Including a dictionary: license and howto?

[flod]

Hi,
I have a couple of questions about including dictionaries in localized
builds.

1) License problem (that's why I'm CCing Gerv)
https://wiki.mozilla.org/L10n:Dictionaries
> Gerv says: to be included in the source tree, and therefore in builds
> shipped by Mozilla, a dictionary needs to have a licence compatible
> *with all three* of the "MPL 1.1", "LGPL 2.1 or later" and "GPL 2.0 or
> later".
Now that we moved from being tri-licensed to MPL2[1], is that assumption
still valid?

Currently the LibreOffice/OpenOffice Italian dictionary [2] is available
under GPL3, and I'd like to know if it could be included in our
localized builds.

2) Including the dictionary

What's the right process to include a dictionary in my locale? I
searched around but I couldn't find anything updated (some old
discussions here or old bugs).

My understanding, looking at other locales (e.g. fr and en-US), is that
the dictionary must be placed in /extensions/spellcheck/hunspell, but I
don't know if it must be enabled somewhere else for the build system.

Francesco


[1] https://wiki.mozilla.org/MPL_Upgrade
[2]
http://extensions.libreoffice.org/extension-center/italian-dictionary-thesaurus-hyphenation-patterns/releases/3.3.1

[Gervase Markham]

On 20/03/13 09:00, flod wrote:
> 1) License problem (that's why I'm CCing Gerv)
> https://wiki.mozilla.org/L10n:Dictionaries
>> Gerv says: to be included in the source tree, and therefore in builds
>> shipped by Mozilla, a dictionary needs to have a licence compatible
>> *with all three* of the "MPL 1.1", "LGPL 2.1 or later" and "GPL 2.0 or
>> later".
> Now that we moved from being tri-licensed to MPL2[1], is that assumption
> still valid?

Sort of.

It should now say:

"To be included in the source tree, and therefore in builds shipped by
Mozilla, a dictionary needs to have a licence compatible with the MPL 2
(e.g. Apache 2, BSD, MIT), or be under the LGPL."

> Currently the LibreOffice/OpenOffice Italian dictionary [2] is available
> under GPL3, and I'd like to know if it could be included in our
> localized builds.

Sorry, no :-(

If the author of a dictionary places it under the GPL, we assume that by
that they meant that the dictionary could only be used in GPLed
software. And we respect that decision.

Gerv

[Gervase Markham]

On 20/03/13 11:14, Gervase Markham wrote:
> If the author of a dictionary places it under the GPL, we assume that by
> that they meant that the dictionary could only be used in GPLed
> software. And we respect that decision.

Sorry: s/used in/distributed as part of/.

It is possible to make dictionary packs of such dictionaries and ship
them as add-ons or using some sort of auto-download mechanism.

Gerv

[flod]

Il 20/03/13 12:15, Gervase Markham ha scritto:

> It is possible to make dictionary packs of such dictionaries and ship
> them as add-ons or using some sort of auto-download mechanism.

Hi Gerv,
thanks for the clarification. We're already doing that and we have about
190k users, which is quite a low number considering the potential
audience (users of localized Firefox/Thunderbird/Seamonkey, plus people
who just need the Italian dictionary).

I guess the dictionary, or the spellcheck feature in general, is not
that easy to find if there's not a dictionary already installed.

AFAIK we don't have any "auto-download mechanism". That's what
OpenOffice.org was/is doing, at least if I'm not wrong, to find a way
around the license problem.

Francesco

[Julen Ruiz Aizpuru]

Hi,

az., 2013.eko marren 20a 12:14(e)an, Gervase Markham(e)k idatzi zuen:

I don't know much about licenses, so this might not be the right
question: could the copyright holders authorize an exception in order to
have a GPL-licensed dictionary in a localized build shipped by Mozilla?

Julen.

[Axel Hecht]

Yes, they'd be doing that by adding a compatible license to their work.

If the exception would only be valid for mozilla to distribute the
builds, that'd be countering our intention, I guess. I.e., open source
is about other people being able to use our work, as well as us to take
other people's work.

Axel

[Sander Lepik]

20.03.2013 11:00, flod kirjutas:
> 2) Including the dictionary
>
> What's the right process to include a dictionary in my locale? I
> searched around but I couldn't find anything updated (some old
> discussions here or old bugs).
>
> My understanding, looking at other locales (e.g. fr and en-US), is
> that the dictionary must be placed in /extensions/spellcheck/hunspell,
> but I don't know if it must be enabled somewhere else for the build
> system.
>
> Francesco

Axel? Anyone else? I'd like to add dictionary too.

--
Sander

[Gervase Markham]

On 20/03/13 11:25, flod wrote:
> AFAIK we don't have any "auto-download mechanism". That's what
> OpenOffice.org was/is doing, at least if I'm not wrong, to find a way
> around the license problem.

No, we don't. I mention it for completeness, as every time this question
comes up, someone says we should do it. :-)

Gerv

[Gervase Markham]

On 20/03/13 11:38, Julen Ruiz Aizpuru wrote:
> I don't know much about licenses, so this might not be the right
> question: could the copyright holders authorize an exception in order to
> have a GPL-licensed dictionary in a localized build shipped by Mozilla?

