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Re: [ontolog-forum] Some Grand Challenge proposal ironies

To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
From: Kingsley Idehen <kidehen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 25 Nov 2011 12:05:50 -0500
Message-id: <4ECFCAEE.1050402@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
On 11/25/11 10:43 AM, Brand Niemann wrote:
> My work on a Federated Model:
> http://semanticommunity.info/Build_DoD_in_the_Cloud/Enterprise_Information_W
> eb_for_Semantic_Interoperability_at_DoD/Spotfire_Data_Federation    (01)

What could be quite empowering re. Spotfire is the use of ODBC to 
achieve the following:    (02)

1. a single connection to tables exposed by a plethora of ODBC data 
sources names -- basically ODBC / JDBC level federation
2. use of the above as the basis for generating transient and/or 
materialized Linked Data views.    (03)

On our side, Virtuoso already handles the above. In addition, via ODBC, 
you can execute SPARQL queries against the LOD cloud or any other Linked 
Data mesh :-)    (04)


Kingsley
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Cory Casanave
> Sent: Wednesday, October 26, 2011 5:03 PM
> To: steve.ray@xxxxxxxxxx; [ontolog-forum]
> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Some Grand Challenge proposal ironies
>
> Ray,
> An area of interest to me and many of our clients is solving the information
> federation problem.  The problem needs no introduction to the mainstream
> I.T. community as problems associated with information federation cost
> lives, productivity and billions of dollars a year. They may call it the
> "data problem", data integration, "master data", application integration or
> a few other names - but the problem remains the same, understanding and
> using data from independently conceived resources together.  Often this
> involves using data for purposes outside of its original design intent.
>
> While this is well established as a use-case for Ontologies there are
> certainly other use cases as well.  The concerns of information federation
> are not the same as the concerns of these other ontology use cases (such as
> proof) and this may result in differences in ontological approach,
> languages, tooling and even theories.  Federated data is inherently
> distributed, uncoordinated, messy and conflicting - yet there is value in
> leveraging these disparate data resources in a more unified way.  It is not
> always clear how "neat" solutions work in this unstructured world, yet the
> very "scruffy" solutions seem to be insufficient. Discussions of this
> problem that involve, for example, the OWL, Linked Data and Common Logic
> communities result in theoretical and sometimes religious wars that can and
> have frightened potential consumers of the technology away.
>
> A position of the community on this question could help the application of
> ontologies, ontological tooling and ontological approaches to this important
> problem.
>
> Regards,
> Cory Casanave
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Steve Ray
> Sent: Tuesday, October 25, 2011 1:34 AM
> To: '[ontolog-forum] '
> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Some Grand Challenge proposal ironies
>
> I'm a little concerned that this Ontology Chemistry theme is more of a grand
> project/product proposal rather than a topic for consensus and articulation
> of a position on the part of the ontology community, which is the nature of
> the Ontology Summit.
>
> Steven R. Ray, Ph.D.
> Distinguished Research Fellow
> Carnegie Mellon University
> NASA Research Park
> Building 23 (MS 23-11)
> P.O. Box 1
> Moffett Field, CA 94305-0001
> Email:    steve.ray@xxxxxxxxxx
> Phone: (650) 587-3780
> Cell:      (202) 316-6481
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Christopher
> Spottiswoode
> Sent: Friday, October 21, 2011 11:37 AM
> To: [ontolog-forum]
> Subject: [ontolog-forum] Some Grand Challenge proposal ironies
>
> All,
>
> Here are the first questions I imagined as your very valid responses to my
> post introducing the notion of "Ontology Chemistry" as the basis of a Grand
> Challenge that I am asserting will revolutionize Software Engineering (SE).
> (That post is now archived at
> http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/2011-10/msg00088.html .)
>
> Q1:  On the wiki at
> http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?OntologySummit/Suggestions the
> target you propose for a Grand Challenge is a bootstrap for an intended new
> ecosystem.  Presumably that involves producing a programmed product?
>
> A:  Yes indeed, that's the basic starter platform.  It's that initial or
