[sfvlug-announce] Knowledge Base Meeting

[ForPractice]

Hi all,

This coming Wednesday we will be having our first Knowledge Base SIG
meeting, exact time and location to be announced. Anyone interested in
information retrieval using sophisticated methods that go beyond simple
indexing and categorization is welcome to attend. You don't need to be a
database guru to attend. The purpose of this SIG is to create a knowledge
base for Linux users of all skill levels. If successful it would be nice to
expand into knowledge retrieval for all kinds of subjects. This is a HOT
field to get into!

There are several existing open source projects with GPL or similar
licensing that attempt to address efficient and effective knowledge
retrieval. We may wind up either finding one that addresses all our needs,
as is, or we might want to find one we can tweak or build one from scratch.

So far the design considerations favor using XML, PHP, an open source SQL
based relational database management system (RDBMS) such as MySQL, and Java.
Coincidentally, for those who believe in coincidence, there was just
published in the November 2001 Linux Journal an article on a project that
may be quite close to what we want especially since it allows for
contributions from many sources. There are The article is conveniently
available on the Net at:

http://linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=4769

There are also some projects listed at SourceForge.  I picked just a sample
of some of those projects that already have downloads available. You can
find more by searching for "knowledge" "knowledgebase" or "knowledge base".
Here is a list of just a few:


http://sourceforge.net/projects/owl/

http://sourceforge.net/projects/nexist/

http://sourceforge.net/projects/mak/

http://sourceforge.net/projects/knowledgebase/


Ultimately we would like to take it further into the realm of artificial
intelligence (AI) to make it possible to parse existing documents to
accurately evaluate the nature of the information contained with little or
no human intervention. Yes, that is very ambitious, but it is essential that
such capabilities come into existence that are not hindered by intellectual
property restrictions. We may fail to reach our most ambitious goals, but in
trying we may be able to come up with some cool intermediate solutions.

Watch this list for the announcement of the exact time and place for the
Wednesday, December 5, 2001 SFVLUG Knowledge Base SIG.

See Y'all there, or contact Kurt at bogus@microtown.com for more info.