John: (01)
In response to this one question: (02)
Why do we need ontologies? (03)
Whether correct or not, I usually find a winning statement with the
following in the business world: (04)
1. Business decisions are fuelled/made based upon information!
2. Inference: bad or missing quality information increases the risk of poor
quality business decisions!
a. Areas where ontology work can help with information quality:
b. Relevance - What process does the information support decisions in?
c. Clarity - what does the information really mean?
d. Consistency/compatibility - how do you get information from different
parts of your organization to come together?
e. Search how can you find the information you require? (05)
Duane (06)
On 6/19/09 8:42 PM, "John F. Sowa" <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: (07)
> This forum have addressed many important issues about ontologies:
>
> What is an ontology? What kinds of languages should we use to
> write ontologies? How can we relate different ontologies to
> one another? How can we get money to build bigger and better
> ontologies?
>
> But other important questions haven't received much attention:
>
> Why do we need ontologies? How are current ontologies being used?
> What are the successes and failures of projects that use ontologies?
> How do they compare to the successes and failures of similar projects
> that do not use explicit ontologies?
>
> One very short answer to many of those questions is that ontologies
> are necessary for sharing and interoperability.
>
> But computer systems have been interoperating since the 1950s.
> In fact, the organization named SHARE was founded in the 1950s as
> an IBM user group to share software and promote interoperability.
> Among their results was a library of free open-source software.
> A major SHARE project was the SHARE Operating System (SOS), which
> was a free open-source OS for the IBM 709 and 7090 computers.
>
> So when anybody says that ontologies promote interoperability,
> we must ask two further questions: How? and Why?
>
> To answer them, we have to look at systems that interoperate
> without having an explicit ontology and compare them to systems
> that use an ontology. Then we have to ask what differences
> in approaches, methods, or kinds of problems have led to the
> successes and/or failures.
>
> I recently read an article about another technology that has,
> for many years, been proposed as the salvation of mankind:
>
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8103557.stm
> Fusion falters under soaring costs
>
> The following remark was significant:
>
> Professor Balibar explained: "The most difficult problem is
> the problem of materials. Some time ago I declared that fusion
> is like trying to put the Sun in a box - but we don't know
> how to make the box."
>
> Building a miniature sun on earth is a sexy project that many
> people want to work on. In comparison, building the box sounds
> mundane and boring. But without the box, we can't have the sun.
>
> Something similar is happening with ontology. Everyone wants to
> build a great new ontology. That is a sexy project in comparison
> to the mundane problems of building the boxes and plumbing that
> would make ontologies work in real world systems.
>
> Those mundane problems are critical to the success of any
> ontology project, and we can't ignore them.
>
> John
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
> Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
> Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
> Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
> To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J
> To Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> (08)
--
Sr. Technical Evangelist Adobe Systems
Chair OASIS SOA RM Technical Committee
Manager Adobe LiveCycle ES Developers List (09)
Blog: http://technoracle.blogspot.com
Twitter: duanechaos
Duane¹s World TV: http://www.duanesworldtv.org
Band: http://www.myspace.com/22ndcentury
Author <a
href=²http://technoracle.blogspot.com/2009/05/web-20-architecture-book-is-he
re.html ³>Web 2.0 Architecture</a> (010)
_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J
To Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (011)
|