Ralph, I am appreciative that you made a communication
into this discussion. (see [220]
)
My position is that a National Project to
establish the knowledge sciences would allow all who might lead us into
something more functional and useful, to lead. My
position is that the nation suffers because of the control of the standard?s
process narrow business interests and because of the legacy where many of
the academic issues are confused. John Sowa?s position is
similar in many respects, as is yours, Ralph. We all make
compromises that we would rather not. You once told me
that you would have preferred to work with Topic Maps but that you had to
work with RDF in order to get the work with the web services working
group.
Certainly Top Quadrant would be one of the
leaders. You and your group has been an excellent leader
even in the less than optimal development environment that we have been
dealing with for over a decade.
Why not work to change the conditions under
which we work? Is this possible, and still bring forward
those systems that are deployed or which are close to being
deployed. Is there an agreement that things could be much
better in terms of developing the best systems for e-government.
The knowledge sharing foundation concept would provide a proving ground
for concepts, and would establish transparency on what does not work, and
what has not been able to demonstrate results that are consistent with
expectations. I originally proposed a Manhattan Type
Project related to knowledge management and knowledge representation in
1993.
Four additional comments about your thoughtful
communication:
One: Regarding our freedom and the concept of a
Democracy
John?s communication
[217]
contained the following:
<quote>
Your
statement ?An ontology can be
merely a set of well defined concepts, without logic.
?
This may be a
true statement, but it is irrelevant
<end
quote>
and then:
<quote>
On the other
hand -- which is the hand holding the money that funds projects like ONTAC
-- formal ontology can be applied to the task of *legislating* how various
computer programs are specified to handle the much narrower, much more
specialized, and very much more precise categories that are implemented in
computer systems that are required to
interoperate
<end
quote>
The rest of John?s communication [217] demonstrates good synthesis over what is possible given the
situation with funding and with the types of very poor peer review that has
been demonstrated over the past decade. ( see case study)
By poor peer review, I specifically mean
specific individuals who have disallowed diversity, taken a narrow
viewpoint, assumed an king like role of authority (example: Hendler at Univ
of MD), and (also specifically) slowed down the progress on Topic Map type
systems. (Again for those who do not follow this history
between the RDF/Tim Berners-Lee?s Layer cake model verses a Topic Map model;
the difference has to do with the role of human?s in making
interpretations.)
My response [218] is out of great personal frustration, awareness of many
others who are in the same state as I am in.
Two: On
the modified Tim Berners-Lee?s Layer Cake Model of the Semantic Web
architecture
In your note you make reference to a recent TBL?s talk
see http://www.w3.org/2005/Talks/1110-iswc-tbl/#(12)
Tim Berners-Lee's talk at
ISWC2005,
And I find something that is barely
comprehensible. There is almost no organization to what I
find at this URL. What is there can be understood only if
you are part of an in-crowd, in my opinion. And, there is
no mention of Topic Maps or any other standard other than the one his group
(the W3C) is pushing. There is no description of problems
that are faced by the community that is working on the new
technologies.
Ralph, you mentioned that the layer cake was
modified. How? I do not see any
changes to this misfortunate diagram (criticized by John Sowa on many
occasions).
Three: On reasoning engines
Ralph said:
One of the most
forward-looking aspects of our current work is in pluggable architecture for
reasoning engines. The goal is to be able to use different types of
reasoning over a given knowledgebase combining, for example, probabilistic
(Bayesian) reasoning with rule-based reasoning.
Communication this
morning from a colleague: ?Similar situation here. We are
all in the same boat. There are many signs that the
tyranny is beginning to end, despite lots of
grandstanding.?
Given that this is an area that I feel that the W3C
makes profound mistakes in, and the Topic Maps conventions do not, I would
like to know why you feel that there is progress.
Four: On
my position
Many people know me, and my
positions. In the meeting at GSA, and other places, we
have seen the continual influence and dominate control by individuals who
admit that their interests are in making money through
consulting. We have seen the language at the GSA meetings
become about ?lines of business? as opposed to ?processes?.
This ?lines of business? language occurs in a
larger context, as John pointed on in private correspondence.
This context is the failures of our government to stop War
Profiteering.
In Virginia, my state issued drivers license has my
identification as a ?customer? rather than as a ?citizen?.
For me this simple use of language tells it
all.