Azamat, (01)
On that point, we are in complete agreement: (02)
> My basic point is here very simple: without proper
> respect of the classic ontological works, their most
> productive insights and finds, we are doomed to be
> complementary, confusing, misleading, or conceptually
> trivial. (03)
The problem we face, however, is to find a strategy
that balances the short-term needs for practical
implementations with the long-term scientific and
philosophical goals. (04)
That has several implications: (05)
1. We have to face the fact that there is no current
consensus and little chance of getting one soon. (06)
2. Even if all the theoreticians could come to an
agreement, the new standard would have to coexist
for many decades with trillions of dollars of
legacy software, databases, web sites, etc., each
of which has a totally different ontology, usually
implicit and difficult or impossible to convert. (07)
3. Legislating a single choice can result in freezing
today's short-term solutions in a form that can become
tomorrow's long-term disasters. (Examples are IBM's
1964 blunder of adopting EBCDIC instead of ASCII,
IBM's 1981 blunder of adopting the Intel chip instead
of the Motorola chip, and Microsoft's 1981 blunder
of freezing the 640K boundary into DOS.) (08)
4. Independent of the choice of standard, there will be
a major need for analysis, migration, coexistence,
and conversion tools to and from past, current, and
future systems. (09)
5. If the tools in #4 are well designed, they could
support interoperability with and among legacy
systems as well as the inevitable modifications,
revisions, and updates to the standard. (010)
6. If the tools and methodology for using them are well
designed, they could also be used to manage an interim
transition period with multiple cooperating or competing
ontologies before a single optimal ontology has been
selected. (011)
Given this analysis, my proposal for a plurality and other
proposals for a single standard differ on only one question:
How long will the interim period last? I don't believe that
anybody today knows, but whether it's short or long, good
tools will be needed, and the planning for them should be
started now. (012)
John (013)
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