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[aspell-devel] Aspell Status Update as of March of 2003


From: Kevin Atkinson
Subject: [aspell-devel] Aspell Status Update as of March of 2003
Date: Fri, 21 Mar 2003 19:41:26 -0500 (EST)

I have been rather busy working on my Master Theseus (1) so I have not
had a lot of time to work on Aspell.  However, I still plan to
maintain Aspell for the foreseeable future, just don't expect any new
developments in the next couple of months.  I also had not had the
time to respond to everyones email regarding Aspell, even those
offering to help in one way or another.  I am grateful to everyone
offering help in one way or another, I just haven't found the time to
get back to everyone.  I hope to get back to everyone soon.


ASPELL 0.50 STATUS

ASPELL 0.50.3 seams to be pretty stable without any major bug
reports except for a few recently submitted reports which I have yet
to look into.

Thanks to Brian Nelson Aspell 0.50.3 made its way into Debian
unstable.  Unfortunately Red Hat is still using Aspell 0.33.7 which I
would really like to retire.  If anyone knows why this is, and/or what
can be done to get Red Hat to upgrade, I would appreciate hearing back
from you.  The guy who use to be working on Aspell, Ted, left so I
have no real contacts to Red Hat anymore.


ASPELL ON WIN32

Thanks to Thorsten Maerz and others a WIN32 PORT is now available.
You can find it at http://aspell.net/win32/.  There you can find
recompiled binaries with a Full Installing as well as precompiled
dictionaries for all of Aspell's official dictionaries.

A patch to get Aspell to compile with VC++ is also available.
However, it is rather ugly and it is unlikely that all of the changes
will make in into an official version of Aspell.  Maybe some day when
Microsoft releases a standard compliance compiler this will change,
but for now those attempting to compile with VC++ will be on their
own.


MISC NEWS

Thanks to Christopher J. Madsen a PATCH FOR ISPELL.EL for improved
Aspell support is now available.  Ispell.el is the lisp module for
(x)emacs to support Ispell and Aspell.  This patch will notify aspell
of the replacements one makes so it can improve the suggestion list in
the future.  This is something I have been meaning to do for a while.
Hopefully, it will make it into an official version of ispell.el.


A COMPLETE MAILING LIST ARCHIVE is now available for all of Aspell's
old mailing list.  They have been merged into the current mailing list
as follows:

  aspell-announce:
    address@hidden
    address@hidden

  aspell-user:
    address@hidden
    address@hidden
    address@hidden
    address@hidden
    address@hidden

  aspell-devel:
    address@hidden

You can find the archive at http://savannah.gnu.org/mail/?group=aspell.


DEVELOPMENTS TOWARDS NEXT VERSION OF ASPELL

GETTEXT SUPPORT is now in the main CVS branch thanks to Sergey
Poznyakoff but needs testing.  I personally have not been able to get
Aspell to use another local.  I really need some people to test out
locale support is Aspell and let me know if it is working, and if so
help me get it working on my machine.

LOADABLE FILTER SUPPORT is now almost done thanks to Christoph
Hintermüller.  It is currently on the "loadable-branch" in CVS.  I
hope to merge this to the trunk soon.

The integration of Kevin Hendricks AFFIX COMPRESSION CODE is currently
halfway done.  The code is in pieces in my hard drive.  If you would
like to help out with Aspell Development this is where you could do
the most good.  If you are interested and know a decent deal of C++
please contact me at address@hidden

Thanks to Lutz Horn the manual is partly CONVERTED INTO TEXINFO.  The
conversion is is no longer as high of a priority as it was since
XFroms is now under the LGPL instead of a non-free license like it use
to be.  Nevertheless, if you would like to finish the job of
converting the manual to Texinfo please let me know.


FINALLY...

I have been considering accepting donations for working on Aspell via
a paypal account.  At the moment I am a grad student at UMBC with an
assistantship of only 5,000 a year.  It was 10,000 but it got cut in
half due to budget cuts.  My financial situation is OK but only
because I am currently living at home.  With that little money I would
have a hard time supporting myself if I had to pay for rent and food.
After I get my Masters Theseus I am planning on going onto getting my
Ph D.  Once I start my Ph. D. work I should be okay (well provided I
get a decent assistantship) but that won't be to Fall of 2004.

Thus I could really could use any money anyone has to offer.  Getting
paid for my work on Aspell will give me an incentive to work some
more on Aspell.  However, due to my Masters Theseus (1) work I only
have a limited time I can spare for Aspell even if someone gave me a
significant sum of money.  Thus I am relevant to accept anyone's money
as I can not promise it "Will be put to good use towards the
development of Aspell."  Furthermore, even though a large part of
Aspell's code is my own, other people have put a significant effort
into parts of Aspell.  So, how should I distribute the money?  I will
fell guilty accepting it all.  Money was never the motivation to
develop Aspell, however, receiving some would let me know I am really
appreciate and thus give me more motivation to work on Aspell.

So I would like some advise if should start accepting donations, and
the best way to go about it.  If you have some advice on this matter
please contact me privately.


(1) DistribNet: A Global peer-to-peer internet file system in which
    anyone can tap into or add content to.
    http://distribnet.sourceforge.net/

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






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