Re: Dictionary to translate (was:Re: Persian translations)

[Pablo Saratxaga <pablo mandrakesoft com>]

Kaixo!

On Mon, Dec 01, 2003 at 03:39:59PM +0000, Ramanan Selvaratnam wrote:

> (Did  I mention the many keyboard layouts?)

That is not a problem, as it is only a concern for the user,
intercomunication is independent of keyboard layouts; you don't
need to know, nor care about, how someone inputs his text;
the way how they are exchanged however is important.
 
> I think an electronic dictinary is the best solution.

and a spellchecker (for languages for which it is easily done; if 
Tamil uses blanks as word separators and is not agglutinative, it's ok).

> In the case of Tamil I am not too far from a very good one maintained by
> the state university.
> 
> How will the copyrights and licensing affect this?

It must be freely usable, copiable and distributable, clearly.

Now, for freely modifiable, it can be argued (if some official endorsement
is needed, as is the case in Iran, it won't be fully freely modifiable
for example); but the abilit to fully use and spread it without any
restraint is necessary to make it useful.

note I talk about a basic english/tamil dictionnary, or even a list
of tamil words; a full fledged dictionnary, with lenghty definitions,
may be different... or not; look at http://ta.wikipedia.org/ for a project
of a free (GFDL licence) encyclopedia in Tamil language. 

> Basically what is required in such a dictionaries terms and conditions?

There would be an increase in the availability of free content works
(dictionnaries and educational books mainly at first); governemental help
or not.
But it would be nicer if public governemental efforts were done from the
beginning with the idea of producing free content; it will even means
less costs for them. 

-- 
Ki ça vos våye bén,
Pablo Saratxaga

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