I am the moderator for a mailing list dedicated to leveraging
the public release of the Cyc Upper Ontology to create a Public
Domain Knowledge Bank. I have included the charter at the end of
this mail message, for all interested in participating.
I know many programs have been written in Pop to solve Artificial
Intelligence problems. I am currently looking for a Truth Maintenance
System suitable for incorporating in the Open Source implementation
of MELD (A superset of CycL) we are creating for the PDKB.
Much of the existing code is written in Java, so if a Pop-to-JavaVM
compiler existed, that would be very useful, as well.
If anyone knows of code to help us with our task, I'd appreciate
hearing about it. Thank you.
David (whitten@netcom.com) (713) 791-1414 ext 6116
The Public Domain Knowledge Bank mailing list
(pdkb@ldl.healthpartners.com)
has the purpose of support, creation and maintenance of a common
sense knowledge base (Public Domain Knowledge Bank also known as PDKB)
available to the any person who wants to use it.
To subscribe to the PDKB mailing list send email to:
majordomo@ldl.HealthPartners.com
Include the words
subscribe pdkb
in the body of the email.
The PDKB is based (on its upper levels) upon the Upper CYC
Ontology Guide and Browsable Ontology, and it is our intent to include
all of the Material released by Cycorp to be used by the public.
There is a license that associated with the Upper Cyc Ontology which
is reproduced at the end of this document.
Although the PDKB is based on the Upper CYC Ontology, Cycorp, Inc. has not
approved, disapproved nor endorsed the PDKB project or its knowledge base.
This mailing list is not intended to be a general mailing list about
Artificial Intelligence issues, nor to cover general philosophical issues.
Focused discussions of specific elements of the Upper CYC Ontology
may require a variety of topics, but they should be relevant to the
purpose of the list.
This list is based on the following assumptions:
1) The PDKB will be a symbolic knowledge base, organized in
accordance to logical predicates. Probabilistic and
Fuzzy logic systems are available as well using MELD.
Expert systems based solely on Perceptrons or neural
networks with no symbolic formulation, while useful,
are not intended to be represented in PDKB, and hence
will be rarely discussed on the mailing list.
2) The logical predicates will be formulated using CycL or MELD.
Discussions of other axiom systems or knowledge representation
systems will be acceptable only as far as they clarify
meaning, but not for extended advocacy arguments.
The purpose of this list is to discuss and formalize content,
not systems of encoding content.
3) It is understood that there are many variations of logical
systems that may be used to provide a semantics for the
content within PDKB. Where MELD sematics are defined, PDKB
uses a logical system compatible with MELD semantics.
All discussions of alternate logical systems
should support this consistent encoding of content.
4) All contributions to the list whether by mail, or in the
PDKB itself will be attributed as much as possible to the
author, but are understood to be usable by any participants
in any manner and held in common as Public Domain contributions.
This is in contrast to the nature of the public release of
the Upper Cyc Ontology.
5) Sufficient messages contrary to the purpose of the list
sent by an individual, or failure of multiple e-mail messages
to be delivered will be considered grounds for removal from
the list of subscribers to the list.
6) PDKB is intended to represent the common sense knowledge
of the typical citizen of the United States, living in the
Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries. It is not intended
to be a database of facts, but a knowledge bank of rules,
general principles, and obvious details necessary for
a computer program to understand and process information
about the world encountered by the typical citizen mentioned
previously.
7) The PDKB, the PDKB mailing list, the participants in it,
and discussion upon it are understood to not be in violation
of any trade secrets nor of any proprietary information owned
by Cycorp or any other entity. Please note that Cycorp, Inc. has
not approved, disapproved nor endorsed the PDKB project or its
knowledge base.
8) The mailing list is not sponsored by any group, and
discussions upon it are conversations supported by the
Constitution of the United States. Appropriate guarantees
of free speech as applicable to international participants
are also intended to be referenced should this be necessary.
Since the PDKB is based (on its upper levels) upon the Upper CYC
Ontology Guide and Browsable Ontology, and it is our intent to include
all of the Material released by Cycorp to be used by the public, it is
necessary to publish a copy of the license for the Upper CYC Ontology.
This follows:
By obtaining information, software, and/or documentation of the Upper
CYC Ontology (collectively, "Material"), you agree to be legally bound
by the following terms:
Cycorp is providing the Material at no charge. However, it is not
'Public Domain.' Please acknowledge Cycorp, 3721 Executive Center Dr.,
Austin, TX 78731 in any use or citation of the Material (including, as
applicable, as part of your product's documentation, packaging, and
sign-on message, if said product incorporates some or all of the
Material). Anyone who obtains Material from you to provide to a third
party must agree to, and reproduce in full, the terms of this
paragraph when and as they provide said Material to third parties. The
terms of this paragraph equally apply to renamings and other logically
equivalent reformulations of the Material in any natural or formal
language. Cycorp intends to amend and expand the Material from time to
time; the latest version is available here at www.cyc.com for browsing
or downloading.
CYCORP, INC. MAKES NO REPRESENTATION OR WARRANTIES WITH RESPECT TO
THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF THE DOCUMENTATION, SOFTWARE, AND
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