Sincerely,
Rich Cooper
EnglishLogicKernel.com
Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
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Ron Wheeler wrote
Building ontologies is a fine thing but I am coming at
the discussion
from the point of view of someone who would actually
use ontologies to
build something - an application that incorporates a
set of ontologies
to provide the logic with some set of facts.
If the OOR is only to support ontology developers,
then it is at best an academic exercise and the real ontology work will move
elsewhere.
It has to help application developers find the
ontologies that they need and to understand which ones can be used together.
Yes, the basic economics will drive
technology development.
In many large
software projects, database architects get run over by the urgent needs of the
moment for developers to meet schedule. Then the inelegant changes actually
made to the database become embedded into the GUI code; investors often decide
they won't pay for elegance, only for return on cost, so they need realistic cost
and value data.
So the first
step has to be to gauge where the currently assembled ontological knowledge
focuses in the database, not just by the schema, but by the data actually
reported into the database over the learning lifetime of the organization.
Then the INVESTOR-perceived costs and INVESTOR-perceived values will be used by
the INVESTORs to fund projects they think will be useful.
But there is a way to "help
application developers find the ontologies they are presently" USING, as
you almost stated, but IMPLICITLY, in their data. So app developers have
to do that first.
Any new ontology will be added
incrementally to existing operational databases. It won't replace them in
a major upgrade without first reviewing the currently expressed knowledge so
they can relate that to the new, official ontological knowledge which is
estimated to have greater value in pursuing than cost in implementing.
So first, a process of assembling the
existing database knowledge into ontological form will be needed. Then
the cost and value estimating and project planning can begin. If the
investors reckon cost too high or value too low, no creative destruction
occurs.
-Rich