Re: English-Persian dictionary on your site

[Arash Zeini]

In a message dated Saturday 06 March 2004 22:20, C Bobroff wrote:

> On Sat, 6 Mar 2004, Linguasoft wrote:
> > Just a few thoughts why things happen that may appear strange at a
> > first glance...
>
> Peter,
>
> Speaking of strange, I think you may enjoy this book if you haven't read
> it already:
>
>  AUTHOR   Winchester, Simon
>  TITLEThe professor and the madman : a tale of murder, insanity,
>   and the making of the Oxford English dictionary.
>  EDITION  1st ed
>  PUBL INFONew York : HarperCollins Publishers, c1998
>  PHYS DESCxi, 242 p. : ill. ; 22 cm
>
>
> -Connie

Excellent book. If you are interested in lexicography this is a must. 
Thanks for the recommendation Connie.

Arash
-- 
The FarsiKDE Project
www.farsikde.org
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Re: Dictionaries on the web

[fariborz_persiancomp]

> On Fri, 5 Mar 2004, Roozbeh Pournader wrote:
> 
>> Honestly, license agreements are not applicable in Iran (and many other
>> countries). License Agreements may be important if you live in US and
>> some other countries, but don't have a case in Iran. In Iran, you only
>> have the copyright law.
> 
> And of course the contract law.  To be precise, the Islamic
> contract law ;).  Perhaps we should raise some funds to pay a
> lawyer to resolve this issue...
> 
> behdad
> 
>> roozbeh

This has been an interesting thread.  I have a story that relates to
this.  My youngest sister is turning into an accomplished painter.
On a recent visit to Iran, I brought back some of her works.  I asked
her to sign them.  She signed the back of the frame, rather than -- as
she put it -- deface the painting with her signature.  She felt that
she was only the conduit for the creativity and not the source and so
couldn't take credit for the work.  Her thinking is probably
influenced partly by modesty and partly by religion.

I don't know anything about the laws in Iran, but I would imagine that
this attitude probably permeates throughout the Intellectual Property
law.  Obviously this isn't good for the traditional software business
model (licensing binaries, and hiding the code), but I am not sure
that the Open Source business model wouldn't also be hurt by it.

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Re: Dictionaries on the web

[Behdad Esfahbod]

On Fri, 5 Mar 2004, Roozbeh Pournader wrote:

> On Thu, 2004-03-04 at 04:17, Behdad Esfahbod wrote:
> > as you have *bought*
> > the software, you can do whatever you want with it, as it's your
> > property.
>
> Only that single copy will become your property of course. And you
> cannot do whatever you want with it: you cannot kill someone using it,
> you cannot copy it indefinitely, ...

Well, you are mixing irrelevant things here.  You can do whatever
you want with it.  But if there's a law saying "Thou Shall Not
Kill" that's a completely another story.

Note Note Note Note Note:  We need an Iranian lawyer :(.

behdad


> > So, which of these I'm allowed to do and which not?
>
> I don't know. I don't support my previous personal point anymore. It may
> be completely legal to do all of those.
>
> roozbeh
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Re: Dictionaries on the web

[Behdad Esfahbod]

On Fri, 5 Mar 2004, Roozbeh Pournader wrote:

> Honestly, license agreements are not applicable in Iran (and many other
> countries). License Agreements may be important if you live in US and
> some other countries, but don't have a case in Iran. In Iran, you only
> have the copyright law.

And of course the contract law.  To be precise, the Islamic
contract law ;).  Perhaps we should raise some funds to pay a
lawyer to resolve this issue...

behdad

> roozbeh
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Re: Nested RTL Lists in Mozilla

[C Bobroff]

On Sat, 6 Mar 2004, Behnam Esfahbod wrote:

> In new mozilla release (1.7a), the bug for alignment of nested
> right-to-left lists has fixed.  Now all type of lists (ol|ul) work
> properly in RtL direction.
>
> Test Page: 

But the numbers in the list are still not in Persian...

-Connie
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RE: English-Persian dictionary on your site

[C Bobroff]

On Sat, 6 Mar 2004, Linguasoft wrote:

> Just a few thoughts why things happen that may appear strange at a first
> glance...

Peter,

Speaking of strange, I think you may enjoy this book if you haven't read
it already:

 AUTHOR   Winchester, Simon
 TITLEThe professor and the madman : a tale of murder, insanity,
  and the making of the Oxford English dictionary.
 EDITION  1st ed
 PUBL INFONew York : HarperCollins Publishers, c1998
 PHYS DESCxi, 242 p. : ill. ; 22 cm


-Connie
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Re: First Kurdish daily

[Roozbeh Pournader]

There is more information and an interview available from BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian/iran/story/2004/03/040306_he-kurdishpaper.shtml

roozbeh

On Sat, 2004-03-06 at 13:53, Roozbeh Pournader wrote:
> IRNA reports that the first Kurdish daily newspaper in Iran, called
> "aashti" (Û) has started publication today (March 6, Esfand 16).
> Congratulations.
> 
> roozbeh
> 

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Re: English-Persian dictionary on your site

[Behnam]

I remember there was a "case study" about "murder" or "accidental 
death" supposing this:
You hold firmly your sharp sword that you happen to have, out of your 
apartment window and at the same time someone throws himself out of his 
apartment window, many story above, with the intention of committing 
suicide. He falls on your sword and gets cut in half. Is it a murder or 
suicide?! That case study concluded that it IS murder.
I personally conclude that it is funny!

