[aspell-announce] Aspell and Pspell will be merged.

[Kevin Atkinson]

In the near future Aspell is going to be merged into Pspell.  This will
happen with the next major release of Aspell.  If everything goes as
planed, in the next major version of Pspell:

* Aspell will be included as part of Pspell as a module
* The Ispell module will also be included
* Most of the functionally of the Aspell command will be replaced with
  a new Pspell command which will work for any spell checker
* The English dictionary will no longer be included with Aspell.  Instead
  it will be part of the Aspell-dicts package
* The manuals will be switched over from LyX/LaTeX to LyX/DocBook so that
  in can easily be converted to other formats such as info and man.
* The current C++ interface may disappear and be replaced with a nicer
  C++ interface which will act as a wrapper for the C interface as I
  discussed earlier.  If you are currently using the C++ interface and
  this will create a major problem for you please let me know.

Having Aspell as only a Pspell module is how I envisioned the
Aspell/Pspell relationship to end up.  I am just giving it a jump start to
make everyone life easier.

This will require major reorganization of just about anything associated
with Aspell and Pspell which will probably require packagers to redo there
packaging scheme for Aspell and Pspell as some libraries and data files
will disappear, other will be created, and the location of some of the
data files will be moved.  Also, as mentioned above Aspell, as you know it
know, is going to disappear and be replaced with a generic utility.  Some
Aspell specific things, such as creating dictionaries, will remain in the
Aspell utility however the executable will be renamed to aspell-util to
avoid any confusion.

Also, the Aspell project might disappear, however I am not sure about this.
At very least the Aspell mailing lists and bug tracker will disappear to
avoid confusion on where question and bug reports should be posted.

All of this _should_ happen around the end of August.

As always feedback more than welcome.

PS: The number of posted to the announcement mailing lists is going to
decrease shapely once all this is done.  So if you are interested in
Aspell and/or Pspell but are getting tired of the frequent posting to
these lists please hang in there and don't unsubscribe your self from the
lists.

---
Kevin Atkinson
kevina at users sourceforge net
http://www.ibiblio.org/kevina/