Re: regressive image dictionary fontification in emacs

[Joe Corneli]

On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 11:46 AM, Richard Stallman <address@hidden> wrote:
>    https://github.com/holtzermann17/rid-mode.el
>
>    There is no license because the original dictionary doesn't come with
>    one; hack it at your own risk, I guess.
>
> If that code does not carry a free license, it is nonfree software.

I realise that: for the moment I consider this to be "pirate" software
because it contains a potentially non-free core.  I know you don't
generally like pirate software.  But I don't feel entirely confident
that I can put a license on it since it re-uses wordlists that were
generated by someone else.

If word lists can be considered to be public domain, then I would be
happy to license the creative work I did.  The original author of the
lists is deceased so it would be hard to ask for permission.

I could also write a script that would download the (potentially)
non-free source of the dictionary, then transform it into the source
code, and release my work as free software.  I think people have done
this sort of thing before.

> It is unfortunate that the dictionary does not have a free license.
> (What is this dictionary?  I never heard of it before.)

The dictionary is actually just several lists of words, which are
meant to fall into certain "psychological" categories, e.g. there is a
list of emotion words, there is a list of symbols reminiscent of the
Icarus myth, etc.

>    or try the software-as-service site at
>
> Please don't promote SaaS sites in this list.
> See  http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html.

I didn't mean to promote it, rather I think it would be nice if we had
an Emacs-based clone.