Could IBM Shake up the Search Engine World?

overshoot writes "IBM has just tossed a bucket of chum into the whole search showdown, which Microsoft thought was between them and Google. Apparently, IBM Research has developed a 'key facts' search technology (as distinct from 'key words') over the last several years. Now they're going public with it -- by putting it on SourceForge under an OSS license!" (According to the article, it's expected to show up on SourceForge by the end of this year, not immediately.)

Comments

IBM has so much unpublished advanced research

[snotclot]

IBM is pretty crazy when it comes to advanced research in any of its fields.

I have heard of stories from researchers there that IBM has its own terminology for alot of technical EE/CS stuff, as they discovered it way before the world did but were so secretive they didn't publish any of it.

I'm not surprised if IBM has enough tech in search to seriously knock down Google!

This OSS thing comes as a surprise, as it contradicts their secretiveness about their research.

Re:IBM? YOU SERIOUS?

[oopsdude]

IBM has always been cozy with eBay; as I recall, eBay's logo said "powered by IBM" for quite a long time.

Re:Yay.

[gstoddart]

Yay, now EVERYONE can make their own Search Engine and say how they are SO much better then everyone elses!

Well, let's just hope it becomes one big, honkin' FOSS project.

Search technology is huge. Having it available which apparently can index conceptual links as opposed to literal links is astounding.

I say smart move on IBM's side. Get all the publicity of opening up really cool tech to the open-source community, then proceed to make a gazillion dollars in professional services gigs, and get the added benefit of everyone making your tech better because it's useful.

Provided this isn't steamingly fresh technology (unlikely from IBM realy) they should see some interest in this.

I for one, can imagine a nice bunch of associative content, and am wondering how much resources this might require to run on a machine and I'm going to go RTFA. =)

Re:LOL - Google is more than an algorithm

[pogson]

Google is a search engine farm. It would take a while for anyone to catch up even with a better recipe. If IBM's stuff is FOSS, Google could use it.

This is good news anyway. Keyword/phrase searching becomes less useful as the universe expands. I have 11000 texts fully indexed with swish-e and I get way too many hits unless I use phrases. If I knew what phrase was in the books I sought, I would not need the search engine.

I love search engines because I cannot figure out how to organize a file cabinet or a hard drive...

Re:Big Blue Marbles

[Doc Ruby]

The evolution of GPL software into embedded apps that interop with other, non-GPL apps, shows that one basic premise of the FSF worldview is wrong: users and programmers actually have different values, not identical ones, at least where getting the source code is concerned. Practically no users, and even only few programmers, and , have expressed any desire (beyond mere whining) to get the source code for apps with which they only want to interop. So GPL requirements to release new code that hasn't actually changed the GPL code really go too far, in the practical scheme of things.

However, a new GPL seems appropriate for APIs. Just like there's a different GPL for libraries to which code is linked, with less compulsory release requirements than the GPL on included/derivative code. The APIs of GPL code to which new code isn't even linked, but interops via the APIs, should require reciprocal release of their documentation. That is: call an API, and the calling API side must be as documented as is the called GPL API. As well as the entire callable API of the calling app. With that "GPAL" just as viral as the original GPL: calling a GPL'ed app's API puts the new, calling app also under that GPAL. But not under the original GPL, which would require all the new code to be published. Just because it maybe called a single API, totally disproportionate to the value released by the new coders. Otherwise, the new coders will more likely write their own version of the code they could otherwise just call by API, if the called app weren't GPL'd. That reinvention of the wheel to avoid the GPL is not good for the GPL code, the GPL, or coders - and therefore not for users. We can have the fair exchange, that keeps the innovation flowing, by requiring fair disclosure proportionate to the value derived from the GPL'd code. Or we can have an unfair system that the GPL accelerates into unuseablity.