We, the undersigned, oppose the ISO proposals WG2N2173-JTC 1 NWIP and WG2N2172-JTC 1 NWIP for ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 32/WG 2 MetaData, in which Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) is proposed as an ISO standard. Located Online: http://isotc.iso.org/livelink/livelink?func=ll&obj...

We believe that it would be detrimental to both the field of applied ontology (and related disciplines) and to the users, applications and domains that ontology is applied to.

We stongly recommend voting ISO parties vote 'NO'.

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Below is a non-exhaustive list of some reasons for opposition.

1a) The field of applied ontology is not mature enough to have an ISO standard.

1b) BFO is not developed enough to be an ISO standard. There are many in the ontology community, including users, who have problems with BFO.

2a) (1) is exemplified by the fact that there is NO ontology community consensus on the utility of top-level ontologies (TLOs)

2b) There is no strong evidence or datasets for or against TLOS. An ISO standard, therefore, is premature.

3) Some persons and projects have no need for TLOs, and have accomplished their data or semantic goals without them.

4) Not all users of BFO find it helpful. Not all agree with its conceptual distinctions, and classification scheme.

5) The principles in the proposal are not universally agreed upon in the related communities. No international discussion has taken place. Some principles are also questionable, e.g. the form of definition; and others. Rather, the proposal is purely by the authors, and they draw from bfo community, alone. But there is a wider INTERNATIONAL ontology and data community to consider.

5) BFO is on a path toward monopolization.

6) There are other TLOs. No particular TLO should be the standard.

7) All potential users of TLO's should have the freedom to select which (if any) TLO to use.

8) A TLO in applied ontology, if a standard, should not have strong philosophical biases or metaphysical assumptions because the TLO should be as neutral as possible in order to maximize inclusiveness of entities and concepts from any domain. It is not the job of the TLO to impose worldviews or answers to profound questions. It is not the job of TLO's to assume answers to ontological, scientific or societal questions. But in assuming or adopting certain philosophical accounts, the TLO will force a certain classification scheme upon users and subsumed ontologies which will have the same effect.

9) That is, because of the biases and assumptions of BFOs or its main developers--because it/they takes certain philosophical worldviews and metaphysical assumptions, some entiteis/concepts , particularly those profound and central concepts to society, are at risk of being mischaracterized, recharacterized, miscategorized, misdefined, falsely represented, or excluded/eliminated. For example, because of views of BFO or it's main developers, entities such as Mind are at risk of being eliminated or reduced away because of their aristotelian+materialist bias, and because they assume answers to profound questions, e.g., mind/body.

10) The proposed tlo--BFO--has a largely Aristotelian philosophy/metaphysics bias/assumption, which also appears to be largely materialist and reductionist. This is largely due to the background and views of some of its developers, some of whom come from philosophy not computer or data science background. However, modern science is constantly developing, and these assumed views are inadquate to represent disciplines accurately in an ontological framework.

11) Such biases/worldivews (A) are overly simplistic, outdated, and potential harmful. (B) They are not asserted by any discipline or "science" as a whole, certainly not in any formal/official way. (C) are not reflective of modern science, with its rich dynamics, interdisciplinary causal relations, and various theories, and (D) materialism and reductionism have been historically and in modernity shown to be poor (and even harmful) approaches to view and describe the world.

12) If assumed in a tlo like bfo, those biases/worldivews arguably the classification scheme, and influence how domains and their concepts/things are represented. These views have the potential to be detrimental to users, domain concepts, how they are defined, conceptualized, etc. This calls for being cognizant of the potential effects and implications.

13) No ontology user or domain should be forced to subsume their domain concepts under the preferred philosophical/metaphysical worldview or account of some TLO or TLO developers. Accepting BFO would be to impose the worldview and philosophical assumptions it (or it's main developers, most specifically Smith) on users and domains.

14) ISO standards are about technical and engineering artifacts, and should not include or being influenced by such worldviews and biases.

15) More attention and research should be given to the implications and effects of a TLO upon where it is applied, e.g., bfo, where philosophical/metaphysical worldviews are assumed and where they may influence how concepts, terms, objects from other disciplines and domains of society are classified, defined, and described. Attention should be given to the methodological, ethical, conceptual, psychological implications and effects on users, disciplines/domains, and applications that bfo or whichever tlo is applied to.

16) Due to the fact that Smith, co-author of the proposal and main developer of BFO wishes to have the US DoD employ BFO in its military projects, he is seeking to show members of the DoD (including a certain joint chief of staff) of the 'widespread' 'universal-like' usage of the ontology. This is purely self-serving and a business strategy, which is contrary to the fact that applied ontology is a research field. This business-centric activity is not appropriate, nor is it in the interest of honest scientific research and benefit to humanity.

17) Emails demonstrate the business-centric, hyperdefensive, and even threatening reactions by Smith. Such reactions have been experienced even at the mere mention of there being other TLOs and that there are other ways to model things.