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Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2011 18:00:49 -0800 (PST)
From: Pedro Giffuni <pfg@apache.org>
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Subject: Re: GPL'd dictionaries (was Re: ftp.services.openoffice.org?)
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--- On Mon, 11/7/11, Ariel Constenla-Haile wrote:

> Hi *,
> 
> > On the long run I think the Apache-Way means we give
> > prevalence to freedom over features so we either move
> > back to MySpell 
> 
> it has already been said that MySpell is a step backward
> 

It is, but can't we have both MySpell and HunSpell? It is
good to have alternatives.

> > or we do something completely new based
> > on Apache openNLP.
> 
> "we" means here "software developers in the know of this
> topic", and
> I don't read much names of those in this thread. I mean,
> someone with
> the knowledge has to sit and write code. So why starting
> something new
> from scratch when we already have something that works, and
> fits 
> "The Apache Way"?
> 

It's just an idea but IBM uses something like this:

    http://incubator.apache.org/opennlp/

This is only an idea for the future, as I said for 3.4
we go HunSpell and I can see that for a while we will
be busy on other things.

> 
> Look at the folders:
> http://svn.apache.org/viewvc/incubator/ooo/trunk/main/hunspell/
> http://svn.apache.org/viewvc/incubator/ooo/trunk/main/mythes/
> http://svn.apache.org/viewvc/incubator/ooo/trunk/main/hyphen/
> 
> there are only patches and makefiles, no copyleft source.
> AOOo can keep Hunspell based linguistic components, there
> is no need to remove anything, it is already IP-clean.

I know, I know.. but why download tarballs when you can use:

--with-system-hunspell
--with-system-mythes

(Which is also used by LibreOffice AFAICT)

> The situation is almost the same as before.
> 

The only issue is the Italian dictionary, which is GPL-only
and we can't include at all.

Now let's be realistic: we don't develop dictionaries here
in AOOo (that I know of) and due to license issues our
repositories and source distributions can't carry them
anyway. Why not build all of them in apache-Extras or
wherever and link them there for users?

As you say, things don't change too much at all.

Pedro.