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From: amsler@MOUTON.ARPA (Robert Amsler at mouton.ARPA)
Newsgroups: mod.ai
Subject: Dictionary access
Message-ID: <8603071759.AA21628@mouton.ARPA>
Date: Fri, 7-Mar-86 12:59:00 EST
Article-I.D.: mouton.8603071759.AA21628
Posted: Fri Mar  7 12:59:00 1986
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The latest information I have re: Wang's Lexical resources is
that they want a $10,000 one time fee plus $1,000/year per
resource. For that kind of money I thought there should be
some sort of update/maintenance, but apparently they are selling
them as is with no support and little documentation.

Houghton-Mifflin apparently also sells access to machine-readable
dictionaries and they appear to offer professional support for
updating them tied to their routine dictionary production.

If applications are academic non-profit use, the recommended
source would be the Oxford Archive in England. They distribute
several sources at the cost of making the tape copies.

Generally, the commercial sources offering dictionaries for free
have dried up. It is a business now. One might be able to strike
a deal with some publisher, but ``free'' access is becoming
increasingly rare if the intended use is commercial development.