RichStyle: The Angel is in The Detail.

GNU Dictionary

Last year, Arabeyes group received a request from Wikitionary administrator for appending Arabeyes’s dictionary to Wikitionary project, and a very interesting discussion started in the Arabeyes mailing list.

Here we have a GPLd dictionary, and we want to insert it in an FDL project, can we do it?

This was the main question at that time, but this simple question lead to several important questions:

  1. Which is more suitable for a dictionary: GPL or FDL? And:
  2. What is Dictionary considered originally: a software component or a regular text? And once you think that it’s a database, neither a pure software component nor a pure regular text, you might ask:
  3. Which is —again— more suitable for a database: GPL/LGPL or FDL? And finally:
  4. What’s the basic difference between GPL and FDL?

Starting from the last question, simply, I think that the main difference is that:

Technically, What’s Dictionary?

By simple analysis, you can realize that dictionary basically, is not a code; it’s something real, you can print it, publish it for human readers.

But in the same time, in practical, it’s a library, that could be understood and used by software applications, so that they can employ it, and capitalize on it, for their own sake.

Simply: it’s a printable software library.

And actually, this what database represents!

Now take a look to this simple matrix:

The Intellectual Products Matrix
Printable Software Library License Collaboration System
Software GPL/LGPL CVS
Text FDL HTTP/Wiki
Databases ? ?
Arts (Images) CC
Arts (Media) CC

So, we need:

The License

It should cover all the potential usages of a dictionary:

The Collaboration System

I think that appending contributions via POP3/SMTP client mail is the best way for a collaborative database project. And here’s why:

Massive appending No web interface required
HTTP/Wiki
SMTP/SQL

So the matrix will be like this:

The Intellectual Products Matrix
Printable Software Library License Collaboration System
Software GPL/LGPL CVS
Text FDL HTTP/Wiki
Databases GDL (GNU Dictionary/Database License) SMTP/SQL
Arts (Images) CC
Arts (Media) CC