Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!lll-winken!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!turnkey!itcorp!geoff
From: geoff@ITcorp.com (Geoff Kuenning)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: /usr/dict/{web2,web2a}
Message-ID: <1991May10.043509.14669@ITcorp.com>
Date: 10 May 91 04:35:09 GMT
References: <1991May8.220518.10422@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>
Distribution: na
Organization: Interrupt Technology Corporation, Manhattan Beach, CA
Lines: 43

"Certainly is a lot of speculation goin' on in this hyar town, Sheriff.
Maybe you'd better straighten things out afore somebody gets hurt."

As the current maintainer (though not author) of the most widely-used
version of ispell, here are some facts about /usr/dict/words and
/usr/dict/web*:

1. They are distributed with all BSD releases, going back at least to
4.2 and possibly to 4.1.  They are not NeXT-specific.

2. They have nothing at all to do with the NeXT Webster application.

3. They are not used by Unix spell.  In fact, /usr/dict/words is not
used by Unix spell either.  Unix spell uses the files /usr/dict/h*;
these and /usr/dict/words are built from some source word lists which
are not distributed with binary licenses.

4. As one poster observed, /usr/dict/web2 is a simple word list;
/usr/dict/web2a is a list of hyphenated words and phrases.

5. By default, ispell uses its own dictionary for normal spelling
checks, but the "L" (look up word) command examines a word list which
is usually configured to be either /usr/dict/words or /usr/dict/web2.
However, the private ispell dictionary can optionally be merged with
/usr/dict/{words,web2} (using the munchlist script) to produce a
larger dictionary.  You can also merge with /usr/dict/web2a if you
choose, but you should use 'tr' to replace hyphens by blanks in this
case.

These are the only things I know for certain to be true.  I have
always made two other assumptions about /usr/dict/web2, but have never
been able to verify them:

1. I assume that /usr/dict/web2 is derived from a Webster's dictionary.

2. I assume that /usr/dict/web2 is copyrighted, so that I am not
permitted to distribute it with ispell.

If anybody in a position of authority can reliably contradict my
second assumption, I'd certainly like to hear about it, as I'm always
interested in distributing better dictionaries.
-- 
	Geoff Kuenning   geoff@ITcorp.com   uunet!desint!geoff