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Re: [ontology-summit] [Ontology Application Framework] Revised Strawman

To: ontology-summit@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
From: "John F. Sowa" <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2011 13:51:28 -0500
Message-id: <4D6D4030.6090809@xxxxxxxxxxx>
On 3/1/2011 1:07 PM, Pavithra wrote:
> Zachman in one of his presentation (2008) said that his framework
> helps develop an Ontology of the Organization..    (01)

I happen to agree with that point, but I would emphasize that Zachman
had a lot of practical experience in project design and development,
but he did not have any formal background in logic and related topics.    (02)

Back in 1992, John Z and I were both working at IBM, and I liked
his framework for its emphasis on the multiple views of the same
system.  (Originally 15 views, but later 30 views).  Each of
those views could be defined in a different microtheory from
a different point of view and granularity.    (03)

Following is the joint paper that we published in the IBM
Systems Journal:    (04)

    http://www.jfsowa.com/pubs/sowazach.pdf    (05)

> Generally people develop a list of Objects, or classes and descriptions
> (first row and first column of Zachman) and call them Ontology like
> in DBpedia, others do a centralized data dictionary etc..  None of them
> are fully functional from a interoperability perspective.    (06)

Zachman's original framework (1987) had only 3 columns.  I observed
that they represented answers to the questions What? How? and Where?    (07)

I noted that Aristotle used the question words in Greek as the names
of his fundamental categories.  John Z. had been thinking of adding
more columns to the framework, so I suggested that he use the six
basic question words of English as a guide.  That led to three more
columns for Who? When? and Why?    (08)

You can think of the 30 boxes of the framework as answers to those
six basic questions from the perspectives of five different people:
Planner, Owner, Designer, Builder, and  Subcontractor.    (09)

The differences in the points of view and the questions addressed
show why it is so difficult to get anybody to agree on a common
ontology.  Even when they use the same terminology as a basis,
they are going to have different ways of defining each term.
That is why you need to think of a framework (or as I represent
it, a lattice) -- not a single, fixed set of definitions.    (010)

John    (011)

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