Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!lll-winken!vette!brooks
From: brooks@vette.llnl.gov (Eugene Brooks)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: xwebster
Message-ID: <32543@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV>
Date: 8 Sep 89 22:16:22 GMT
References: <4537@shlump.nac.dec.com> <8909071325.AA25395@fnord.umiacs.UMD.EDU> <37759@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Sender: usenet@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV
Reply-To: brooks@maddog.llnl.gov (Eugene Brooks)
Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Lines: 23

In article <37759@bu-cs.BU.EDU> bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) writes:
>Maybe someone could figure out a way to legally designate a dictionary
>(I dunno, call a publisher and offer to return the typed in version)

This is not that hard, to quote Webster's without permission:
copyright n. the exclusive right,
usually held by an author, artist  or publisher,
to reproduce, publish or sell for a NUMBER OF YEARS, a book or
work of art.

Unlike computer software which becomes worthless long before the
NUMBER OF YEARS is up, the definition of a word is relatively timeless.
Simply pick a suitably old dictionary for the project and mail out
zeroxes of the pages to volunteers to type in after you have designed
a suitable format for the online copy.  Missing modern words can then
be looked for by collating against a not freeware dictionary and
folded in by writing their entries by hand.  It sounds like a good
project.  Anyone care to take it on, I will certainly type in my share
of pages.



brooks@maddog.llnl.gov, brooks@maddog.uucp