The Challenge of Open Source MT SDL

The very large majority of open-source MT efforts fail because they do not consistently produce output that is equal to, or better than, any easily accessed public MT solution or because they cannot be deployed effectively. This is not to say that this is not possible, but the investments and long-term commitment required for success are often underestimated or simply not properly understood. A case can always be made for private systems that offer greater control and security, even if they are generally less accurate than public MT options. However, in the localization industry we see that if "free" MT solutions that are superior to an LSP-built system are available, translators will use them. We also find that for the few self-developed MT systems that do produce useful output quality, integration issues are often an impediment to deployment at enterprise scale and robustness. Some say that those who ignore the lessons of history are doomed to repeat errors.