Okay, let me try to summarize. Everybody, please let me know if I
misrepresented your position. (01)
We are discussing the scope of the OOR, thus the minimal requirements an
ontology has to meet. (02)
Peter Yim and Ravi Sharma suggest the following:
(i) the ontology is based on open standards AND
(ii) an ontology that is created and maintained in a cooperative process
that is, in principle, open to everybody who wants to participate AND
(iii) an ontology that is created and maintained in a transparent
process AND
(iv) the ontology is accessible to all who can be identified or
authenticated (at least Read only) AND
(v) the ontology is available under a license that includes virtually no
restrictions on the use and distribution of the ontology. (03)
[I assume that a standard is considered to be "open" if and only if it
meets analogs of criteria (ii)-(v), FN] (04)
Matthew West objects to (v).
Pat Hayes objects to (ii) and (iii). (05)
It seems to me that this discussion won't be resolved easily. If nobody
objects, I will put it on the list of topics to be discussed on the
Ontological Summit during the "Quality and Gatekeeping" section. (06)
Best
Fabian (07)
Pat Hayes wrote:
> At 12:09 AM +0000 3/15/08, <matthew.west@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> Dear Pat,
>>
>>
>>> The first. Only the ISO has this absurd policy of
>>> charging cash for standards;
>>>
>> MW: There are others.
>>
>> MW: But lets be precise about this. The problem has its
>> roots in ISO essentially seeing itself as a publishing house.
>> That at least is how it gets its income. The up side is that it
>> does not charge to participate in standards development. Try the
>> OMG charges if you want to see how much that can be, even if
>> their specs are free to users (or W3C for that matter).
>>
>
> I don't see why that matters, in the case of ontologies. The process
> that gave rise to ontology is really not of any relevance: what
> matters is the final product and the ability to use it. That is what
> we should be focused upon.
>
>
>> MW: Now I think that ISO is outdated in thinking like this, and
>> many of us are trying to persuade them to change, but that is
>> still the current situation.
>>
>> MW: Now, in ISO TC184/SC4 we have managed to get dispensation
>> to make all the computer interpretable stuff, i.e. what you need
>> to implement the standard. So suppose someone makes their
>> OWL ontology available free, but then publishes a book through
>> a publisher (who naturally charges for it) explaining its use.
>> How would you see that?
>>
>
> If the same source published the book and the ontology, and if the
> book was the only 'manual' or documentation available, I think this
> would be close to inadmissible, and certainly bad practice. The issue
> here is not charging for the book, but withholding what should be
> part of the openly accessible ontology itself.
>
>
>> How would that be different from what
>> ISO TC 184/SC4 does.
>>
>>
>>> moreover, I would
>>> not say that Matthew's interpretation of 'open'
>>> is universally accepted. The W3C is not open in
>>> this sense, for example.
>>>
>> MW: Indeed I would certainly NOT see W3C as open. This concerned
>> some enough that they moved to OASIS.
>>
>
> But the results of the W3C process are openly available to anyone
> without any payment, which for standard adoption is surely the main
> point. Agencies pay a membership fee to join the W3C, but that makes
> sense to me: parties that are interested enough to want to influence
> a standard for commercial reasons tend to be those that can easily
> afford such membership fees. And the process is 'open' in the sense
> of being conducted in public: all the email archives, minutes of
> meetings. etc. are publicly available and archived.
>
>
>>> >Is the OOR supposed restricted to ontologies that are developed in an
>>> >open process and come with very light weight copyright
>>> licenses (e.g. *
>>> >*Creative Commons Attribution )?
>>>
>>> Certainly the latter. Lets take a stand on this.
>>> It does not eliminate ISO participation, but it
>>> does require them to make any relevant standards
>>> freely available. They can do this, and have done
>>> it in the past.
>>>
>> MW: Indeed, see above.
>>
>>
>>> Putting something into the OOR
>>> should make it automatically available for access
>>> and use without restriction; like the GNU
>>> licences, it should not permit other copyright
>>> restrictions to be 'passed through' its open
>>> policy.
>>>
>>> >Or is OOR open for all ontologies that are developed in an
>>> open process
>>> >regardless of their copyright license?
>>> >Would the OOR be open for ontologies that are developed and
>>> maintained
>>> >by a group of people who don't want to participate in an open process
>>> >but are willing to publish their ontology as a freely
>>> available resource
>>> >for the community?
>>>
>>> I have no problem with that part. We should
>>> permit ontologies that were constructed by one
>>> person in total privacy, or written on stone
>>> tablets by God, as long as they are freely
>>> available for public use without restriction.
>>> This is what 'open' means in 'open cyc', for
>>> example.
>>>
>> MW: I think the lack of an open process is a problem
>>
>
> Why? If someone writes a useful ontology, or one is developed by a
> small team, what possible harm can there be in making this publicly
> available?
>
>
>> ,
>> but I'm actually prepared to be more permissive.
>> For most of these issues above, I think the most
>> important thing is to be clear about what the
>> situation is. So there is a clear statement as to
>> whether:
>> - There is an open process for development
>> - How much do you have to pay to participate in that process?
>> - What is free, and what is not, and how much that is
>>
>> MW: I do not suffer from the illusion that there are
>> no costs in developing an ontology. The only real
>> question is what is the business model?
>> - pay to join the development organization
>> - donate own time and resources to contribute
>> - sell services based on deliverables
>> - pay for deliverables
>> - ...
>>
>> MW: In fact what I dislike most are the organizations
>> that charge for membership to participate in development.
>>
>
> Well, in defense of the W3C, it has managed to extract a quite
> remarkable amount of participation from me without my paying a red
> cent. On the other hand, I havn't been paid a red cent, either.
>
> Pat
> (08)
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