course, that would be uneconomical. The
point of having the government fund the development of the FO is that the
benefits are (1) distributed among a very large number of large and small
applications nationwide; and (2) larger as the number of users becomes
larger. (01)
You could also argue that no company can benefit from building an interstate
highway. That is the nature of infrastructure. (02)
Pat (03)
Patrick Cassidy
MICRA, Inc.
908-561-3416
cell: 908-565-4053
cassidy@xxxxxxxxx (04)
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-
> bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Sean Barker
> Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2009 11:22 AM
> To: Ontolog-Forum-Bounces
> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] standard ontology
>
> In the 90's (?) the phrase "Islands of Integration" went rapidly from
> neologism to cliché, and people tried building integrated
> infrastructures
> and developing corporate data models. This turned out to be far too
> difficult even with a single organization, and we have been left with
> archipelagos of integration. Even sorting out this level of problem is
> likely to keep me gainfully employed until I retire.
>
> >From a practical viewpoint, I would doubt that there is a business
> case for
> building a single standard ontology. Even using traditional data
> exchange/integration techniques:
>
> 1) It was once calculated that if we implemented all the IT projects
> proposed, the benefits would be so great that we could give aeroplanes
> away
> for free and still make a profit - benefit claims are taken with a
> pinch of
> salt.
>
> 2) Any business large enough to invest in a "grand ontology" would be
> managed at a set of independent projects/departments/etc. The marginal
> cost
> of implementing such a system (rather than a point to point solution)
> is
> generally greater than the benefit to any single department, and
> therefore
> it is difficult to get approval at the departmental level. Also, such
> managers are looking for a return on investment of 3 years.
>
> 3) Any business large enough to have lots of departments which could
> benefit
> from corporate investment is so large that these investments only get
> two
> minutes consideration at the levels which make such decisions. This
> sort of
> problem is often too abstract to get the top level buy-in needed to get
> it
> properly financed.
>
> Therefore, I would agree with John that interoperation is generally
> specific
> to a particular domain, but observe that, although the member of
> domains is
> open ended, its often more effective to talk to people than try and
> interoperate across multiple domains. I interact with the company
> purchasing
> system a couple of times a year. The problem I have is not the
> semantics of
> interoperation, but the process - which screen do I start with, and
> what
> values to I type in. The semantic interoperation plan starts with "ask
> someone who has used the system recently", followed by, "ring up
> finance and
> ask which button to press".
>
> Noting some of the comments earlier in the thread, in all these
> interactions, one thing I never need to consider is whether clay or the
> number seven is an individual. Is there any way of positively asserting
> that
> I don't care? (RDF by preference)
>
> Therefore: focused domain ontologies credible. Interoperation between
> different ontologies for the same domain interesting. Grand unified
> ontology
> across domains - most unlikely to get industrial support in the next
> ten
> years.
>
> Sean Barker
> Bristol
>
>
>
> On 11 Feb John Sowa wrote:
> .................................................
>
> Pat H, Pat C, and Ed,
>
> PH> Hardly anyone needs to be able to interoperate with everybody.
>
> PC> ... but a lot of people want to interoperate with a lot of
> > other people,
>
> Actually, we all interoperate with an enormous range of different
> kinds of people -- but usually on very specific domains.
>
> Whenever we drive down a highway, we interoperate with all the
> other drivers on the road according to a well-defined set of
> conventions. Whenever we buy anything at a store, we interoperate
> with people with very different backgrounds on a narrow domain.
>
> EB> Well, yes and no. A lot of people (and more importantly
> > their software) need to interoperate with others in the same
> > domain (= company/industry/profession) and with others in
> > joint activities that cross specific domains.
>
> Every company with more than 2 employees has people who
> specialize in different areas. The financial people working
> for a company have more in common with financial people in
> other companies than they do with the engineers in their
> own company. When you consider sales, legal, maintenance,
> manufacturing, shipping, research, plumbing, air conditioning,
> cafeteria, janitorial, etc., the number of different kinds
> of people we interoperate with every day is enormous. )
>
> Fundamental principles:
>
> 1. Interoperations are nearly always specific to a particular
> domain.
>
> 2. But the number of different domains is open ended, even
> for a single company. (010)
>
> John
>
>
>
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