Re: Aspell-en license Once again.

[Walter Landry <wlandry@ucsd.edu>]

Kevin Atkinson <kevin@atkinson.dhs.org> wrote:
> This is NOT a clear case of 'something being not freely licensed'.
> 
> 1) The exact license of the DEC word list is not clear.

and then later in the DEC description

> (NON-)COPYRIGHT STATUS
> 
>   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.  I have confirmed this assumption with
>   the authors of the lists, whenever they were known.
>   
>   Therefore, it is safe to assume that the wordlists in this package
>   can also be freely copied, distributed, modified, and used for
>   personal, educational, and research purposes.  (Use of these files in
>   commercial products may require written permission from DEC and/or
>   the authors of the original lists.)

which is clearly not a free license.

The only question is whether that kind of restriction can be put on
the word list.  In the US, no.  In the EU, yes.  So what does the EU
law say about copyrighting things that are not copyrightable in the
country of origin?

Regards,
Walter Landry
wlandry@ucsd.edu