Jeff Heflin wrote:

First of all, I think the problem with the Cyc ontology is it is too
big. Semantic Web ontologies should be small and modularized.

Second, in order to avoid making every user learn logic and study every
ontology, I envision "ontology certification authorities." These
organizations will consist of logicians who make sure that an ontology
is correct, summarize it and give it a seal of approval. Users can then
freely pick and choose these ontologies with some confidence that they
will behave as they expect. Note, users are still free to create their
own ontologies and to use uncertified ontologies. Anyway, I think a
variation of this solution is viable.

Jeff,

If we can't make use of large ontologies like Cyc or TAP, which could provide wonderful launchpads for bootstrapping the whole enterprise, we should seriously re-examine our approach. I do understand that some AI communities have reservations about aspects of KBs such as Cyc, but they do represent a significant commitment of resources which should be usable by the SW.

I would also like to plead against the use of concepts such as "ontology certification authorities" staffed by logicians. If the infrastructure we build is so hard to understand that we need professional logicians to approve it before it is safe for consumption by others, it will be sad. I also don't see a bunch of logicians understanding medicine or law or ... well enough to provide a seal of approval of an ontology of that topic. I can just imagine the state of Kansas approving an ontology which set the value of pi to be 3 ;-). But seriously, an approach that relies on this kind of certification process as part of the infrastructure is antithetical to the net ... it reminds me too much of central planning.

guha