On Thu Mar 20 2:34 , "John F. Sowa" sent: (01)
>Barry,
>
>Any software that is widely used is always evolving from one version
>to the next. IBM coined the term "functionally stabilized" as a
>euphemism for software that has been declared obsolete and is not
>being maintained. Anything else must be considered work in progress.
>
>Professional software developers make some limited claims in their
>licenses, but usually back up those claims with nothing more than a
>refund of the purchase price. For open source software or ontologies,
>any guarantees are worth exactly as much as the price -- ZERO.
> (02)
BS: The users of OBO Foundry ontologies will tell you that even the minimal
constraints we are imposing are of significant value to them -- they know in
advance at least some things about what they are getting; these constraints are
also providing valuable guidelines for those new to ontology development,
revealed by the growing number of ontologies submitted to the Foundry. (03)
>> My idea is that the OOR gatekeeper function would include basic things like:
>>
>> a guarantee that the ontology has passed certain dynamic tests
>> a guarantee that the ontology is open source
>> a guarantee that the ontology has unique IDs for its terms and acceptable
>> versioning policies
>> a guarantee that the ontology is adequately labeled
>> a guarantee that the ontology has a plurality of users
>
>JS: The gatekeeper should ensure that the contributors have donated the
>ontologies as open source and that they conform to a standard policy
>for versioning and labeling. The metadata should also state which
>tests have been passed and any reviews or comments by users.
>
BS: Agreed (04)
>> The OBO Foundry (http://obofoundry.org\) is working towards a situation where
>> Foundry ontologies will have been peer reviewed for accuracy as
>representations
>> of the corresponding domain; in the even longer run towards a situation where
>> they will be one unique recommended Foundry ontology for each domain
>biomedical
>> domain.
>
JS: >Peer review is important, but the most authoritative peers are users
>who have actually tested the ontologies on practical applications.
> (05)
We are still formalizing our peer review policies, but it is clear that the
majority of those involved in the peer review process will be users. (06)
>For any product, including an ontology, the best recommendations are
>the reviews and reports from users that are recorded in the metadata.
>As the reviews accumulate, prospective users can decide for themselves
>which ontologies are best suited for their purpose(s). (07)
I think democratic ranking (the wisdom of crowds) is indeed valuable for
refrigerators and other similar products. Hence the success of ranking systems
on
eBay and amazon.com. But it is surely of less importance in scientific contexts
-- we would not decide on which interpretation of the equations of quantum
physics to accept by taking a vote of users. Since the OBO Foundry ontologies
are
built by scientists, to support scientific research, it is not clear that they
are to be treated as products. While refrigerator manufacturers may allow
democratic ranking to influence e.g. size and color, they would use other
strategies e.g. in matters of thermodynamics.
BS (08)
>
>
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> (09)
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