Fair question from a few non-techical colleagues, "What does it mean to be "ontological"?

Of course, I ran it through my LinkedIn Claude Project:

In this context: it's about what kind of thing something is.

A document-centric system treats the document as the primary object — the thing that triggers processes, carries legal weight, and defines the transaction. Change the document format (paper → PDF → XML) and you've changed the surface, not the assumption.

An ontological shift means changing what the primary object is. In the Canon's architecture, the primary object becomes the Trade Line Assertion — a structured declaration of relationships between goods, parties, and regulatory credentials. The document (invoice, declaration, certificate) is then generated from that. It's a derived output, not the source of truth.

Albeit, should we even still be discussing generating documents as outputs? Who still actually 'wants' a document? No one. They need the data - the document is an artificial construct passed down for millennia.

So when the comment says "the resistance isn't technical, it's ontological" — it means organisations aren't resisting a new file format.

They're resisting a change to what they consider the fundamental unit of a trade transaction.

That's a much harder problem than software adoption.

Claude nailed it ... again.

For more info on Ontology and the source of the image above,see this post: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-ontology-sandeep-kumar-sakre-3rwnf/