Why dictionaries under a Free license should cooperate

It is easy to explain why the non-free dictionaries are not “Free”. They are not free because people thing that more money can be made with these dictionaries. It is elementary. It is impossible to understand why a dictionary available under a “Free” license should be licensed under any particular license.

From my perspective, there are a few things that are relevant. It must be “Free”, this is something that is shared by all so that people are able to use it. The other thing is there must be attribution.

When we work together on a FREE resource, it will not take too long and we have enough relevant information to matter in a language. From that moment onwards quality and quantity will grow because "enough" is the tipping point where it makes sense to add content to the shared resource. When a new spell checkers is generated every week, it is obvious where to correct mistakes and where to add content. A spell checker only needs to say where this can be done (this IS the reason for attribution) and it would enable people to get updates, it would also enable to find who contributed to this resource.

It is really important to understand about DATA that a license can only be "viral" with respect to DATA. Using a spell checker generated with a GPL licensed dictionary does not change the license of the software running this data. To be honest, I am happy that it does not, because it makes it obvious. It makes it obvious that the “Free” dictionaries should work together. By working together we will achieve more than what we can achieve separately.

Thanks,
GerardM