Thank you very much, John. (01)
YES, I agree! ... (rather than just talking about it) getting started
is the key. (02)
> JG>> How do I find out what "an Ontology Repository that federates with
> >> the OOR" means and how I can achieve it? (Has this been discussed
> >> in one of the sessions, or is it a topic for discussion?)
>
> PPY> I guess some developer has to "create" it first ... and then
> > administrators/stewards/users of "ontologies" will be able to
> > leverage those capabilities.
>
> [JFS] I believe the subscribers to this list can begin that development
> very soon with a modest amount of resources. In the initial stages,
> it could be a *virtual* repository, which would contain metadata about
> and pointers to various resources stored on other web sites. (03)
[ppy] Through the effort of the OOR team (which began in Jan-2008)
members, and contributions from NCBO, Stanford, CIM3, BBN,
Northeastern, Toronto and other members of that team, we are actually
further along that some folks might realize. The exchange cited above
between JG (John Graybeal of the MMI Project) and PPY (myself, Peter
Yim) was actually in reference to the "federation" capability of an
OOR. (04)
I waited a whole week to respond to you, John, because I hope I can
have something specific to point everyone to ... (and they're just
out) (05)
I would like to draw everyone's attention to the OOR-related
announcement I just posted
at: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/oor-forum/2010-02/msg00007.html (06)
... please join us in testing out the OOR-sandbox, and come to the
upcoming three panel sessions, to find out where things stand, and
help influence how the OOR project will proceed. (07)
> [JFS] ... require a small amount of storage space, and it could be
> started on the same web site used for ontolog forum. The initial
> work would involve the development of the metadata for relating
> ontologies to one another and to lexical resources that relate the
> categories of an ontology to the terms in natural languages.
>
> We would also develop guidelines for reviewing ontologies and
> case studies about how they have been used, including both
> successes and failures. As time goes on, it could evolve from
> a virtual repository to a physical repository with a full-time
> staff, a larger budget, and systematic procedures for acquiring,
> developing, and maintaining ontologies. (08)
[ppy] Recognizing that not all ontology formats are supported so far
(e.g. Michael Gruninger and his team's work on COLORE and CL support
is still at an early stage) ... therefore, John's suggestion of just
registering the relevant metadata and documenting finding and insights
on the wiki is a great idea (while software development work
progresses in parallel.) I will be more than (09)
As for metadata that needs to be captured, a prime candidate for the
OOR work (adoption to use and extend from) is the OMV (Ontology
Metadata Vocabulary) which PeterHaase/Karlsruhe has authored (ref.
http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConferenceCall_2008_04_10 &
http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?OntologySummit2008_Communique#nid1GWH
). (010)
Please continue this dialog on the list asynchronously, so we can have
something to bring up for real-time discussion at the Thu 2010.03.25
OOR "Content" panel session (especially on how we could make use of
the OOR infrastructure that is becoming available.) ... Volunteers to
provide their ontologies, concrete suggestions and candidate action
plans welcome! (011)
Thanks again, John. (012)
Regards. =ppy
-- (013)
On Sun, Feb 7, 2010 at 8:03 AM, John F. Sowa <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Dear Matthew and Peter,
>
> I'd like to comment on some points that Matthew made in this thread and
> Peter made in a different thread. And I'd like to combine my comments
> with parts of two previous notes I sent to this thread (copies below).
>
> MW> It depends what you think an FO is, which seems to be one of the
> > questions that need to be settled still. However, I don't think it
> > reasonable to expect to develop a single ontology that everyone will
> > sign up to.
>
> I agree. That is the goal of a proposal I outlined in the first note
> copied below and elaborated in the second one.
>
> JG>> How do I find out what "an Ontology Repository that federates with
> >> the OOR" means and how I can achieve it? (Has this been discussed
> >> in one of the sessions, or is it a topic for discussion?)
>
> PPY> I guess some developer has to "create" it first ... and then
> > administrators/stewards/users of "ontologies" will be able to
> > leverage those capabilities.
>
> I believe the subscribers to this list can begin that development
> very soon with a modest amount of resources. In the initial stages,
> it could be a *virtual* repository, which would contain metadata about
> and pointers to various resources stored on other web sites.
>
> That would require a small amount of storage space, and it could be
> started on the same web site used for ontolog forum. The initial
> work would involve the development of the metadata for relating
> ontologies to one another and to lexical resources that relate the
> categories of an ontology to the terms in natural languages.
>
> We would also develop guidelines for reviewing ontologies and
> case studies about how they have been used, including both
> successes and failures. As time goes on, it could evolve from
> a virtual repository to a physical repository with a full-time
> staff, a larger budget, and systematic procedures for acquiring,
> developing, and maintaining ontologies.
