Re: [aspell-devel] Problems with aspell-en license
On Sat, 19 Oct 2002, Brian Nelson wrote:
> Kevin Atkinson <kevina@gnu.org> writes:
>
> > On Sat, 19 Oct 2002, Brian Nelson wrote:
> >
> >> I'm working on packaging the new upstream GNU/aspell, and I've
> >> discovered a problem with the (attached) license of the English
> >> dictionary. The license, which is a mishmash of mostly free licenses,is
> >> not DFSG free as I understand it due to the DEC Word list license
> >> (beginning on line 134).
> >
> > RMS said the word lists were OK. Here is what he said to me. You can
> > email him for confirmation:
> >
> > I think it is safe for us to use those wordlists. The person who
> > avoided texts marked "copyright" was operating under an erroneous idea
> > of how copyright law works, but if all he did with those texts was make
> > word lists, this should not be a problem anyway.
>
> If these wordlists have been deemed free for any use, then the copyright
> should be changed. To me, a license that states,
>
> "To the best of my knowledge, all the files I used to build these
> wordlists were available for public distribution and use, at least for
> non-commercial purposes,"
>
> isn't a really license at all since it doesn't grant a user any clear
> rights. IANAL, of course.
I am merely quoting the closest thing to a copyright notice for all of the
wordlist as generally required by copyright law. RMS basically said the
word list meets FSF definition of Free (which should in term meet Debian
guidelines). That should be all that you need to know. If you want I
can add a note that all word lists used are FSF Free to the copyright
notice.
--
http://kevin.atkinson.dhs.org
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