Re: [gnome-cy] ACCAC: open-sourcing Y Termiadur

[Alan Cox <alan lxorguk ukuu org uk>]

On Sad, 2003-07-12 at 14:51, Kevin Donnelly wrote:
> Pace whatever views I might have, based on previous lives, that this shows yet 
> again that the public sector is the voluntary sector's mortal enemy, the main 
> question is to decide now whether and how to pursue this.  

One of the common goals of public finance is to make projects you kick
off eventually self-finance. In the general case its a good idea - you
can spend the next batch of money making something else happen. I get
the feeling things like Termiadur are partly in this category.

> - even if melin were a completely free resource, it is purely web-based, and 
> cannot therefore be used for non-web purposes, eg packaged as a free 
> dictionary rpm;

It could. In the same way as some mail clients know how to throw your
mail through babelfish at the click of a button. This isn't something to
do lightly or without melin being happy about it - they probably don't
want their web server hammered flat.

> - the CD, apart from costing money, is presumably subject to some sort of 
> copyright too, although (part of) the contents may come under (a) above;

Words are facts.

> The two main options are: (1) to pursue this further, making the above points, 
> and bring in some of our public representatives like AMs/MPs (which has the 
> side-benefit of raising awareness about free software in general); (2) 
> sidestep this by starting some sort of Free Welsh Dictionary project, along 
> the lines of dmoz and the Open Encyclopaedia

There is a basic welsh dictionary built by Mark Nodine (who btw is back
and editing his course again: after years of silence)
http://www.cs.cf.ac.uk/fun/welsh/

If you want to pursue the idea of building a whole new dictionary then I
think talking to Mark might be a good starting point. Also to sslug.dk
who have done this job in Denmark and built a lot of tools including
voting tools, PDA based word review tools and a ton more.

Dewi is absolutely right - you need to convince the funders of this
stuff to make it freely available when appropriate and to find ways they
can do that without having to continue to put money into things.



_______________________________________________
gnome-cy mailing list
gnome-cy pengwyn linux org uk
http://pengwyn.linux.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/gnome-cy