Re: [aspell-devel] Problems with aspell-en license
Scripsit Branden Robinson <branden@debian.org>
> If the end product is unoriginal, it doesn't matter what the
> nature or extent of the research is:
>
> In Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service Company, the
> Supreme Court recently put to rest the "sweat of the brow"
> doctrine, holding that originality is a sine qua non of
> copyright law, regardless of the author's efforts in collecting
> and assembling facts.[1]
The U.S. Supreme Court can put a doctrine to rest within the USA. In
some other parts of the world (notably all E.U. member states),
something that looks very much like "sweat of the brow" is an official
part of the Law.
Do you argue that only U.S. law is relevant to how Debian should behave?
Note that many word lists for languages other than English are likely
to be packaged and used mainly by people outside the USA.
> There is no opportunity for "originality" to inject itself.
It puzzles me that you can so sweepingly deny originality of the
(non-mechanical) choice of *which* words to include in the list.
Your "common words" definition is clearly sufficiently fuzzy that
applying it 500.000 times will easily constitute just as large an
amount of intellectual decisions as writing a novel or a poem, if
not more.
--
Henning Makholm "You propose to avoid dying? I will be
interested to hear the method you plan for this endeavour."
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