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Re: [cuo-wg] Technical maturity of Semantic Web solution

To: "Schoening, James R C-E LCMC CIO/G6" <James.Schoening@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: cuo-wg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
From: Pat Hayes <phayes@xxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2007 12:09:27 -0600
Message-id: <p0623090ac1ee745a928c@[10.100.0.26]>
>Pat (or anyone),    (01)

Someone else will have to do this. I have no idea 
what these distinctions mean in this kind of a 
context. When did the WWWeb satisfy a 'proof of 
concept' or a 'breadboard validation'? This seems 
to be about engineering some kind of device, not 
letting loose a social method of interaction.    (02)

Pat    (03)

>
>      OK, if what you describe is a potential 
>solution, at what level of technical maturity 
>(using scale below, from the paper) would you 
>rate this, and please consider scalability as 
>part of this assessement?
>
>1.  Basic principles observed and reported.
>2.  Technology concept and/or application formulated.
>3.  Analytical and experimental critical 
>functions and/or characteristic proof of concept.
>4.  Component and/or breadboard validation in laboratory environment.
>5.  Component and/or breadboard validation in relevant environment.
>6.  System/subsystem model or prototype 
>demonstration in a relevant environment.
>7.  System prototype demonstration in an operational environment.
>8.  Actual system completed and 'flight 
>qualified' through test and demonstration.
>9.  Actual system 'flight proven' though successful mission operations.
>
>Jim Schoening
>
>
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Pat Hayes [mailto:phayes@xxxxxxx]
>Sent: Monday, February 05, 2007 5:52 PM
>To: Schoening, James R C-E LCMC CIO/G6
>Cc: cuo-wg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: Re: [cuo-wg] The next key question
>
>>CDSI WG,
>>
>>      Given Pat Hayes' description (below) of what Jim Hendler refers to as
>>"URI-based reference mechanism coupled with the 
>>standard for KR and other aspects is
>>aimed exactly at scalability.":
>>         
>>          The key question now is: Could the above referenced technology
>>(when it matures) be used to achieve semantic interoperability across
>>large numbers of domains (with independently developed ontologies)? 
>>Any takers?
>
>Sure. The direct answer to your question is, no.
>BUt that is because your question as posed 
>misses the point: the open publication paradigm 
>allows ontologies to NOT be developed 
>independently of one another. They will 
>cross-refer, use parts of other ontologies, and 
>include references - eventually, one hopes, 
>'nuanced' references - to one another in a 
>global network of semantic hyperlinks. And they 
>will do this because to create a useful ontology 
>by re-using and linking in this way will be 
>vastly easier than building entire ontologies 
>from scratch, in isolation from other ontology 
>building. Think of the SWeb as a growing 
>ontology 'library', freelyopen to all for 
>modification and re-use. As pieces of this are 
>written and found widely useful, the number of 
>links to them (and the economic pressure on the 
>community to find ways to preserve them) will 
>grow, ensuring their even wider re-use. This 
>effect snowballs on the Web, as we all know. As 
>far as I can see, the pressures which make such 
>phenomena as YouTube go from nothing to billions 
>of users in less than a year will still operate, 
>albeit perhaps at a different timescale, for the 
>semantic web also. The semantic web is not just 
>traditional ontology engineering with XML added 
>as a kind of afterthought. It is part of the 
>Web, and will be governed by Webbish laws of 
>growth and distribution.
>
>Pat
>
>>
>>Jim Schoening
>>
>>         
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>Pat Hayes wrote:
>>>
>>>   OK, here's my take on that.
>>>
>>>   First, "standard for KR". I think all that Jim means is, the SWeb is 
>>>  intended to use whatever is the best available KR mechanism that can 
>>>  be adopted as a 'standard', ie which a wide enough spectrum of users 
>>>  can be persuaded to agree to use. No such choice will be free from 
>>>  controversy. OWL wasn't and isn't free from controversy, and nobody 
>>>  even knows if a large enough community can ever be brought to 
>>>  consensus on an acceptable Rule language. But assuming that some WG 
>>>  can get its job completed, and produces a useful notation, then that 
>>>  can be used on the SWeb. There are plenty of potential candidates 
>  >> which are way more expressive than OWL readily available. So it would 
>>>  be a mistake to identify the SWeb vision with OWL or DL technology in 
>>>  particular. OWL-DL is just the first in what one hopes will be an 
>>>  evolving series of KR standards which will provide the infrastructure 
>>>  of the SWeb. Perhaps the next one will be more like  Python+Prolog on
>>>  steroids. Or it may be a  breakthrough in CL reasoners using the
>>>  guarded fragment, who knows?
>>>   The decision is as much political as technical, or even subject to 
>>>  whims of intellectual fashion.
>>>
>>>   "URI-based reference mechanism" is more interesting. This is one of 
>>>  the few things that really is new and different about the SWeb: it is 
>>>  part of the Web, and subject to Web conventions and protocols. It 
>>>  isn't *just* applied ontology engineering. So, every SWeb ontology is 
>>>  required to use names drawn from a (literally) global set of names.
>>>   The scope of these names is the entire Web. There are no 'locally 
>>>  scoped' or 'private'
>>>   names on the Sweb. So if your ontology uses a name for a concept, my 
>>>  ontology can use it too.
>>>   Anyone can 'say' anything about everyone else's concepts, on the Sweb.
>>>   This is a whole new game, which nobody has played before. A can 
>>>  introduce a concept called A:thingie1 and B can introduce B:thingie2, 
>>>  and C can then, entirely independently and without asking for A or
>>>  B's  permission, assert that (say) A:thingie1 is the same as
>>>  B:thingie2. A
>>   > and B may disagree: tough tittie, they can't stop C from making the
>>>   assertion. C can say things about A's ontology, in fact, such as 
>>>  assert that it is all BS. The globality of the namespace has a whole 
>>>  range of consequences which we are only beginning to explore. And 
>>>  being URIs (actually IRIs these
>>>   days) , these names can also be used as identifiers which *access* 
>>>  things on the Web.
>>>   Whether these accessed things should be the referents of the names
>>>  is  currently controversial (I think not, in general), but that they 
>>>  access
>>>   *something* is not even remotely at issue. So SWeb concept names
>>>  have  a whole new dimensionality to them, which is (or at any rate
>>>  can be)  orthogonal to their use as referring names. In particular,
>>>  it allows  ontologies to "address" other ontologies (a pale version
>>>  of which is  the OWL:imports primitive, but one can do a lot more
>>>  than this), which  obviously has many 
>>>potential applications relevant to scaling.
>>>
>>>   Hope this helps.
>>>
>>>   BTW, I entirely agree with Jim's optimism. I think people are way
>>>  too  scared of inconsistencies. Lets wait and see what problems
>>>  actually  crop up before trying to solve or avoid ones that we only
>>>  worry about  rather than actually find.
>>>
>>>   Pat
>>>
>>
>>___
>
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