Re: A discussion: Is semantic web an old fashioned idea?Is it bubble,unworthy or an interesting researcharea - Post your c omments

Jim Hendler a écrit :
> 
> (This is way too cross posted, so after my one shot, this blast, I will not reply to any email sent to more than one group at a time)

Right, this is just because the recipients list
was copied from Miltiadis original announcement.
However only 1 is may be a bit short, what about the two above?
www-rdf-interest for technical audience
semanticweb@yahoo for lay public

Both have public access to the archives.

> At 12:49 +0200 6/17/04, Jean-Luc Delatre wrote:
> >
> >
> >Is the Semantic Web a realistic endeavour
> >or just a SCAM aimed at collecting funds
> >from research, VCs or otherwise?
> >
> Oh my G-d, they're on to us!  Better tell all those folks at IBM, HP, Adobe, Sun, Cisco, Fujitsu, Microsoft, Nokia, etc. etc. to stop pretending to do this stuff!!!  :->

Excuse me, but the "lemmings" argument is not a MOTIVATED argument, 
even more catched up on the Internet hype before the bubble crashed.

> Of course, if the author is open-minded enough to try, he could look at the testimonials that came out with Owl and RDF [1] from people at many places who are using this technology for real, could explore some of the uses in current systems (I'd suggest Adobe XMP as a start) and could talk to some of the people actually doing this stuff before sending our such a ridiculous ad hominem attack
> 

Sorry, ad hominem is not outlawed, it serves some purpose,
and, BTW that was not ad hominem that was "Stratagem 8" 
from Arthur Schopenhauer's "The Art Of Controversy"

http://coolhaus.de/art-of-controversy/erist08.htm

:-)

And you are trying to apply "Stratagem 18", changing/altering the question, 
because my point is not:

Is the Semantic Web technology being of *some* use for *some* purpose?

But:

Is the Semantic Web "Grand Plan" about an all encompassing
knowledge exchange realistic?

This, given that this grandiose future IS used 
as sales argument for much more modest achievements.

Who would not call this hype?

> In fact, here's my challenge - I'll bet that by the end of this calendar year there will be RDF and/or OWL on over 10 million-accessible resources, that a search engine will be available that indexes at lover
> 250,000 web pages with RDF or OWL on them and finds at least 20M RDF triples on these pages, that OWL ontologies with over 10,000 classes are available on line, and that at least one major software vendor will announce an ontology management system.  What's more, I'll bet any amount of money anyone wishes that this will be the case [2]
> 
> [1] http://www.w3.org/2004/01/sws-testimonial
> [2] note, before you bet you might want to consider that all of these are already true, so my bet is a pretty sure thing.  cf: Adobe's XMP, Geoff Chappell's search engine, the NCI ontology (and OpenCyc), and IBM's SNObase.

The bet is of course as sure as it is irrelevant!

The real challenge, and I suspect that you are very well aware of this,
is to define "something" (standards, formats, protocols, whatever) that
will allow to MEANINGFULLY interconnect at will, any two
applications with no or only nominal human intervention
or tailoring of the interface.

THIS seems to be the not so clearly stated, if strongly hinted, goal of the Semantic Web.

This is NOT ACHIEVABLE within the current state of the 
technology nor within any short or medium term foreseeable future.

This is MY challenge:

Show evidence that this goal is achievable and give a time schedule!

Best regards "Professor",

-- Jean-Luc Delatre
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Received on Thursday, 17 June 2004 15:57:15 UTC