Editorial Pointers

Early philosophers spoke of ontology as "the science of being." The nature of existence; the notion of presence, if you will. We all recognize the concept of a fish, for example (and for cover purposes), but the image we conjure up as we read the word "fish" is anything but similar.

If people and computers—and computers and computers—are to communicate, share, and reuse knowledge seamlessly, we need some agreed-upon vocabulary and more exact specifications with which to convey what we mean. And that’s where the science of modern day ontology comes in.

In practice, ontology abstracts the essence of a concept and helps to catalog and distinguish various types of objects and their relationships. In truth, even the word "ontology" means different things in different senses and settings. This month’s special section cuts through the vagueness by examining the roots of ontology and its applications in the fields of AI, knowledge engineering, and management, among others. The authors in this section also explore the challenges of designing, evaluating, and deploying ontologies in the real world and within intelligent systems. Guest editors Michael Gruninger and Jintae Lee point out that ontology is garnering attention not only in academic circles, but from industries as diverse as high-tech, financial, medical, and agricultural. We hope this section clarifies the reasons for and the ramifications of this trend.

Also in this issue, Dempsey, Weiss, Jones, and Greenberg wonder "Who Is an Open Source Software Developer?" Their article investigates the characteristics of the typical open source developers and the factors that motivate them. What motivates a valued IT professional to leave a job, regardless of the business climate? Jo Ellen Moore and Lisa Burke address the turnover culture in the IT field, where job-hopping is not only acceptable, it’s expected. They also offer ideas for keeping loyal employees loyal.

William Kettinger and Choong Lee explore the gap between users and IT innovation. And Gordon Bell and Jim Gray trace the evolution of high-performance computing from Crays, to clusters, to supercomputing centers, speculating where it heads next.

Diane Crawford,
Editor