Topic: OpenCyc is the open source version of the Cyc technology and reasoning engine

[Software Santa]

OpenCyc is the open source version of the Cyc technology and reasoning engine! For Linux and Windows.

OpenCyc is back and better than ever!


OpenCyc 2.0 is now available for download from SourceForge.

You can also download OWL versions of the OpenCyc ontology,
or search for and access OpenCyc content on the semantic web, accessing Cyc concepts via their URIs, at sw.opencyc.org.

OpenCyc

OpenCyc is the open source version of the Cyc technology, the world's largest and most complete general knowledge base and commonsense reasoning engine. OpenCyc can be used as the basis of a wide variety of intelligent applications such as:

    * rapid development of an ontology in a vertical area
    * email prioritizing, routing, summarization, and annotating
    * expert systems
    * games

to name just a few.

Release 2.0 of OpenCyc includes:

    * The entire Cyc ontology containing hundreds of thousands of terms, along with millions of assertions relating the terms to each other, forming an ontology whose domain is all of human consensus reality.
    * NEW! 100,000+ "broaderTerm" assertions, in addition to the previous generalization (subclass) and instance (member) assertions, to capture additional relations among concepts.
    * English strings (a canonical one and alternatives) corresponding to each concept term, to assist with search and display.
    * The Cyc Inference Engine and the Cyc Knowledge Base Browser are now Java-based for improved performance and increased platform portability.
    * Documentation and self-paced learning materials to help users achieve a basic- to intermediate-level understanding of the issues of knowledge representation and application development using Cyc.
    * A specification of CycL, the language in which Cyc (and hence OpenCyc) is written.
    * A specification of the Cyc API for application development.
    * Links between Cyc concepts and WordNet synsets.
    * NEW Links between Cyc concepts (including predicates) and the FOAF ontology.
    * NEW! Links between Cyc concepts and Wikipedia articles.

 What is OpenCyc?

OpenCyc is the open source version of the Cyc technology, the world's largest and most complete general knowledge base and commonsense reasoning engine. OpenCyc contains the full set of (non-proprietary) Cyc terms as well as millions of assertions about the. Cycorp offers this ontology at no cost and encourages you to make use of it as you see fit.
What is included with the first release of OpenCyc?

Release 1.0 of OpenCyc includes the following:

        *

          The entire Cyc ontology containing hundreds of thousands of terms, along with millions of assertions relating the terms to each other, forming an upper ontology whose domain is all of human consensus reality.
        *

          English strings corresponding to all concept terms, to assist with search and display.
        *

          A compiled version of the Cyc Inference Engine and the Cyc Knowledge Base Browser.
        *

          Documentation and self-paced learning materials to help users achieve a basic- to intermediate-level understanding of the issues of knowledge representation and application development using Cyc..
        *

          A specification of CycL, the language in which Cyc (and hence OpenCyc) is written. There are CycL-to-Lisp, CycL-to-C, etc. translators.
        *

          A specification of the Cyc API, by calling which a programmer can build an OpenCyc application with very little familiarity with CycL or with the OpenCyc KB.
        *

          Links between Cyc concepts and WordNet synsets.

What open source extra programs will be included with Release 1.0?

OpenCyc Release 1.0 includes several open source programs along with the knowledge base and the knowledge server. These will tentatively include:

        *

          An ontology exporter to selectively export OWL files
        *

          Semantic Web Server supporting DAML queries (Java)
        *

          Inference graphing program (Java)
        *

          Java version of the Cyc API (Java)

Will the inference engine be open source? Why (not)?

Not 100% at this time. Cycorp intends to sell premium products and services using its inference engine, which has been designed to work with the Cyc Knowledge Base in an optimal fashion. Cycorp provides a reference Cyc Server executable for Intel-based Linux and for Windows 2000 along with the release. This includes a basic implementation of its inference engine, without source code, but with a irrevocably free license. You are free to use this engine in free or commercial applications with a guarantee of no license fee ever.
What can one use OpenCyc to do?

OpenCyc can be used as the basis for a wide variety of intelligent applications such as

        *

          speech understanding (using the KB to prune implausible choices via common sense, discourse context, and prosodics)
        *

          database integration (using the KB as an interlingua through which semantic joins occur automatically via back chaining) and consistency-checking
        *

          rapid development of an ontology in a vertical area (by extending and growing the OpenCyc KB in that area, using the OpenCyc Rapid Theory Formation toolkit)
        *

          email prioritizing, routing, summarizing, and annotating

to name just a few. If you have ideas or suggestions, you can send them to us at opencyc-doc@cyc.com or discuss them on the OpenCyc discussion forum on SourceForge.

http://www.opencyc.org/