Re: [ontolog-forum] Watson going mass market - jobs for ontologists

[Ron Wheeler <rwheeler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 21/11/2013 7:13 PM, Rich Cooper wrote:

Ron Wheeler wrote:

I would suspect that there will not be a lot of open source applications except in areas funded by governments and produced by clusters of academics (research support systems).

The big need will be in the commercial area where the application will be regarded as a competitive advantage not to be shared with anyone.

Ron

I agree in most cases, but there are some very altruistic programmers, such as Linas Vepstas, who maintains the free Link Grammar Parser, and of course Linas Thorvald, who wrote the free Linux version of the UNIX version of Multics.  There will be a lot of little (and some big) companies that provide installation and modification services for open source.  By and large though, open source has not produced the best suite of programs, but the secondary market due to lower prices.

Linux has evolved into a number of major versions that are mostly interchangeable - RedHat alone has spawned 3 versions that have huge followings.

And with very few exceptions (such as Linux), the programs are not interchangeable from one such company to another, which is our stated ontological goal on this list.

There are some major open source projects at Apache that are very widely supported as used. Apache HTTP is the dominant webserver and Tomcat is the most popular Java container.
There are hundreds of successful open source projects that produce products that compete for the top spot in their class - MySQL, WordPress, Moodle, Eclipse, Java, GIMP, Open Office beats WordPerfect for the number 2 spot, .....

Good user interfaces, and good human factors, are not practiced in open source as much as they are by the better developed programs funded directly by the program users.  There are also installation services, training services and the like to be marketed based on use of the open source stuff. 

Open source is funded by the users but your point about documentation is often true.

On exception is those programs that are web server-based where the developer provides free open source info but charges for ads. 

I think that you are mixing services provided by commercial companies that use open source with the open source project.


I build  commercial products based on open source components and sell it regardless of its dependence or not on web delivery.

Watson applications will depend on data. Finding sources for open source data outside of government and science areas will be hard.
Watson also has a cost that has to be funded on an on-going basis.
Applications that use freely available data, have a way to get continuous funding and have a large enough user community who want to have their own privately branded version of the application are the only candidates for an open source application project.

Most of the time, the first 2 criteria will be met and a single application that can be accessed by everyone interested in the output will be the result.
Take a medical research query site, for example - you only need 1 if it is available to all at a reasonable price or free because of sustaining funding from a government or charity or advertising.
This is most likely to be produced by a consortium (non-profit or for-profit) rather than as an open source project since the people wanting to provide the service will want to control the roadmap rather than leaving it up to a wider community.
OTOH, a consortium consisting of a hundred partners will look an awful lot like an open source project.

If you want to produce a web site that answers the question "What is the best deal for medical insurance?", you will need data from all of the insurance companies.
If you build this for one group of insurance companies, you will have a contractual injunction not to release it to other groups.
Even if this is a great application that the other companies would love to have, it will not be open sourced for the commercial reasons.

 
Ron

-Rich

Sincerely,

Rich Cooper

EnglishLogicKernel.com

Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com

9 4 9 \ 5 2 5 - 5 7 1 2

-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ron Wheeler
Sent: Thursday, November 21, 2013 3:34 PM
To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Watson going mass market - jobs for ontologists

I would suspect that there will not be a lot of open source applications

except in areas funded by governments and produced by clusters of

academics (research support systems).

The big need will be in the commercial area where the application will

be regarded as a competitive advantage not to be shared with anyone.

Ron

On 21/11/2013 5:09 PM, Jack Park wrote:

> That's certainly one lens on this context.

>

> On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 2:07 PM, Kingsley Idehen <kidehen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>> On 11/21/13 4:49 PM, Jack Park wrote:

>>> So, let me ask this:

>>> what about open source Watson-like platforms?

>>

>> Watson is going to expose Web Services using RESTful interaction patterns.

>> The issue of "Open Source" is one that's going to be more relevant to the

>> services built atop and around what Watson exposes.

>>

>>

>> Kingsley

>>

>>> On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 12:54 PM, Kingsley Idehen

>>> <kidehen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>>>> On 11/21/13 3:37 PM, Ron Wheeler wrote:

>>>>

>>>> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-14/ibm-to-offer-jeopardy-winner-watson-as-cloud-app-tool.html

>>>> A more superficial look at Watson but with examples.

>>>>

>>>> Will this make ontology a more mainstream application development

>>>> technology?

>>>>

>>>> Yes!

>>>>

>>>>> Job opportunities?

>>>>>

>>>>> Yes!

>>>>>

>>>>>

>>>>> Kingsley

>>>>>

>>>>> Ron

>>>>>

>>>>> On 21/11/2013 3:07 PM, Jack Park wrote:

>>>>>> This article

>>>>>> http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/42451.wss

>>>>>> refers to:

>>>>>> IBM Watson Developers Cloud

>>>>>>

>>>>>> It will be interesting to see links to that.

>>>>>>

>>>>>> On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 9:52 AM, Ron Wheeler

>>>>>> <rwheeler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>>>>>>

>>>>>> IBM is ready to push Watson out to the application development

>>>>>> community.

>>>>>>

>>>>>> Is this going to be the big breakthrough that makes ontology a big

>>>>>> deal?

>>>>>>

>>>>>> Is it going to create a demand for ontologists?

>>>>>>

>>>>>> Ron

>>>>>>

--

Ron Wheeler

President

Artifact Software Inc

email: rwheeler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

skype: ronaldmwheeler

phone: 866-970-2435, ext 102

 

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-- 
Ron Wheeler
President
Artifact Software Inc
email: rwheeler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
skype: ronaldmwheeler
phone: 866-970-2435, ext 102

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