[Wikimedia-l] The case for supporting open source machine translation

[Fred Bauder]

This is closely tied to software which is being developed, some of it
secretly, to enable machines to understand and use language. As of now
this will be government and corporate owned and controlled. I say closely
tied because that is how translation works; only someone or something
that understands language can translate perfectly.

That said, crude translations into little used languages are nearly
worthless due to syntax issues. Useful work requires at least one person
fluent in the language.

Fred

>
> 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.
>
> All best,
> Erik
>
> [1]
> http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/animations/growth/AnimationProjectsGrowthWp.html
> [2] https://developers.google.com/translate/v2/pricing
> --
> Erik Möller
> VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
>
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