Re: [ontology-summit] [Quality] What means "open" in "Open Ontology Repo

[Pat Hayes <phayes@xxxxxxx>]

At 9:17 AM +0000 3/18/08, <matthew.west@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

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> Dear Pat,
> > For clarification, I don't object to (ii) and
> > (iii), but I do think that these should not be required.
> > Insisting on any conditions on the process that gave rise to the
> > ontology adds a considerable burden both to the cost of creating an
> > ontology and to the task of checking its credentials, and is
> > completely irrelevant to the users of the ontology. Very few,
> > if any, extant published ontologies fully meet conditions (ii) and
> > (iii) above. Ontologies are not standards: they are more analogous to
> > pieces of software.  
> MW: I have to disagree with this. Ontologies are much
> more analogous to the specifications that software is made from.
> Standards often form part of that specification, and even user
> requirements are usually agreed amongst the users or their
> representatives. On the other hand I quite agree that few ontologies
> (as far as I know only those developed as data models in ISO like ISO
> 15926) have been developed this way. On the whole, I think it is a
> statement about the maturity of ontology as a discipline that people
> like yourself would consider that an open process for development was
> such a hard thing to achieve in practice. It implies that getting
> consensus at present is hard to impossible.

Its certainly a lot harder (and slower) than just writing the damn thing. Common Logic wouldn't exist now if it had been left to a committee. It got written because I convened a small hand-picked group and we agreed to get it done. My experience, which admittedly may be less extensive than yours, is that this is always how it gets done, in practice: some small subgroup of the committee just gets on with it and gets the thing written. As for 'open process' the openness of the ISO Common Logic process was a joke, whereas the W3C process in fact took place in public, and was strongly influenced by input from many sources (not just within the W3C), actively sought public comments, input from other WGs and so on. Exhausting, in fact.

As for maturity, while you may be right, I don't see any reason why being more mature is likely to produce more consensus on ontological issues. They seem to be permanent and intransigent. This is one reason I see ontologies as being very much more of a pick-your-favorite business than anything like standard-setting. A bazaar rather than a ministry.

Pat

>
> Regards
>
> Matthew West
> Reference Data Architecture and Standards Manager
> Shell International Petroleum Company Limited
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