Towards a General Ontology of Computer Programs

Over the past decade, ontology research has investigated the field of computer programs. This work has aimed at defining conceptual descriptions of the programs so as to master their design and use. Unfortunately, these efforts have only been partially successful. In this paper, we present the basis of a Core Ontology of Programs and Software (COPS) which integrates the field’s main concepts. But, above all, we emphasize the method used to build the ontology. In fact, COPS specializes not only the DOLCE foundational ontology (“Descriptive Ontology for Linguistic and Cognitive Engineering”, Masolo et al., 2003) but also core ontologies of domains (e.g. artefacts, documents) situated on a higher abstraction level. This approach enables us to take into account the “dual nature” of computer programs, which can be considered as both syntactic entities (well-formed expressions in a programming language) and artefacts whose function is to enable computers to process information.