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

[pat hayes]

>As many of you know, I've volunteered to serve as editor of the 
>Common Logic standard that is being proposed to ISO. Having attended 
>my first ISO meeting, I'd like to get the standards effort 
>organized. So here are my thoughts. These are purely administrative 
>notes; I will have a separate technical note in a day or two. Please 
>don't overlook the last paragraph!
>
>The current status of Common Logic is as a Work Item assigned to 
>ISO/IEC JTC1/SC32 WG2. There is a joint technical committee between 
>the ISO and the IEC called Joint Technical Committee 1 (there is no 
>number 2). Under JTC1 there is a subcommittee on information 
>technology called SC32. Under that subcommittee, there is Working 
>Group 2. This is the international body responsible for metadata 
>standards. The steps in the process are briefly as follows:
>
>A working Draft (WD) needs to be submitted to WG2 for comments. It 
>will be called ISO/IEC WD 24707. It must conform to ISO formatting 
>standards, which basically means using a Word template. In order to 
>get the process rolling, we will need a working draft for the INCITS 
>L8 meeting in Washington on 17 Dec 2003.

Suppose we do not make this deadline: what is the next possible date?

>This will be a chance for the US part of the international group

What international group? Right now, SCL is being composed by a group 
which I convened a little less than a year ago and which consists of 
a small group of people all known to me. The Common Logic group is 
chaired by Michael Uschold and I believe have not met or had any 
correspondence for a year now.

>  to discuss the standard and get their comments out in the open.
>
>A Working Draft becomes a Committee Draft (CD) which must be 
>approved by WG2 and then formally blessed by SC32. I would like for 
>this to take place at the next SC32 meeting which will take place in 
>Xian, China in late May 2004. Depending on the outcome of that 
>meeting, we may need to address comments and prepare another 
>committee draft (CD2), which will also be subject to SC32 approval. 
>Once CD's are refined, they become a Final Committee Draft (FCD) 
>with responses to ballots by SC32. After that it becomes a Final 
>Draft International Standard (FDIS) which is balloted by JTC1 (the 
>highest level). The last step is to actually approve the standard as 
>a completely approved international standard (IS) ISO/IEC IS 24707. 
>My point is to remind everyone that this a time-consuming process, 
>which will probably take two or three years. Therefore we have no 
>time to waste.

Well, we have already wasted approximately 5 years, so three more 
isnt going to make much difference :-)

>
>The working group likes

? What working group?? Where was this 'like' expressed, and to whom?

>the general organization of having the Common Logic core (now called 
>SCL) as part 1 of the standard, and then having KIF, CGIF, and CLML 
>as parts 2, 3 and 4 showing how all of the core can be mapped to 
>each particular language L. Parts 2, 3, and 4 should each describe 
>extensions to the languages that are NOT part of the core as well. 
>There can be informative (i.e., not prescriptive) annexes that help 
>further explain the languages.

This is not exactly the organization that I favor, and in fact it 
does not really make sense, since the concrete SCL syntaxes (KIF, CG 
etc) are not extensions to SCL.  There are two orthogonal issues: 
concretizing the abstract syntax in various ways, and 
restricting/extending the language in various ways. Particular 
concrete syntaxes may not support all language extensions.

>I might also mention that calling Common Logic a "draft 
>international standard" is incorrect -- it is currently only an ISO 
>work item with no content, since there is no official status to the 
>white paper that was used for voting on the work item. After the 
>SC32 meeting in May we may actually call it a draft standard. 
>Protocol, terminology and procedure are very important to the ISO.

Thanks for the correction; I understand that protocol is important, 
It should perhaps be noted that SCL will be offered to other 
standardization bodies in addition to ISO.

>
>ACTION ITEMS:
>- prepare a working paper (Working Draft is a specific ISO term) for 
>the INCITS L8 meeting in mid December. This is the U.S. 
>representative to ISO's Working Group. As editor, I will take the 
>lead in keeping an "official" version.

What exactly do you see your role as being? Our problem is that the 
technical writers of the spec are all running on empty as far as 
spare time is concerned, and the sheer effort of writing is likely to 
be our main barrier. I tend to compose in HTML, so if you can 
transcribe this into Word that would be a great help.

>Be aware that we will have to use Microsoft Word format -- either 
>Word itself or Open Office, etc.
>- attempt to get additional participation from other countries 
>(e.g., France, Australia, Germany) in commenting on the working 
>paper.
>- examine other standards that may overlap CL, especially the Z 
>standard (ISO/IEC 13568) which has been recently approved. There is 
>concern that Z (pronounced "zed") has already standardized a form of 
>logic. I have a copy of that standard for anyone who is interested.

We have examined that, at John's suggestion. It has very little to do 
with SCL, either in its aims (Z is aimed at proving properties of 
programs, not ontology development) or its syntax (Z syntax is highly 
idiosyncratic) or its semantics (Z is not a first-order language),and 
I have seen no evidence of Z being used in any of the likely use 
groups or user communities for the SCL standard (database technology, 
description logics, ontology development, semantic web, AI-KR).  I 
have heard the "concern" you mention expressed only by John Sowa: 
until I hear evidence of its being a general concern, I am not 
inclined to pursue the matter in any more detail. The issue was not, 
apparently, raised at the presentation given in Santa Fe in January.

>As editor, my role is to keep things moving and be custodian of the 
>"official" version. I intend to take this role seriously, which 
>means that I have an obligation to try to resolve differences and 
>lead/push us to agreement.

Please try to do that through me, as chairman and convener of the 
group. We have had a rather fractious history and it would  be very 
easy to be diverted into revisiting old debates.

>I consider it vital to reach consensus

It is vital that we reach agreement, not necessarily consensus 
agreement. To achieve consensus in this group may well be impossible 
and is almost certainly NP-hard.

>on a document that can go forward. Though I haven't met everyone 
>involved in this effort, I welcome advice and participation from 
>readers of this list as well as any others we can get involved.
>
>Thanks in advance for everyone's help.
>Harry
>
>
>--
>  Harry S. Delugach
>  -------------------                  also check out ICCS 2004 at 
>http://concept.cs.uah.edu
>  Associate Professor
>  Computer Science Dept., Technology Hall N-351
>  University Of Alabama In Huntsville
>  Huntsville AL 35899 U.S.A.
>  voice: (256) 824-6614   fax: (256) 824-5093
>  delugach at cs.uah.edu
>  http://www.cs.uah.edu/~delugach
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>SCL mailing list
>SCL at philebus.tamu.edu
>http://philebus.tamu.edu/mailman/listinfo/scl


-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------------
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