> seed "Application Operating System" (or AOS) I've already introduced on this
> forum at odd times.
>
> Q2:  But why make a Grand Challenge of what is normally an in-house product
> development?  (It even seems to have started out as one?)
>
> A:  (Yes it did, and I've already done some significant C coding for it in a
> win32 environment.)  The Challenge answer starts on slide 21 of the X Prize
> presentation referred to on the Ontolog page you've just cited.
> These are the first questions for anyone trying to design a Grand
> Challenge:
>
>> Have you targeted a problem where a market failure exists?
>> Where the normal forces of capitalism will not solve the problem?
>> Does your prize address the underlying market failure?
> Q3:  So the "market failure" you're addressing here is your own?
>
> A:  Though you realize that's not really what they had in mind, yes, that is
> partly the case.  Sure.  But my failure so far has not been in the
> conception of the product or its market.  (Far from it!  To a remarkable
> degree there has for several decades been an ever greater convergence of
> many current trends with the course I've long been embarked on.)  No, my
> failure has primarily been in not having been able to sell the still
> productless idea to colleagues as possible collaborators, despite having
> tried on the web from time to time since 1996.
>
> But that failure is for quite objective reasons too. Anybody can relate to
> the suggestion that one notion can be said to underlie the need side of the
> universal market I claim to be addressing:  complexity.
> Complexity and our continual disasters as we fail to handle it
> appropriately.  Surely we can better broach and deal with the given
> complexity of reality?  There's no need to wax all philosophical about it
> either, because it's commonly a very real and pressing problem in our
> everyday social and individual lives, as it is in our SE domain.
> "Complexity" was even the title of Chapter 1 of the 1994 book, Object
> Oriented Analysis and Design with Applications, by Grady Booch of the Three
> Amigos behind UML.  But naming the problem is not solving it.
>
> So it is probably rather misguidedly that I have long tried to describe the
> objective of the proposed product as "to help people simplify
> complexity together".   Depending on whom I'm talking to, it has
> unfailingly fallen flat and - I imagine - been generally dismissed as either
> useless clichi or abstract mystification.
>
> In such ways I have been trying rather ham-handedly for some years to find
> others to join in on the project. But after all it's no surprise:
> that elephant seems so gigantic, the basic reality is so horrendous, so any
> project facing up to it has to be deemed incredible, tantamount to "boiling
> the ocean", probably delusional, and at least "impractical for us".  Lesser
> obstacles have been NIH, and my still too idiosyncratic depictions of the
> concept and project.
>
> More interestingly, there's also a rather fundamental and inescapable bug in
> the whole notion (though we'll be accepting it as an important feature of
> the proposed new scene too): evolution in general suboptimizes with merely
> stepwise improvements.  And here I am, proposing that we try to leap that
> canyon?
>
> Q4:  So the idea of a Grand Challenge is to dare to leap the Grand Canyon?
>
> You could put it that way.
>
> Q5.  But then surely it is indeed delusional to try?
>
> It would seem so.  So my next posts will be immeasurably more positive.
> The "phenomenon of knowledge" throughout our past shows us how we might in
> future more confidently and appropriately grasp the nettle of complexity.
>
> Widespread present SE market failures also provide useful perspectives, as
> well as opportunities for leapfrogging many serious obstacles in the present
> Internet-based SE ecosystems.
>
> All that background will be handy for an enumeration of many possible
> arguments to use when approaching potential funders.
>
> Then with such bogeymen less feared, we can start getting down to the
> relevant detail of the proposed new architecture and AOS.  More detailed and
> appealing outlines of the suggested Grand Challenge will emerge.
>
> Christopher
>
>
>
>
>
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--     (06)

Regards,    (07)

Kingsley Idehen 
Founder&  CEO
OpenLink Software
Company Web: http://www.openlinksw.com
Personal Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen
Twitter/Identi.ca handle: @kidehen
Google+ Profile: https://plus.google.com/112399767740508618350/about
LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kidehen    (08)

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