Happy Turkey
Day Everyone!
John Sowa wrote:
1. Why aren't mainstream IT and web sites using
ontologies?
A small number are using Dublin Core. Beyond that, a
few companies have proprietary ontologies for their own use. Although
there probably are some that use ontologies to interchange data, the vast
majority are doing everything they need to do with XML messages, and don’t
get anything extra from an ontology that XML can’t provide with far more
supporting infrastructure.
Consider two business partners that exchange data. For
example, a lender and a title company. All they care about exchanging is
information about the property getting the loan. All additional ontology structuring
is irrelevant. They certainly wouldn’t want to use the SAME
ontology because they are in different businesses and have different
concerns. The only ontology they would care about relates to properties
on which they lend, and not on concerns about the definition of a field or
river or mountain.
2. Google, Microsoft, IBM, and other major
corporations are
well aware of the SW tools,
but they don't use them. Why?
The only realistic answer, IMHO, is that they don’t see
any advantage in ontologies that they don’t already have in more
maintainable forms of SQL and XML.
Google, for example, interfaces with consumers running search
and with advertisers tracking consumers and their wants. Consumers won’t
recognize arcane ontologies, and wouldn’t care about them if they
did. They want what they want by the name(s) they are used to and they
certainly don’t want to have to learn irrelevant concepts instead of
finding the right place on the web.
Consider how Yahoo, with its taxonomic ontology (I use that
term loosely) has fallen way behind Google, with its far simpler word and
phrase search. Google may use more sophisticated methods behind the
scene, but they don’t burden the consumer with it.
3. What is missing from our tools, techniques,
and logics?
Practical value, ease of use, simplification like that used
by Google, yet not pressed into the consumers’ faces.
4. What methods work in mainstream development?
Software engineering, including HTML, SQL, XML, and focused
development to meet specific requirements, increment by increment. What
extra value does ontology bring, if any? (Prefaced with: very little demonstrated
ontology value beyond Dublin Core has been seen in the industry).
5. Instead of telling mainstream developers to
adopt our methods,
perhaps we should adapt our
methods to theirs. But how?
As David suggested, create a few simple, very small
ontologies like Dublin Core for other common interchange needs – though I
have no idea what those needs might be. The OForum has only discussed
enormous ontologies with the whole world involved in them, and has insisted on philosophically
orthodox structures instead of on ontologies with specific narrow value that
can make some difference quickly, as David suggested.
-Rich
Sincerely,
Rich Cooper
EnglishLogicKernel.com
Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
9 4 9 \ 5 2 5 - 5 7 1 2
-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John F Sowa
Sent: Thursday, November 22, 2012 6:02 AM
To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Webby objects
On 11/21/2012 12:05 PM, Peter Yim wrote:
> just so we are clear ... ONTOLOG (a.k.a. Ontolog
Forum)
> is a community of practice...
>
> Therefore, we don't do standards here
I'm *not* proposing a new standard. We already have
lots of standards.
What I am proposing is that we ask some fundamental
questions. The
basic question is "Why aren't practitioners using
ontologies?"
The WWW grew very rapidly without any standards.
Tim B-L put together
some good ideas in a very fruitful combination, and
the growth curve
for the WWW was exponential. There was no need
to promote it --
people jumped on the bandwagon as soon as they saw it.
Instead of promoting anything or standardizing anything,
I believe
we should be asking some soul-searching questions:
1. Why aren't mainstream IT and web sites using
ontologies?
2. Google, Microsoft, IBM, and other major
corporations are
well aware of the SW tools,
but they don't use them. Why?
3. What is missing from our tools, techniques,
and logics?
4. What methods work in mainstream development?
5. Instead of telling mainstream developers to
adopt our methods,
perhaps we should adapt our
methods to theirs. But how?
In addition to the questions, we should also discuss
ideas about
new directions and approaches that might lead to
answers.
John
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