If the volume and the quality of the posts to the online discussion forum are anything to go by, next week’s two-day Ontology Summit promises to be a exciting and stimulating event. Cutting through the hype of semantic web technologies, this Forum has been valuable in cutting to the quick regarding tight, formal definitions of some of the most fundamental concepts used as building blocks for the most complex systems: in an increasingly inter-dependent and interoperable online world, it helps to be sure that you agree on these definitions, whether it’s as simple(!) as “what is an identifier?” or it’s looking at good practices in developing business ontologies or indeed whether there is, can be, or should be, a single over-arching high-level ontology that adequately describes the world.
Brain numbing stuff but well worth it.
Pensive Peter 