[aspell-announce] Aspell is now a GNU Package

[Kevin Atkinson]

The New Aspell is now an official GNU package!  As a result of this all
information related to the new Aspell has moved to
http://www.gnu.org/software/aspell/index.html.  The official name of the
New Aspell has changed to "GNU Aspell" to reflect the fact that it is a
GNU package.  More changes are coming once everything gets set up.  So
stay tuned.

As far as Aspell itself goes, it is now complete enough to function as a
replacement for the old Aspell/Pspell with a few exceptions. However, it
has not been tested that well at all.  So, please test it out.

In case you have not notices, I have found some time to work on Aspell.
However my time is limited. Thus, I am still looking for someone to
eventually take over the maintenance and development of Aspell.  So, if
you are interested in doing so please contact me.

Even if you do not intend to become the maintainer of Aspell you can still
help out with the development by helping me with one or more of the
following tasks on my to do list.  Good C++ skills are needed for most of
the tasks involving coding.  If you are interested in any of these please 
contact me at address@hidden

TO DO:

  * Convert manual from LyX/LaTeX to Texinfo.

  * Clean up copyright notices and bring the Aspell package up to GNU
    Standards.

  * Add gettext support to Aspell.

  * Allow Aspell to check documents which are in UTF-8. The main
    thing to be done is to get Aspell to display UTF-8 correctly.
    This will involve being able to get the length of UTF-8 strings
    and display UTF-8 using the curses library.

  * Make Aspell Thread safe. Even though Aspell itself is not
    multi-threaded I would like it to be thread safe so that it can
    be used by multi-threaded programs. There are several areas of
    Aspell that that are potently thread unsafe (such as accessing a
    global pool) and several several classes which have the potential
    of being used by more than one thread (such as the personal
    dictionary).

  * Allow filters to be loaded at run-time. At the moment all filters
    must be complied in.

  * Integrate Kevin Hendricks affix compression code into Aspell. His
    code is already in use in OpenOffice as part of the
    lingucomponent component. More information can be found at http:/
    /whiteboard.openoffice.org/lingucomponent/dictionary.html. The
    latest version of his code is also available there. However, this
    is being put on hold until RMS gives me the all clear due to
    potential LGPL incompatibilities in the license of his code.



-- 
http://kevin.atkinson.dhs.org