Wednesday, July 06, 2005

IATE and Free content

IATE or Inter-Agency Terminology Exchange is a project that is to create a glossary to be used for the European Union. It has live data and its content was appreciated by many translators until recently. Until recently, there was a guest profile with a guest password that was used by many. Because the IATE database is "not ready for the general public as it may not cope with the demand that might be put upon it", this access to the public is removed.

To gain access, you have to translate for the EU and you have to sign a contract that you use it only for EU use. There is however one bright spot; its copyright. The IATE copyright says clearly that you can have this data and use it as long as you attribute it to the institution that manages this information.

It is therefore a lucky coincidence that we want to make Ultimate Wiktionary relevant. It is as fortunate that we already plan on cooperating with the EU by publishing its GEMET content. When we have proven that we can host lexicological data, we can ask the EU if we can host this data. It is relevant data it is important data so much so that the EU expects that its modern systems will crash under the strain of all these people who want it.

With the Wikimedia servers, we are used to provide as good a service as we can. We do not promiss 0.9999 uptime, we do the best that we can. And, if this data can be had for the lexicological information that it is, we are quite happy to host it. We are quite happy to cooperate with the EU to make this information available and more relevant then it is at the moment, being a "secret".

Thanks,
GerardM

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