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Date:Mon Feb 26 17:19:37 1999 
Subject:Pop (the lang) & Truth Maintenance 
From:David Whitten 
Volume-ID:990226.02 

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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