Re: [oor-forum] Todd Schneider's requirements summary

[Pat Hayes <phayes@xxxxxxx>]

At 10:29 AM -0400 4/18/08, dbedford@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> Denise's comments --
>
> --->>> I've heard both notions bandied about. Operationally,
> I think [an] OORx
>         will have both types of
> entities. Some organizations will want to have
>         or provide persistence
> while others may only wish to host a registry.
>         This is an architectural
> decision that will need to be made. In my mind
>         I think the functionality
> among a registry and a repository can be
>         partitioned in such a way
> that will allow plug-n-play deployment and
>         operation.
>
> Thanks for the reply.   In one of the panel sessions there
> was a discussion
> about the different set of requirements for actually storing versus
> describing
> ontologies.

I think there are other distinctions to be made. Describing ontologies is surely to be done by an ontology of ontologies. Being a registry involves providing access to ontologies, perhaps providing limited meta-information about them and a uniform interface for registering them, maintaining updates and so on. None of this need involve actually storing ontologies, which is what a repository is supposed to do. Personally, I see absolutely no purpose in our even discussing methods for storing ontologies, given the presence of the Web. That is a matter of network engineering, not a topic that this forum should even be concerning itself with, IMO.

>  At least two of the speakers agreed
> that two distinct data models
> underlie storing an ontology and describing an ontology.  The
> overlap between
> thosee data models -- from my experience working with and describing
> ontologies
> each day

May I ask what are these ontologies that you deal with so often? I am surprised to hear that this many ontologies actually exist. What kinds of formalism are they written in?

> -- will be quite minimal.   So,
> in our requirements for an OOR, are we
> targeting the set that is common to both a repository and a
> registry?
>
>         I will argue for a
> distributed non-hierarchal architecture (e.g. flat
>         P2P) to meet operational
> needs.
>
> Whether a registry is centralized or distributed is of less import to
> the
> registry design.   The underlying data model for an ontology
> repository, though,
> cannot be restricted to a question of a hierarchical or
> non-hierarchical
> architecture.   The first design issue is which ongology
> components must be
> accommodated in the data model, then what type of an architecture is
> needed to
> represent each of those components.  A registry can tell us what
> types of
> components a particular ontology may have, but it may not -- without a
> more
> explicit data model - be able to house those components.

I find this all very opaque. What do you mean by a 'component' of an ontology?

Pat Hayes

-- 

---------------------------------------------------------------------
IHMC               (850)434 8903 or (650)494 3973   home
40 South Alcaniz St.       (850)202 4416   office
Pensacola                 (850)202 4440   fax
FL 32502                     (850)291 0667    cell
http://www.ihmc.us/users/phayes      phayesAT-SIGNihmc.us
http://www.flickr.com/pathayes/collections

_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/oor-forum/  
Subscribe: mailto:oor-forum-join@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
Config/Unsubscribe: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/oor-forum/  
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/work/OOR/ 
Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?OpenOntologyRepository     (01)