[Pkg-freedict-devel] Goals & plans

[Joost van Baal]

Hi,

Kęstutis: I didn't do very much research before sending my previous
reply, sorry for that.  The situation indeed is more serious than I
thought...

Op di 13 feb 2007 om 02:19:46 +0200 schreef Kęstutis Biliūnas:
> Pr, 2007 02 12 22:42 +0100, Joost van Baal rašė: 
> > Op zo 11 feb 2007 om 04:36:41 +0200 schreef Kęstutis Biliūnas:
> > > 
> > ... In most cases we won't be able to build
> > > debian packages from the upstream .src.tar.bz2 archives, because we
> > > can't to depend on the Internet connection at the build time (for
> > > downloading lang.zip files from http://download.travlang.com) and we
> > > can't to depend on the non free OS (M$ Windows) and non free
> > > applications (M$ Access for converting .mdb files to .tei files).
> > 
> > Well, I believe we can build about 50 dicts using the current free
> > tools.  For these, lang-lang.tei is in CVS.  I believe that's about the
> > same set of dicts as produced by the old style Debian freedict package.
> > Isn't it?
> 
> Currently in the freedict CVS tree almost are no more .tei files.

We still have:

cro-eng/cro-eng.tei
deu-eng/deu-eng.tei
deu-por/deu-por-nophon.tei
eng-ara/eng-ara-nophon.tei
eng-cro/eng-cro-nophon.tei
eng-deu/eng-deu.tei
eng-iri/eng-iri.tei
eng-por/eng-por.tei
eng-scr/eng-scr.tei
eng-swa/eng-swa-nophon.tei
eng-wel/eng-wel.tei
iri-eng/iri-eng.tei
jpn-deu/jpn-deu.tei
kha-deu/kha-deu.tei
kha-eng/kha-eng.tei
san-deu/san-deu.tei
scr-eng/scr-eng.tei
slo-eng/slo-eng.tei
swa-eng/swa-eng.tei
wel-eng/wel-eng.tei

eng-deu and deu-eng are pretty popular says popcon.  It's a pitty
eng-fra and fra-eng .tei's are gone; these are very popular too.

but indeed, that's not as much as we had.

> The databases (.mdb - M$ format) are downloaded from
> download.travlang.com at build time. From these databases are
> making the *-nophon.tei files, and then from these files --
> the final .tei files. Only from these final .tei files we can
> build dicts using the current free tools.
>  
> 
> > > And for some dictionaries, which do not require to download the
> > > databases from http://download.travlang.com, the build process depends
> > > on 'mbrdico' package (through the teiaddphonetics script). We can't to
> > > add 'mbrdico' package to debian because of non free license, or perhaps
> > > we can add it to the non-free branch, but in this case we also need to
> > > move all freedict dictionary packages from main to non-free.
> > 
> > In
> > http://freedict.org/debian-repository/source/mbrdico_020708-1.diff.gz,
> > it says:
> > 
> > +   This package is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
> > +   it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
> > 
> > Also, in
> > http://freedict.org/debian-repository/source/mbrdico_020708.orig.tar.gz,
> > mbrdico-020708.orig/Copying.txt is the GPL.
> 
> This Copying.txt says:
> 
> The files provided in this archive are covered by the GNU General
> Public License below, except the files provided in the MBROLATOOL
> directory which may be obtained separately from
> http://tcts.fpms.ac.be/synthesis with their own distribution license.
> 
> Thus there are the BINARY directory, which contains precompiled non-free
> things. In addition mbrdico depends on the MBROLA database you need 
> download from http://tcts.fpms.ac.be/synthesis (non-free too). 

Just checked that website.  Seems these people actually have _thought_
about their licensing terms so very likely will stick with the non-free
ones.  Academia releasing non-free software, that really makes me sad...
:(

> > > But the upstream promises to distribute the lang1-lang2-tei.tar.bz2
> > > archives (Michael, is it a truth?).

I've found stuff like htdocs/download/linux/fra-eng.tei.gz in CVS.
It says it comes from ergane/travlang, and has a GPL statement in it.
But perhaps this is not what you're talking about.

> > > These archives will be distributed
> > > with the GPL license. From these fully prepared .tei files we could
> > > build the .dict.dz and .index files for debian binary packages using
> > > the only free and existing in debian distribution tools. Therefore only
> > > these -tei.tar.bz2 files can be used as source archives for building
> > > debian packages for main branch of Debian distribution.  
<snip>

Well, I guess one of the major questions is: will the travlang/ergane
stuff remain redistributable under a Free license.  If it won't, that'll
be end of the story for a major part of FreeDict in Debian, I'm afraid.

But indeed, if the freedict project manages to keep distributing the
.tei's under the GPL, then all is fine.

> > > So, I think, that we have made the good initial work on this "Debian
> > > FreeDict Packages" project, but now we must wait while the upstream will
> > > release the new freedict-tools archive and begins to release the
> > > -tei.tar.bz2 files.
> 
> > I'd like to wait till the latest uploads (freedict-swa-eng_0.0.2-1
> > freedict-kur-deu_0.1-1  freedict-kur-eng_0.1-1 and
> > freedict-kur-tur_0.1-1) get accepted by the ftp-masters in experimental.
> 
> It seems that only these dictionaries will not be changed heavily by
> upstream. 
> 
> > Once these are in, I'd like to upload all other dicts which can get
> > build with the freedict-tools as in experimental now.
> 
> Currently we can't build once again the many dictionaries which already
> are in our svn repository, because of changes in the upstream cvs
> tree.

Yes, that's a big pitty.  Perhaps we can build from .tar.bz2 sources
as produced by previous version of upstream CVS.  But otoh, that might
not be worth the trouble.

> > And perhaps start uploading stuff to unstable, also.
> 
> I think this could be done only when upstream will release the
> new stable dictionaries.

Perhaps.  I am not quite sure yet on what would be the best thing
for the Debian packages now.

I am _very_ curious on what the next release by Michael of the dicts
will look like...

Thanks for your message!

Bye,

Joost


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