Re: [aspell-devel] New Bengali Dictionary Ready But Author Does Not Want to Release ...

[Jose Da Silva]

On Thursday 04 November 2004 04:40 pm, Kevin Atkinson wrote:
> A new Aspell Bengali (bn) dictionary is ready, however the author (who
> will remain anonymous since he did not post publicly) does not wish to
> release it for fear that other companies would simply steal the word list
> and incorporated it into their own (non-free I assume)  spell-checkers
> without giving him acknowledgment:
>
> The author is also planning on working on a Hindi (hi) dictionary.

After hundreds of hours, I can't blame him for wanting to protect his work 
from free-loaders, however, no matter how much encryption and protection he 
can load on it, determined thieves can and will figure it out and steal the 
list(s).... all-the-much-easier due to the fact that the encryption decoders 
they would use themselves are within the aspell open source.

In terms of copyrights, some countries will help their citizens/authors 
defend their copyrightable programs:
http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html
http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/sc_mrksv/cipo/cp/copy_gd_protect-e.html

However, I don't believe a wordlist could be considered copyrightable but 
before you believe that, please note I am not a lawyer, and it may be worth 
the author's time to read the above URLs for some correct info.

To be on the safe-side, whether I'm wrong or right, the author should put a 
copyright on his/her wordlist anyways, then leave it for the questionable 
thieves to dispute it.
If they say it is public domain, yet their wordlist is copyrighted, they have 
absolutely no argument but to also make their wordlist public domain.
If they are able to argue copyright, then they are also stating the author's 
wordlist is copyrighted which also puts them in trouble too.

> If anyone has anything to say to him that might convince him to release
> the Dictionary please let me know.  I will forward it to him.

Fame and/or fortune ;-)
I don't think the author contacted you seeking fortune, however you do have 
within your grasp, the power to grant recognition which he/she could use to 
their advantage to seek further fame, recognition, work or other fortune.

Perhaps some words of gratitude which you both can agree to within aspell's 
home or sub-web page, history, or readme files.

Perhaps aspell's dictionaries are in need of an improvement, such as a 
comment field where comments and other worthwhile words of gratitude 
history/credits could be noted, for example:

#version 3.0.0
#language, main: Portuguese (pt)
#language, other regions: Brazilian (br), Angola (an)....
#
#comments:
#this list....bla,bla,bla
#thanks to these authors for general additions and corrections.
#phil word, peter wright, doris pen,.......
#extra thanks for major changes to:
#2004,nov,04    john smith for 15,000 word original list
#2004,nov,05    jane smith, a few 100 corrections
#2004,dec,25    bob hope, added large section
#
#wordlist:
a
aa
ab
abe
able
....etc....