Re: "what is an ontology?" stuff in requirements abstract/intro

On Mon, 18 Feb 2002, Jim Hendler wrote:

> At 4:10 PM -0500 2/18/02, Dan Brickley wrote:
> >On Mon, 18 Feb 2002, Pat Hayes wrote:
> >
> >>  >>    The term ontology may be unfamiliar to many readers of
> >>  >>    this document.
> >>  >>
> >>  >>  That seems superfluous. I suggest striking it.
> >>  >>
> >>  >>    This notion of ontologies comes from Artificial Intelligence,
> >>  >>    where ontologies are used to allow heterogeneous systems to
> >>  >>    exchange and reason with information.
> >>  >>
> >>  >>  I'd suggest either citing specific work in this area
> >>  >>  or striking the reference to Artificial Intelligence.
> >>
> >>  I agree. In any case, you could equally well cite data modelling
> >>  languages, say; and the basic ideas go back way before AI if you want
> >>  to get historical, at least to the 1940s and maybe the 1880s.
> >
> >On the prior art front, it wouldn't do any harm to chuck in a nod to
> >http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/categories.html
> >
> >...though wouldn't want to overstretch the historical parallel or we'll
> >find ourselves listing everyone who has every thought about cateogies,
> >taxonomies and formal models.
> >
> >Dan
> >
>
> I'd like to suggest we have no specific references (and thus strike
> the AI one), I'm open to some sort of on-line repository for
> citations where we point the reader in this document, but I think we
> want to make it clear that there is a long history to this, and if we
> start trying to cite all relevant work we will never finish.  A note
> that there is much work we are not citing, and a pointer to web space
> where that list is/grows is fine.   Most W3C documents don't have
> much in the way of citations, and this document seems to me a
> particularly inappropriate place to start.

All fair comment, and over academifying W3C specs would I agree be a mistake.

That said, I've often wished Working Groups had to do literature reviews...

Dan

Received on Monday, 18 February 2002 16:56:16 UTC