Yes, they could, but the easiest way to do so would be to use the LGPL
instead. :-)

Gerv

[Jesper Kristensen]

Yes, adding the files is enough. It does not need to be enabled
somewhere else.

[Jesper Kristensen]

Den 20-03-2013 12:25flod skrev:
> I guess the dictionary, or the spellcheck feature in general, is not
> that easy to find if there's not a dictionary already installed.
>
> AFAIK we don't have any "auto-download mechanism". That's what
> OpenOffice.org was/is doing, at least if I'm not wrong, to find a way
> around the license problem.

You are right that we don't have such mechanism. I once had a plan to
implement one, but due to lack of spare time I only managed to complete
the first two small steps: make dictionary add-ons installable without a
restart, and make the add-ons distinguishable from other add-ons, so
that they could be found by such a mechanism.

Is your Italian dictionary installable without a restart?
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Creating_a_spell_check_dictionary_add-on

/Jesper

[flod]

Il 21/03/13 18:34, Jesper Kristensen ha scritto:

> Is your Italian dictionary installable without a restart?

Honestly I didn't know you could do restartless dictionaries, but still
it seems too much a risk right now
> Although the restartless format for dictionary add-ons were introduced
> in Gecko 10, dictionary updates only works starting from Gecko 18
> (bug 782118 <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=782118>).
> The minVersion should therefore be the same as in the example above
> (or greater).
You're cutting off Thunderbird 3.x users (I fear there are a lot out
there), and what happens to ESR users? Unfortunately BugZilla has been
down from here all afternoon, so I don't
really know what bug 782118 says.

Francesco

[Jesper Kristensen]

Den 21-03-2013 19:16flod skrev:
>> Although the restartless format for dictionary add-ons were introduced
>> in Gecko 10, dictionary updates only works starting from Gecko 18 (bug
>> 782118 <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=782118>). The
>> minVersion should therefore be the same as in the example above (or
>> greater).
> You're cutting off Thunderbird 3.x users (I fear there are a lot out
> there), and what happens to ESR users? Unfortunately BugZilla has been
> down from here all afternoon, so I don't
> really know what bug 782118 says.

Yes. You may want to not change your dictionary add-on right now, if you
think these concerns outweighs the benefits. However, I think it is
unlikely that there will be new Thunderbird 3 users, and if the existing
users have not discovered the add-on by now, they most likely will not
discover it. Users who already have the add-on installed are not affected.

You can set minVersion to 10, but then users of 10-17 will not be able
to update your add-on, and users of 10-16 may receive a warning about
incompatible add-ons when they try to update the application.

[Selim Şumlu]

20 Mart 2013 Çarşamba 13:14:16 UTC+2 tarihinde Gervase Markham yazdı:

What about Apache 2.0?

If it's OK, there's a project almost ready to use in Turkish Firefox: http://code.google.com/p/tr-spell/

[flod]

Il 23/03/13 14:11, Selim Şumlu ha scritto:
> What about Apache 2.0?
You quoted the answer ;-)

Francesco

[Selim Şumlu]

23 Mart 2013 Cumartesi 15:18:22 UTC+2 tarihinde flod yazdı:

Oops... I was actually looking at https://wiki.mozilla.org/L10n:Dictionaries while writing that, which doesn't mention Apache 2.0.

Thanks for clarifying. :)

[Selim Şumlu]

23 Mart 2013 Cumartesi 15:18:22 UTC+2 tarihinde flod yazdı:

[Gervase Markham]

On 23/03/13 13:11, Selim Şumlu wrote:
> What about Apache 2.0?
>
> If it's OK, there's a project almost ready to use in Turkish Firefox: http://code.google.com/p/tr-spell/

Apache 2.0 is fine.

Gerv

[Gervase Markham]

On 23/03/13 15:12, Selim Şumlu wrote:
> Oops... I was actually looking at https://wiki.mozilla.org/L10n:Dictionaries while writing that, which doesn't mention Apache 2.0.

I've updated this page.

Gerv

[Besnik Bleta]

Hello,

The string:

;Now get the mobile browser that’s got your back

from
https://svn.mozilla.org/projects/mozilla.com/trunk/locales/sq/firefox/whatsnew.lang

has passed to my eyes as saying "got /*you*/ back", as referring to the fact
the Firefox brought the Internet back to the users. Only today a user
reminded me that en_US actually displays "got /*your*/ back". Is there
really
a typo here or should I update my translation accordingly?

Cheers,
Besnik

[Jonathan Kew]

It's not a typo; but you probably shouldn't attempt to translate it
literally into non-English languages. "[The browser that's] got your
back" is an informal idiom that means roughly "takes care of you",
"looks after your interests", or "protects you".

See for example
http://www.english-idioms.com/files/have-got-your-back.html
and also
http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/937091

So in other languages, you might end up with a phrase that's equivalent
to "The mobile browser that takes care of you".

Hope this helps,

JK

[Besnik Bleta]

Më 04/07/2013 11:27 PM, Jonathan Kew shkrojti:

> It's not a typo; but you probably shouldn't attempt to translate it
> literally into non-English languages.

Thank you. Translating it is pretty easy for both cases. Couldn't decide
myself which case to go :) .


Best,
Besnik