[SCL] Re: Common Logic status with respect to standards

[pat hayes]

>Pat,
>
>Just to calm your concerns, I don't believe that ISO or anybody
>else will take the Common Logic project away from you

John, as I keep reminding y'all, I do not own and am not responsible 
for the CL project. That is Mike's baby. I am concerned with SCL, not 
CL. So not only can you take CL away from me, I never had it in the 
first place.

>and from
>people that you know and sometimes trust (or not) such as
>Chris, Tanel, Michael, and me.
>
>A much greater danger is that we will be ignored unless we
>maintain contact with groups that are better connected with
>centers of power (de facto or de jure).  The W3C is a big
>de facto power, and ISO is the biggest de jure power.
>
>And as Nancy pointed out

When did that happen, by the way?

>, the US Gov't, which is the biggest
>economic power around, prefers ISO to any consortium, including
>W3C.  So we should keep all of them happy, which I believe we
>we can do provided that we do what we are capable of doing:
>produce a decent syntax and semantics for CL and one or more
>documents that explain it satisfatorily to the audiences that
>we need to reach.

Sure, but we need to ensure that it is indeed 'we' who are doing 
this. That is, we need to speak for the group when telling people 
what we are doing, or at least carefully distinguish our opinions 
from the group's decisions.

>  > CL seemed to have run into the sand, so (as you know)
>>  I am slightly concerned that SCL not be directly identified
>>  with CL.
>
>ISO didn't run it into the sand.

I didnt say they did.

>  They were waiting for us
>to give them a document to review, which we never did.

They were not the only ones waiting, which is why I formed the SCL 
group out of frustration.

>  >Clearly, ISO is a seriously clunky organization....
>
>All organizations are clunky.  And judging from the results
>produced by the SCL group so far, it is hard to see any
>improvement over anything that ISO does.

The SCL group has been in existence only for less than a year, has no 
funds or external support, and has formally met only once. Under the 
circumstances I think we are doing reasonably well.

>  > ... I am far more concerned that these insights be adequately
>>  captured in an SCL exposition than I am in >obtaining
>>  international consensus: if such consensus is unobtainable
>>  then I would prefer that the ISO process be aborted.
>
>Genesereth, Gruninger, and I have been talking to the ANSI
>and ISO people for over ten years.  They are convinced that
>we know logic better than they do and that we could, if we
>sat down and produced a document, produce a good one.

This is the kind of assertion that, I have to admit, grates on my 
sensibilities.  Who ARE these 'ISO people'? Why are they not 
mentioned by name, perhaps with their emails attached so that the 
points can be discussed with them and maybe even an archived trail of 
discussion laid down? I would like to hear their views from them 
directly, rather than as a kind of distillation of a decade of 
discussion.  And you know, John, not that I don't have the deepest 
respect for you guys, but neither you or the two Michaels apparently 
noticed the central semantic problems with KIF that we have at long 
last laid to rest or avoided in the SCL model theory, matters that 
require some delicacy and care in the use of wording; so I would 
prefer that, as far as possible, any discussion that bears on 
technical SCL matters is done with me or Chris personally involved, 
at least until we get the technical matters documented unambiguously, 
which we have not yet completely succeeded in doing.

>The only editing ISO would ask us to do (via Harry) would be
>to add the ISO boilerplate on the front and to include the
>typical ISO sections for a glossary, references, intro,
>scope statement, etc.  All of those sections would be
>useful and none of them would in any way modify the syntax
>or semantics of CL.

Well, I may have over-reacted to the tone of Harry's email, which 
sounded very like it was commenting on the structure of SCL itself. 
It seems premature to be composing an ISO-compliant document in time 
for Dec 17th when there are many technical issues still to discuss, 
however.

Pat
-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------------
IHMC	(850)434 8903 or (650)494 3973   home
40 South Alcaniz St.	(850)202 4416   office
Pensacola			(850)202 4440   fax
FL 32501			(850)291 0667    cell
phayes at ihmc.us       http://www.ihmc.us/users/phayes