Re: Aspell-en license Once again.

[Brian Nelson <nelson@bignachos.com>]

Kevin Atkinson <kevin@atkinson.dhs.org> writes:

> On 4 Nov 2002, Henning Makholm wrote:
>
>> Scripsit Brian Nelson <nelson@bignachos.com>
>> 
>> > However, this "license" contains the same questionable clause as the
>> > aspell-en license:
>> 
>> >   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.)
>> 
>> Now there's a real problem.
>
> Um no.  This is not a statement of rights.  It is merely an assessment of
> how the DEC word list author views the situation.  He assigns no
> additional copyright to his work.

Who holds the copyright then?  DEC?  Does anyone even hold a copyright
on the list?

Prior to the above quoted clause, the license 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.  I have confirmed this assumption with
  the authors of the lists, whenever they were known.

Any idea what "the files I used to build these wordlists" were?  If they
weren't wordlists themselves, then there is no issue here.  Is this what
RMS was referring to?

-- 
People said I was dumb, but I proved them!