historical event

[lojbab (Bob LeChevalier)]

I am pleased to announce an historic event.  LLG has submitted a proposal
to the US Dept. of Defense agency DARPA for research funding to implement
a Lojban-based natural language processing system.  The side benefits would
include funsing for several people to work on the dictionary, which won't
get it done sooner, but will make it much better.  And if we get it, our
incessant financial problems will cease.  Our odds, probably not too likely
but we can hope, and I think the proposal is well-done.

I will note in case people need such encouragement, that people who get
funding support to work on this project will be the people who have done the
there are a large
number of programmaers and systems people in the community who would like to
work on such a project if they could get paid for it.  We will be giving
priority to those with knowledge that is relevant to the job, which includes
knowing a good deal of Lojban.  We also will be trying to reward people who
have given a lot of effort or support in the past, although there are far too
many who deserve such reward for us to even start to give them all their due.
This is of course counting our unhatched chickens, but I have no doubt that
we will eventually win some bid for Lojban-related research.

Many people have said they were putting off working on Lojban because it 
People have told me that their time for Lojban had to be limited because
they ahd to make a living, etc, etc, etc.  We now have one bit of proof that
we intend Lojban to have practical application, and not in the indefinite
future.  So you can stop procrastinating.

We are of course hoping that if we get the bid, that large numbers of people
will volunteer to do various side efforts that are not directly part of the
effort, since this first project will be the one wherein we show that Lojban
is worth something.  A significant need will be people who are will to make
ing to makee
lots of words (with place strcutures) for concepts to be added to the
dictionary data base.  I have a file with several thousand already, but English
has a lexicon in thehundreds of thousands, and Lojban, with one definition
per word, will need millions.  We also will need people who know other
languages to make lists of words needed to translate concepts from those
languages, especially where there is no exact English equivalent.
All of this requires, of course, that you know the gismu vocabulary very well.

Whether we get this bid or not, it has already sparked two or three side
benefits.  The proposal writing effort is recapturable for each new grant
or contract proposal, since most of what we wrote applies to any Lojban
research effort.  Also, we have made a couple of contacts with people who
have some specific applications where Lojban may be useful, and having
done this bid makes them realize that we are serious and ready to support
them, thus giving us additional opportunities for new proposals.  Finally, 
it seems that we have roused some interest at a major university linguisitics
department (no names until I can say that this interest is real), which we
may be able to turn into some type of association that enhances our credibility
in the academic community (and also helps us win later proposals, since it
shows we aren't amateurs working in isolation).

Now all we have to do is win the proposal.  (What we submitted was actually the
pre-proposal and if they are interested, we submit such things as a detailed
research program and cost information.  The efforts is compettitive at both
steps, and also at a third step, which is getting funds from Congress in a
declining defense budget era.  But lets face those other problems when we
come to them.)

Here's to a suddenly brighter future for Lojban.

----
lojbab = Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
         2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA
         703-385-0273
         lojbab@snark.thyrsus.com