Re: Re: Help Save Aspell From being Removed from Fedora!

On Wed, 7 May 2008, Andriy Rysin wrote:

> One thing I'd like to note on this matter as a dictionary maintainer
> is that even though I see a great sense in having different spelling
> engines which can compete in quality for particular languages I see no
> value in having multiple dictionary formats.
> Long time ago it was only ispell, then ispell and aspell, then ispell,
> aspell and myspell/hunspell (even though the first one fades away).
> The problem as I see in aspelll currently is of two parts:
>
> 1. Architecture-dependent dictionaries, I see really no reason in
> making dictionary arch-dependent, and to keep users updated on the
> dictionaries I have to create one for each architecture or let them
> compile it (which for end users is not quite nice). So until recent
> time I had to generate a lot of files for each new version just to
> make sure users don't have deal with compilation.

They are Architecture-dependent for performance reasons, in particular 
startup time.  I am willing to accept modifications on Aspell to support
Architecture-independent dictionaries but I just don't have the time to do 
so myself.  I honestly don't see why compiling the dictionary is such a big 
deal, it is very easy to do, and even possible to automate as part of 
an automatic install process.  Nevertheless, I can understand how some see 
this as a problem.

> 2. No win platform support, it seems that this problem was part of why
> big projects (OOo and FF) went the other way for hunspell. So now all
> primary users of the dictionary I support are going for hunspell
> dictionary thus (even though for now both are generated from the same
> source) my attention goes more the non-aspell way :)

Aspell can compile on windows just fine, several people have done so.  I 
just don't have time to maintain a Windows port, but am trying to find 
some one do so.

Oh, and not officially supporting windows is only a small part of the 
reason OOo and FF went with hunspell.  I think I have a good reason why, 
and it involves some possible missteps on my part.  One of these days I 
will write it up.