Hi, Some of you may still remember that, in a previous discussion on the AGI mailing list, I expressed reservation on how much open source can contribute to AGI at the current stage. Well, I still have those doubts --- since almost all AGI projects are at conceptual design stage, and are trying unconventional paths, they are not ready for normal software developers to get involved.
Even so, I do agree with the basic principles of open source software, and NARS has been moving to that direction. I will soon be ready to open the source code. I am comparing two options: (1) To keep the source code of the most recent version of NARS, under GPL or a similar license, at the project website (now at http://nars.wang.googlepages.com/), and start a discussion group or mailing list for technical exchanges. (2) To completely turn the project into an open source project, at SourceForge or a similar site. I understand that the second option will attract more involvement, but I have little time to manage such a project. Also, given the nature of NARS, I don't really want to recruit many volunteers of the normal type. At the current stage, whoever want to join must first be a qualified research scientist with solid background in AI and CogSci, can program reasonably well, and also happen to share enough opinions with me --- I guess there are not too many such people out there. Furthermore, given the highly compact design and closely coupled parts, it won't be easy for other people to make meaningful change to the core NARS code, before spending a long time in reading and discussion. A more fruitful type of involvement may be exploring the possibility of making add-on modules, like the augmentations I discussed in http://nars.wang.googlepages.com/wang.roadmap.pdf , especially the first three: (1) using NARS to control a robot, (2) adding a NLP capability to NARS, and (3) teaching the system human knowledge in a certain domain. Working on these topics will depend less on the details of the existing NARS code. Comments and suggestions can be either posted to the AGI mailing list, or emailed to me privately. Pei ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=82615971-504a50
