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Re: [ontolog-forum] ISO merged ontology effort "MCO"

To: "'[ontolog-forum] '" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "Patrick Cassidy" <pat@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2009 23:32:53 -0400
Message-id: <009f01c9bfd6$5bc9ace0$135d06a0$@com>
Ron:
> 
> If you don't want to do it with this group, say so and quit harping on
> it. Find a group that you think is sufficiently visionary to help you
> put together the proposal.
>    (01)

I will be happy to build a common foundation ontology with any group, and in
the absence of contributions from others I am myself building the COSMO so
that I will have an ontology with a structure that allows me to test its
adequacy as a set of fundamental concept representations that can be used to
create representations of any other more specialized concept.  The COSMO, in
its latest version, is available online and is open to addition of any basic
concept that anyone thinks is missing, and I welcome contributions,
modifications, and corrections; the only inclusion criterion is that
concepts added should be non-redundant and logically consistent with the
existing content - if not, there has to be a discussion of which is more
appropriate to the purpose.  Specialized concepts that can be represented as
combinations of the basic concepts can be included in an extension.  I
invite anyone with an interest in creating a foundation ontology that can
serve to promote interoperability to join in the effort.  The COSMO is free
to use, as are SUMO and OpenCyc, but the COSMO is intended to include
contributions from any interested source, and that differs from the SUMO and
Cyc development models.    (02)

The problem is, there is a great deal of work that needs to be done by a lot
of people to create a broadly usable foundation ontology, including building
non-trivial applications that use the ontology both for domain applications
and for interoperability. But we know from the experience of the past dozen
years that that cannot happen without serious funding.  We also know that
even the creation of a consortium to apply for the funding is highly
unlikely unless there is some encouragement from a funding source that such
a proposal would be seriously considered.  No such encouragement has yet
been detected, and that is where the formal proposal is stuck.  If anyone is
nevertheless willing to help write a formal proposal without any evidence
that such a proposal actually has a chance of funding, please let me know
and I will be happy to work on it together.    (03)

The ontology itself cannot be built on a wiki.  The ontology has to be
coherent, non-redundant, and logically consistent, so there has to be
central control by some person or control committee.  There may be useful
discussions that can be held in a wiki, but I am reluctant to hold such a
discussion with myself in that manner, and must await serious interest from
others before employing that method.    (04)

In the various posts I have mentioned in parts the rationale, goals and
methods for the FO project.  At some point I will collect those into a more
organized presentation.  But until it appears that such an effort will have
some useful purpose, I am focusing my own work on building the ontology that
I think will help shed light on what I consider a seriously interesting
question about the fundamental nature of symbolic information: are all
concepts people use based on some small set of primitives, or not?  I
believe that a positive answer would provide us with the method for
achieving semantic interoperability in the most efficient manner.    (05)

Pat    (06)

Patrick Cassidy
MICRA, Inc.
908-561-3416
cell: 908-565-4053
cassidy@xxxxxxxxx    (07)




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