I think you are correct about open availability being a large factor in something like Cyc not being widely used and adopted. Structured data sources like Metaweb (now merged with Wikidata), DBPedia, and Wikidata have high practical value, feeding into large knowledge graphs at Google, FB, etc.
I wonder what would have happened with Cyc if twenty years ago a funding manager at DARPA had provided incentives to have Cyc entirely open. This might have led to major code refactoring, many more contributions, etc. even understanding that adding common sense knowledge to Cyc requires special skills and education.
I wonder what would have happened with Cyc if twenty years ago a funding manager at DARPA had provided incentives to have Cyc entirely open. This might have led to major code refactoring, many more contributions, etc. even understanding that adding common sense knowledge to Cyc requires special skills and education.