A Translation Approach to Portable Ontology Specifications

Thomas R. Gruber

Defines an ontology as an explicit specification of a conceptualisation, and argues that portability between knowledge-based systems requires agreeing on that specification independent of any one representation language.

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Where it is now wrong

Ontolingua itself was overtaken by the web ontology standards, RDF and RDFS and OWL, that carried these ideas into practice. The account of what an ontology is for, and of the design criteria a shared vocabulary has to meet, is the part still worth reading.

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FreeIntermediatelink checked 17 Sept 2026

Filed under Classical & Symbolic AI in Artificial Intelligence.