IBM needs an up-to-date web-scale ontology (Blekko has it) for Watson, it used Freebase (et al) which is closing down on March 31, 2015 (largest open collaborative knowledge base): http://www.freebase.com , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freebase

Freebase was acquired by Google in 2010 and powers their internal Google Knowledge Graph. Microsoft bought Powerset (company) in 2008.

Freebase has 2,751,614,700 facts, Wikidata has 13,788,746 facts. Wikidata may import some data of Freebase, but due its stricter guidelines (notability guideline...) many facts of minor will be lost/never migrated. A Freebase dump won't age well, in a lot of cases up-to-date facts from the real world are required.

Maybe some community project can rescue the Freebase community project before it is too late?

@downvotes: ?