Re: RFS: talkfilters
On Sun, Feb 10, 2008 at 10:08:29PM +0100, David Paleino wrote:
> talkfilters - convert English text into humorous dialects
>
> The GNU Talk Filters are filter programs that convert ordinary English text
> into text that mimics a stereotyped or otherwise humorous dialect. These
> filters have been in the public domain for many years, but now for the first
> time they are provided as a single integrated package. The filters include:
> austro, b1ff, brooklyn, chef, cockney, drawl, dubya, fudd, funetak, jethro,
> jive, kraut, pansy, pirate, postmodern, redneck, valspeak and warez. Each
> program reads from standard input and writes to standard output.
Too bad, there's a lot of file conflicts with Joey Hess' "filters" which
serve the same purpose. In fact, filters which conflict are either very
same files or reimplementations of those due to license problems.
Another issue is, the sources have been mostly gathered from random Usenet
posts instead of being confirmed to be really in public domain. We had
"filters-nonfree" in Debian for years, then they were either liberated,
reimplemented or dropped. Mark Lindner's package lists many of authors as
"(unknown)", what, together with these source files having no author
attributions but just a GPL boilerplate, puts some doubts whether they are
not simply copied together.
I would really discuss this with Joey Hess first, he can shed a lot of light
on the issue. I don't know the details, he does.
And third thing, the claim that "now for the first time they are provided as
a single integrated package" is obviously invalidated by Debian's "filters"
being here since 1996 while Mark Lindner's "talkfilters" seem to be dated
1998, judging by the first ChangeLog entry.
Just my two zorkmids...
--
1KB // Microsoft corollary to Hanlon's razor:
// Never attribute to stupidity what can be
// adequately explained by malice.
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