dictd and wordnet
Hi,
This is in response to your message of Wed, 8 Apr 1998. I
apologize for taking so long to get back to you.
As I said before, I am packaging dictd, containing the client
server software developed by the DICT Group. There will be a number
of separate packages containing the dictionary databases used by the
server. One of these is the WordNet 1.6 database. The dictd server
is queried with a word, and returns all definitions of that word found
in the dictionaries available to it. The most important of these is
the 1913 Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, which provides very lengthy
definitions, illustrated by quotations from literature. Since the
1913 Webster is out of date (but also out of copyright), it is
supplemented by WordNet. This provides some redundancy, but is very
comprehensive.
The dictd server does not use the special lexical/syntactical
organization of WordNet - it simply uses it as an alphabetized list
of words and definitions. None of the WordNet software or
documentation is included in the dictd package of wordnet.
The dict versions of the databases utilize a special .dz file
format, which is produced by the dictzip program. This is a
compressed format that permits searching by decompressing only
relatively small portions of a large file.
As far as I can see, the WordNet software would not work with the
database as formatted by dictd, and dictd would not work with the
WordNet database as distributed. Therefore there would not be any
direct benefit to have the two packages maintained by the same person.
However, I think that most people who would use one would want to
install the other. I currently use dict regularly, and will certainly
install the wordnet package on my machine.
I had been thinking about taking over the wordnet packages, but you
got there first, and I won't argue about it. If you change your mind
about them, let me know.
We must coordinate the location and name of the WordNet database
file(s). The dictd program installs them in /usr/lib/dict/wn.dict.dz
and /usr/lib/dict/wn.index. I doubt if that will conflict with the
WordNet names and locations. I plan to name the package containing
the WordNet database "dict-wn", so there shouldn't be any further
namespace conflicts.
I have completed my packages dictd and dict, but will not release
them until I have the database packages ready. The 1913 Webster is
held up because of a copyright problem, so I don't think I will be
able to release any of these packages before the end of this month.
Bob
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|_) _ |_ Robert D. Hilliard <hilliard@flinet.com>
|_) (_) |_) Palm City, FL USA PGP Key ID: A8E40EB9
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