Erik Moeller, 24/04/2013 08:29:
[...]
Could open source MT be such a strategic investment? I don't know, but
I'd like to at least raise the question. I think the alternative will
be, for the foreseeable future, to accept that this piece of
technology will be proprietary, and to rely on goodwill for any
integration that concerns Wikimedia. Not the worst outcome, but also
not the best one.
Are there open source MT efforts that are close enough to merit
scrutiny? In order to be able to provide high quality result, you
would need not only a motivated, well-intentioned group of people, but
some of the smartest people in the field working on it. I doubt we
could more than kickstart an effort, but perhaps financial backing at
significant scale could at least help a non-profit, open source effort
to develop enough critical mass to go somewhere.
Some info on state of the art:
http://laxstrom.name/blag/2013/05/22/on-course-to-machine-translation/
Nemo