The creation of richer collections of machine-readable knowledge is inevitable. What is not inevitable is that these knowledge bases will be a public resource, freely available to all. In fact, many large corporations are now engaged in redundant efforts to build their own private knowledge graphs for their own needs. We believe everyone, including these companies, would benefit from making public data more easily accessible to all.
Without the Underlay, only those that have the resource to gather and maintain data will be able to take full advantage of it. With the Underlay, public knowledge will be cooperatively gathered and openly shared as a public good.