>
> John (014)
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Foundation ontology, CYC, and Mapping
> Date: Fri, 05 Feb 2010 02:00:51 -0500
>
> Before getting into the details of what I've been arguing against, I'll
> summarize what I've been arguing for in many notes over the years:
>
> 1. A loosely axiomatized hierarchy of categories (predicates,
> relations, functions, types, or whatever they're called in the
> version of logic that is being used). Those categories may be
> associated with lexical resources such as WordNet, Longman's
> "primitives", Anna Wierzbicka's "primitives", Roget's Thesaurus,
> or many other resources that have been or will be developed.
>
> 2. For any particular application, more detailed axioms are needed
> to support precise reasoning. Those axioms are organized in
> small, modular theories (or 'microtheories' in Cyc's sense).
> Those theories can be related in a finite hierarchy (of which
> the infinite lattice is the theoretical extension).
>
> 3. All the resources in #1 and #2 are stored in a repository,
> with all the documentation, case studies, testimonials for
> and against, stored with them. All the relations that Ali
> proposed for COLORE and any others that anybody else might
> find useful could also be stored with them.
>
> 4. Tools for using, analyzing, relating, combining, testing,
> extending, and editing the term hierarchy and the hierarchy
> of theories should also be developed and made available.
>
> 5. Further additions, extensions, and modifications that anyone
> might invent or implement may be added as time goes by.
>
> I believe that this kind of system could serve the requirements
> that Pat C. would like to achieve, it can accommodate formalized
> versions of theories based on Longman's list, and anybody who
> finds them useful could use them and write testimonials for or
> against them along the lines of point #3 above. But it doesn't
> require anyone to limit their choice to any predetermined set
> of terms (whether primitive or not).
>
> For interoperability, anyone who has stories about successes
> or failures can document them in the repository, and further
> decisions can be based on the accumulated experience....
>
> John (015)
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Foundation ontology, CYC, and Mapping
> Date: Fri, 05 Feb 2010 10:47:46 -0500
>
> Mike,
>
> I agree:
>
> MB> I think it would make sense to set up a structure as you describe
> > and populate it with such terms as can be defined semantically from
> > authoritative industry sources i.e. industry standards, along with
> > annotation of the provenance of those semantics.
>
> The goal would be to "populate" it with any and all resources that
> anyone might make available under a suitable license. SourceForge,
> Wikipedia, and WordNet are three different examples of rich resources
> that were developed with modest levels of funding. The W3C and ISO
> are examples that require more funding, but have a more disciplined
> organization. There are many other organizations and consortiums
> that use various non-profit business models for maintaining resources,
> free, low cost, or high cost.
>
> Instead of $30 million for a 3-year project, I would suggest a more
> modest amount of funding to organize a long-term non-profit organization
> that could accept contributions (of ontologies and funding), vet the
> ontologies and related resources, organize them, and maintain them
> according to guidelines along the lines we have been discussing.
>
> MB> A vital component of this would be change management, such that
> > when the competent authority makes a change or an addition to
> > their semantics, this can be picked up and propagated through the
> > resource and any developments that have made use of this resource.
> > A tall order perhaps, but not as tall as maintaining an isolated
> > huge ontology.
>
> I agree. But we don't have to make it perfect on the first try.
> Getting the resources together would be an important first step.
>
> MB> For the most part such terms would also be more relevant to how
> > information is passed between computers, than something from the
> > broader and fuzzier world of the human language dictionary, I would
> > venture to suggest. They would certainly be simpler.
>
> The organization could include both formal ontologies and lexical
> resources for mapping the formally defined theories to natural
> languages. But it's important to distinguish the two. WordNet
> is often called an ontology, but it's closer to a dictionary
> than to a formal ontology. It's important to clarify the nature
> of the various resources and their interrelationships.
>
> MB> I think a relevant point is that any "widely supported ontology"
> > should be widely supported because it has emerged from industry
> > specialists doing real work (like [Matthew's] work at Shell) and
> > not because some group of clever ontologists have got some funding
> > and gone off and done some ontology and then worked to get it widely
> > supported. In other words, the semantics would be widely supported
> > to begin with.
>
> My preference is to let the users "vote with their feet." All the
> contributed ontologies would be organized in a hierarchy. Each one
> would have statistics, documentation, and reviews about how it was
> being used and the results obtained. Nothing would have to be thrown
> away, all versions of all resources would always be available, and
> users could view the collection according to various criteria:
> popularity, reviews, success stories, application domain, etc.
>
> John (016)
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