austin@uw-june.uw-beaver (Austin Dahl) (07/20/89)
I thought this article from comp.sys.next might be of interest to
those reading the recent postings about the Webster server.
In article <1502@garcon.cso.uiuc.edu> dorner@pequod.cso.uiuc.edu (Steve Dorner) writes:
Path: uw-june!uw-beaver!cornell!mailrus!ncar!tank!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!garcon!pequod.cso.uiuc.edu!dorner
From: dorner@pequod.cso.uiuc.edu (Steve Dorner)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Date: 19 Jul 89 16:39:53 GMT
Sender: news@garcon.cso.uiuc.edu
Reply-To: dorner@pequod.cso.uiuc.edu (Steve Dorner)
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Lines: 15
I asked a while back about the copyright status of the Dictionary on the
NeXT. I have received a definitive answer from one of our NeXT reps.
The information in the Webster must be processed and displayed
ONLY on NeXT machines. Using it as a basis for a webster server is NOT
ok, unless ALL the clients are NeXT machines.
If you must flame somebody over this, don't flame NeXT, flame Merriam Webster.
They are the ones insisting on their copyright rights (personally, I
don't blame them, but that's just my opinion).
--
Steve Dorner, U of Illinois Computing Services Office
Internet: s-dorner@uiuc.edu UUCP: {convex,uunet}!uiucuxc!dorner
IfUMust: (217) 244-1765
Austin Dahl
Internet: pardo@cs.washington.edu
UUCP: {rutgers,cornell,ucsd,ubc-cs,tektronix}!uw-beaver!june!pardomujica@ra.cs.ucla.edu (S. Mujica) (07/20/89)
on 19 Jul 89 23:03:06 GMT, austin@uw-june.uw-beaver (Austin Dahl) said: > The information in the Webster must be processed and displayed > ONLY on NeXT machines. Using it as a basis for a webster server is NOT > ok, unless ALL the clients are NeXT machines. > If you must flame somebody over this, don't flame NeXT, flame Merriam Webster. > They are the ones insisting on their copyright rights (personally, I > don't blame them, but that's just my opinion). Maybe a GNU Dictionary would be a useful project? Sergio Mujica mujica@cs.ucla.edu Computer Science Department, UCLA
jym@APPLE.COM (07/21/89)
> Maybe a GNU Dictionary would be a useful project?
Easy. All you need is a text scanner and a copy of the Oxford English
Dictionary (whose copyright is so old that it's in the public domain).
Read it in, and hire a staff of maintainers.
Anyone for an info-gnu-dictionary lists?
<_Jym_>bvrotney@ADS.COM (Bill Vrotney) (07/22/89)
Posted-Date: 20 Jul 89 00:48:16 GMT Date: 20 Jul 89 00:48:16 GMT From: mujica@cs.ucla.edu (S. Mujica) Organization: Computer Science Department, UCLA References: <1502@garcon.cso.uiuc.edu>, <AUSTIN.89Jul19160306@uw-june.uw-beaver> Sender: info-gnu-emacs-request@prep.ai.mit.edu on 19 Jul 89 23:03:06 GMT, austin@uw-june.uw-beaver (Austin Dahl) said: > The information in the Webster must be processed and displayed > ONLY on NeXT machines. Using it as a basis for a webster server is NOT > ok, unless ALL the clients are NeXT machines. > If you must flame somebody over this, don't flame NeXT, flame Merriam Webster. > They are the ones insisting on their copyright rights (personally, I > don't blame them, but that's just my opinion). Maybe a GNU Dictionary would be a useful project? Sergio Mujica mujica@cs.ucla.edu Computer Science Department, UCLA What I've thought about as being as usefull as a dictionary as described above is a combination dictionary/thesaurus which could also be used as a base for a speller and other word queries. On the surface this sounds complicated but could really be simpler and occupy less storage than a dictionary and yet contain more potential information. It could be based on words expressed in terms of relations of other words, unlike the relations of words in terms of other words in a conventional dictionary definition, but more like the relations expressed in a sematic network or conceptual dependency. For example given the "American Heritage Dictionary" definition of "navy": NAVY 1. All of a nation's warships. 2. A nation's entire military orginization for sea warfare and defense, including vessels, personnel, and shore establishments. 3. A group of ships: fleet. 4. Navy blue. replaced by something like navy: (has nation warships) (purpose (contains (adjective military organization) (and vessels personnel (adjective shore establishments))) (and (adjective sea warfare) defense)))) (synonym * fleet) (adjective * blue) Other entries being something like: adjective: (modifies word (meaning word)) fleet: (adjective group ships) blue: (type color) synonym: (same (meaning word) (meaning word))