Collaboration

The classic business model for lexicology, terminology and thesauri is .... create a dictionary and keep it to yourself. Protecting this investment is difficult; they are facts so they are protected as a collection of data. The classical way of "proving" that the collection is "stolen", is by adding some nonsense words or have some other bogus data as part of your collection.

The open / free business model for lexicology, terminology and thesauri is .... work together on a stellar resource and make the data available to everybody. With the data available to everybody, the big question is how to achieve the best result. For an open / free resource, the best way is by providing the data in a standard way. The first standard I want WiktionaryZ to use is the "TermBase eXchange" or TBX standard. Given what we do in WiktionaryZ, LMF and SKOZ are two other great standards.

Why use standards? Simple, our definition of success is: "when people find a use for our data we did not think of". By providing the data in a standard way, it will be available in a stable way and as a result it will be more easy for people to make use of our data. It will be easier for WiktionaryZ to become a success.

Yes, I love our "competition", but I will love them to bits when they want to be as relevant as we want to be.

Thanks,
GerardM