steve@UMIACS.UMD.EDU (11/20/90)
[ *Please* reply directly to me -- there's no sense in rehashing this issue every six months! ] I brought this up with the editor of the Frequently-Asked Questions blurbs, and it seemed like there was some interest in clarifying the matter there. Since I guess I volunteered, I'd like to arrive at the One True Version of the facts, which we can then put in the FAQ sheet. So here's what I understand to be the case, and if you know differently, I'd appreciate your comments and corrections... Please do *not* take this as gospel (at least, not yet (-: ). Once upon a time, various sites (SRI, Boston University, and others) ended up with an online copy of some edition of Webster's Dictionary. This copy was somehow research-related; I gather that after the pertinent research was done, the sites involved were allowed to keep the online dictionary. However, Webster's still owns the copyright, and therefore thoses sites weren't allowed to redistribute the online copy. After a while, someone decided that it would be a neat hack to have a webster server running -- you'd fire off a query of some sort, and you'd get back a set of responses, straight from the horse's mouth. (I agree that this is a neat hack, for what that's worth.) There wasn't a whole lot of security designed into the system, so while the initial set of people using the servers was pretty small (and confined to the sites with the legal right to use the dictionary), word eventually got out, and people started writing software to use the webster servers. Eventually (as xwebster and the gnumacs webster hacks started spreading like wildfire), the folks at Webster's realized what was going on, and asked the sites running webster servers to cease doing so. These sites would continue to be allowed to use the dictionary at their own sites, but were not allowed to let others do so. Also for what it's worth, lest someone decide to hack out a server that runs on NeXT machines (which also come with Webster's online), I think I heard somewhere that one can access any NeXT-resident copy of Webster's from any machine licensed for the online Webster's -- which pretty much means from any NeXT machine. So if you're looking for a Webster server, you're probably out of luck, and if you find one, you're probably doing something illegal. Should a *provably legal* Webster server exist somewhere, and should the providers of that service not mind the extra load of providing that service to possibly many people, I'd love to know about it; lots of people here screamed bloody murder when we yanked our webster software, and I'm sure that they (and I) would like to have it back. For that matter, if you know what it takes to get an online copy *legally*, it might be worth putting that into the FAQ, too. -Steve Spoken: Steve Miller Domain: steve@umiacs.umd.edu UUCP: uunet!mimsy!steve Phone: +1-301-405-6736 USPS: UMIACS, Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742