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Re: [ontolog-forum] [ontology-summit] Suggestions for panelists for our

To: <steve@xxxxxxxxxxx>, "Ontology Summit 2009" <ontology-summit@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "[ontolog-forum] " <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "Christopher Spottiswoode" <cms@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2009 19:53:14 +0200
Message-id: <9BE6870E398C483DB6458FE1086B2B29@Dev>
Steve,    (01)

I've eventually summoned up the courage to propose myself for this 
panel, should you still have a slot open.  Several recent factors have 
come together to trigger my proposition:    (02)

1.  The OAG presence on the list of panelists:  so 'IS Applications' 
seems ok as a topic.    (03)

2.  Ed Barkmeyer's expectant focus on the Model-Driven Architecture 
concept on the Conference Call of March 12, and particularly his comment 
on how the OMG's incarnation of the concept has become "an outrageous 
albatross" despite Richard Soley's excellent intentions.  I myself have 
followed the OMG closely since 1996 and been very public with my 
criticism of their then architecture, particularly of Corba but also of 
UML, the basis of the OMG's MDA.  "Watch UML do a lot of slimming!" I 
had promised on the web in 1997, for when my much more agile MDA 
alternative approach got going (to use words then not yet so current). 
And if you google my quoted phrase you'll also see how - then as now - I 
recoiled from non-application-integrated ontologies...    (04)

So, more positively:    (05)

3.  I have recently implied on Ontolog that the long-delayed "5th 
instalment" of my "MACK basics" series to Ontolog, from last year, Feb 
to April, might see the light of day soon.  I could introduce its kernel 
in whatever time you could allot to me next Thursday, with slides to 
match the time, and build out from there into whatever further time 
there is available.  It's on how the notion of orthogonality relative to 
ontologies enables a novel 'Separation of Concerns" and consequent 
component architecture for Information Systems, scalable all the way up 
to future Internet sizes and intricacies, thanks to many different and 
fascinating but highly-relevant considerations.  (Much "comparing and 
contrasting" with present so-called architectures is of course possible 
here too!)    (06)

4.  Component architecture (and associated interoperabilities) is where 
the "standard" aspect comes to the fore at its most basic level.  More 
than that, it does so in a way that will also imply Barry Smith's 
statement, likewise on the Conference Call of March 12, that "ontologies 
should die."  They and their disciplines become an integral part of how 
everything is specified, hangs together and executes on networks of 
computers, enabling human collaboration.  Reformed and newly-relevant 
standards are applied as an integral aspect of the products they 
regulate.  Ontologies merge with their IS realizations as their 
indispensable frameworks (in a manner of speaking).  Given the 
exponential penetration of IT throughout the modern economy, the same 
trend will, in due course, in the open market, generalize and spread to 
virtually all standards domains.  Standards themselves will become 
nothing more than the upper layers of group consensus in our world of 
multi-niched but interoperating consensus processes in a better-oiled 
universal market.    (07)

5.  You may wonder how something from 1996 (and in fact long before...) 
could have apparently slept so long and now suddenly be so interesting? 
Well, I have only recently understood it myself in a way that 
ontologists might more easily relate to (and that whole train of thought 
I personally find fascinating too, of course).  My point of departure in 
my present exposition of it for Ontolog is a long paragraph from Pat 
Hayes from which I have quoted before in an Ontolog post.  (Thanks Pat!) 
I am referring to Pat's longest paragraph in his post now at 
http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/2008-01/msg00385.html, my 
first quote from it was here in my "2nd instalment": 
http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/2008-02/msg00291.html#nid012. 
But I can now tie that matter together with a number of disparate yet 
highly relevant issues to put the result squarely in the field of 
Ontology in the broadest sense.    (08)

6.  And why has that "5th instalment" been so long in coming?  As I put 
it to Peter Yim when I shelved it last September and unsubscribed from 
the Ontolog Forum:    (09)

> I have become too frustrated by the gulf between my whole project and 
> the present would-be mainstream in "ontological" thinking.
>
> You may have noticed how I have been taking inordinately long to post 
> my "5th instalment"...   The main reason for the delay (other than 
> local matters completely unrelated to Ontolog) is that I have been 
> battling to bridge that gulf in a brief-enough way (even by my own 
> exorbitant standards of posting brevity!).    (010)

I had continued with this:    (011)

> But I will be back!
>
> Meanwhile I have reverted to 2 parallel sub-projects:  programming 
> Metaset and setting up my own websites from which I might launch 
> Metaset and MACK.  In order to be able to concentrate properly on 
> those exercises I am busy unsubscribing from many lists.
>
> I am happy and grateful for the way my Ontolog experience has already 
> helped me understand my own project better, or at least enough for me 
> to feel that I shall now make good headway with both of those 
> sub-projects.
>
> Then once I have made enough progress on one or both of those fronts I 
> shall post the news to Ontolog and take it from there.  It remains to 
> be seen just how far I need to go before returning with something far 
> more accessible to the list.    (012)

So here I am again, with much greater clarity for the further 
programming of Metaset and a very incomplete start, on 
www.TheMainstream.info, on those websites.    (013)

So, Steve, if you could fit me in on the panel for next week I could by 
Thursday have that "5th instalment" posted in some form, against the 
background of further very relevant and even indispensible pages on my 
website.    (014)

If not, I will have those things done by the Summit, in some longer form 
though perhaps not so well hammered-out by possible exposure next 
Thrusday.    (015)

Till soon, in some way!    (016)

Christopher     (017)



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