Re: [aspell-devel] New Bengali Dictionary Ready But Author Does Not Want to Release ...

[Lars Aronsson]

Jose Da Silva wrote:
> however, no matter how much encryption and protection he can load on
> it, determined thieves can and will figure it out and steal the
> list(s).... all-the-much-easier due to the fact that the encryption
> decoders they would use themselves are within the aspell open
> source.

This is not entirely true.  An open source spelling program could use
a list of one-way encrypted words, and use the same one-way encryption
on each word before looking them up in the list.  However, this would
only prevent the listing (decrypting) of the dictionary. The encrypted
dictionary could still be stolen and enhanced and used in another
program that works the same way.  The inability of such a program to
suggest and list alternative spellings would also ruin the strength of 
Aspell.

Another way is not to publish the dictionary, but sell it as a
service, e.g. a website that the software will have to connect to.  
Send an HTTP request to http://mydictionary.top/spell?collour and back
comes the result of spellchecking.  Only subscribers who paid their
fees will receive a response, and nobody is allowed to list the entire
dictionary, you can only check individual words.  As a benefit, the
webserver can log any words that aren't in the dictionary, and these
words can be considered for inclusion by the dictionary owner.  This
scheme has a lot of drawbacks, especially in countries where people
are not online 24 hours a day.  But it keeps the dictionary secret.

The best way to guarantee due recognition (fame, not money) for a
spelling dictionary is probably to publish it openly and make it
widely known that you have compiled it, before others find time to
reuse it.  If you don't want others to profit, better not publish.


-- 
  Lars Aronsson (address@hidden)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se