User:Mlforcada/Sandbox/Opentrad

What is Opentrad?

OpenTrad as a system name

When Apertium development started in 2004, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Commerce (MITyC), the initial consortium decided to use the name OpenTrad to refer collectively to two MT systems: the Romance-language system that would later be Apertium and the Spanish to Basque system that would later be Matxin. Apertium was then usually referred to as OpenTrad Apertium.

Project that started using the name OpenTrad to refer to Apertium

1. "Traducción Automática de Código Abierto para las Lenguas del Estado Español" (PROFIT-340101-2004-0003 and PROFIT-340001-2005-2), 2004, 2005. Partners: Universitat d'Alacant, Universidade de Vigo, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Euskal Herriko Unibersitatea, Eleka Ingeniaritza Linguistikoa, Elhuyar Fundazioa, imaxin|software.

Development of Apertium outside OpenTrad

Later on, Apertium started to be developed mainly outside that consortium, independently of the initial consortium, and a free software developer community formed around it, and began to be called just Apertium.

Examples of funded development outside the original (OpenTrad) consortium include:

• The project "Traducció Automàtica de Codi Obert per al Català", funded by the Secretariat for Telecommunications and Information Society of the Generalitat de Catalunya (the government of the autonomous community of Catalonia in Spain) where new language pairs started and an improved architecture (Apertium 2.0) was designed to include more difficult pairs such as English–Catalan

• The project "Viable language technology beyond English - Icelandic as a test case", funded by RANNÍS The Icelandic Centre for Research and being developed by Reykjavík University and the University of Pennsylvania

• Project Trautorom ("Romanian-Spanish machine translation", package apertium-es-ro). funded by: the Universitat d'Alacant through its Department of Computer Languages and Systems and the Office of the Vice-President for Extracurricular Activities (Vicerrectorado de Extensión Universitaria) and by the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

• The Google Summer of Code 2009 funded 8 students that worked in different aspects of the Apertium platform. See the final report.

(Add non-funded development)

OpenTrad as a project name

The consortium also used the name OpenTrad to refer to the 2004-2006 development in subsequent projects funded by the MITyC.

Project that used the name OpenTrad (EurOpenTrad) in its title

2. EurOpenTrad "Traducción automática avanzada de código abierto para la integración europea de las lenguas del Estado español" (PROFIT-350401-2006-5, PROFIT-350401-2007-1, TSI-020302-2008-51), 2006-2007-2008. Partners: Universitat d'Alacant (not in TSI-020302-2008-51), Universidade de Vigo, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Euskal Herriko Unibersitatea, Eleka Ingeniaritza Linguistikoa, Elhuyar Fundazioa, imaxin|software, Prompsit Language Engineering.

OpenTrad as a consortium name

The companies in the initial consortium (Eleka Ingeniaritza Linguistikoa and Imaxin|Software) commercialize machine translation services, most of them based on Apertium, under the brand OpenTrad

What is Opentrad's involvement in Apertium?

Language pairs (partly-) funded from Opentrad

• Spanish--Catalan
• Spanish--Galician
• Portuguese--Galician
• Spanish--French
• English--Galician

I would add the last version number actually supported by Opentrad, and the current version name. Just to show that they are no longer supporting them. --fsanchez 11:20, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I would also add the rest of language pairs with a package released to stress the fact that they are not supporting a huge amount of work. Same applies to apertium and lttoolbox packages. --fsanchez 11:23, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Misrepresenting Apertium as Opentrad

The communications emanating from OpenTrad consortium, through its web http://www.opentrad.com and in press releases, and despite repeated protests by Apertium developers, notably by Mikel L. Forcada, consistently use the name OpenTrad to refer to Apertium, including Apertium development developed outside the consortium, or present Apertium developments taking place outside of Opentrad as part of Opentrad. Here are some examples:

• El motor Apertium de Opentrad escogido para el Google Summer of Code 2009 ("Opentrad's engine Apertium chosen for the Google Summer of Code 2009").
• Nuevo par bretón-francés para Opentrad ("New Breton-French for Opentrad")
• Los diccionarios de Opentrad disponibles para dispositivos Palm ("Opentrad dictionaries available for Palm handhelds": many of the Apertium dictionaries available have had no input whatsoever from Opentrad!).
• La nueva web San Sebastián Turismo ha integrado Opentrad ("The new web San Sebastián Turismo has integrated OpenTrad", no mention of Apertium).

In October 2009, negotiations between Apertium and Opentrad started to define an agreed policy, but even during the negotiations, OpenTrad continued to silence Apertium in their press releases. An example is: La Hora de la Traducción Automática (November 26) which does not mention Apertium but instead includes statements like:

• "su producto estrella, el traductor automático Opentrad" ("their [Eleka's] star product, the machine translation system OpenTrad"; no other group except for the Ixa group at the Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea is mentioned in the article).

• "OpenTrad, más de 20 idiomas disponibles" (headline: "OpenTrad, more than 20 languages available")

Whenever Mikel L. Forcada has contacted them to complain about their silencing of Apertium, members of OpenTrad blame the journalists for this misrepresentation.