Iran was never a signatory of international copyright convention (or 
whatever its name is). The idea was that in this way the population at 
large can have access to knowledge and technology of advanced world 
without facing prohibitive costs. In its origin, it's a noble idea, as 
it is the origin of copyright laws.
The right to make a living out of effort and creativity is not a big 
corporation discourse. It's been used and abused by big corporation by 
the way they use their money and power to interpret laws... or even 
make them. They have the power of imposing their interpretation of the 
case, murder, suicide or accidental death, and this is what exactly 
doing the total lack of copyright law to creativity and renewal.

I believe that staying out of international copyright convention for 
Iran (and any other country) is harmful to their population. The first 
benefit of such adhesion may go directly to big corporations but the 
long term benefit of it is for the people of such countries. But we 
should think of copyright issue first as a notion and a value and not 
in terms of articles in the law. The laws should come after, based on 
these notions and values shared amongst the population. If those values 
aren't entrenched in social culture, the terms of the law only come up 
when we try to circumvent them!

I remember that the pop group Beetles stopped in Tehran for a concert 
during their world tour. An enthusiastic fan approached Paul McCartney 
and asked him to sign the cover of his 45 rms. vinyl disc. He looked at 
the disc and asked him "where did you get this from?" ... and the 
concert was cancelled!

Now Beetles never needed the royalty of that disc but how many local 
musician have suffered since in poverty while we all still listen to 
their works? You may think you can separate international from national 
but you can't. It's an all or nothing situation. Even fighting the 
power of big corporations will be more efficient if we join the 
international community (and international fight that's been going on) 
The question is whether you value the effort of a person (regardless of 
nationality) or you don't. If we want to talk about such issues, let's 
talk in terms of values and not in terms of law. Non of us is lawyer in 
here anyway.

Behnam

On 6-Mar-04, at 6:00 AM, Linguasoft wrote:
"Professional modification" (editing/improvement/adaptation) of 
entries from
one (or preferably, several) dictionary sources CAN create an entirely 
new
copyright!

How else would major dictionaries for many European languages (let me 
cite
the German "Duden" as an example) still be published with relatively 
recent
copyright messages, although the original authors have been dead for 
more
than 100 years (or more)?

What's more, the same (i.e., "professional modification") happens also 
with
recently published dictionaries. The rule is: use several sources, 
compile
them, compare them, edit them, (quote them, if you want), and CLAIM a 
new
copyright until someone comes who can prove the contrary. This implies 
of
course that the burden of proof lies on the claimant. In most cases, 
legal
costs involved would not justify the claim.

Another tricky issue with dictionaries (and copyright laws, in 
general) is
to define where the limit to the right of free citation lies.

Just a few thoughts why things happen that may appear strange at a 
first
glance...

Peter



-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Roozbeh
Pournader
Sent: Friday, March 05, 2004 4:52 PM
To: Ali A. Khanban
Cc: Persian Computing List
Subject: Re: English-Persian dictionary on your site
On Fri, 2004-03-05 at 16:14, Ali A. Khanban wrote:

Don't forget that I had modified the data before using it in the new
dictionary and there have been some added words, too.
That doesn't make the copying legal, unfortunately.

roozbeh

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English<>Persian electronic dictionaries

[Linguasoft]

In an attempt to broaden our current discussion:

Does anyone know about the legal status of the dictionaries offered for free
download on the following site:

http://info.babylon.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi?layout=sr_new.html&cat=21&sort=&n
c=2&n=10

The company offering them is identified at

http://www.babylon.com/display.php?id=44&tree=7&level=2

(the German address is only a branch office, AFAIK).

Best regards,

Peter


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RE: English-Persian dictionary on your site

[Linguasoft]

"Professional modification" (editing/improvement/adaptation) of entries from
one (or preferably, several) dictionary sources CAN create an entirely new
copyright!

How else would major dictionaries for many European languages (let me cite
the German "Duden" as an example) still be published with relatively recent
copyright messages, although the original authors have been dead for more
than 100 years (or more)?

What's more, the same (i.e., "professional modification") happens also with
recently published dictionaries. The rule is: use several sources, compile
them, compare them, edit them, (quote them, if you want), and CLAIM a new
copyright until someone comes who can prove the contrary. This implies of
course that the burden of proof lies on the claimant. In most cases, legal
costs involved would not justify the claim.

Another tricky issue with dictionaries (and copyright laws, in general) is
to define where the limit to the right of free citation lies.

Just a few thoughts why things happen that may appear strange at a first
glance...

Peter



-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Roozbeh
Pournader
Sent: Friday, March 05, 2004 4:52 PM
To: Ali A. Khanban
Cc: Persian Computing List
Subject: Re: English-Persian dictionary on your site

On Fri, 2004-03-05 at 16:14, Ali A. Khanban wrote:

> Don't forget that I had modified the data before using it in the new 
> dictionary and there have been some added words, too.

That doesn't make the copying legal, unfortunately.

roozbeh


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First Kurdish daily

[Roozbeh Pournader]

IRNA reports that the first Kurdish daily newspaper in Iran, called
"aashti" (Û) has started publication today (March 6, Esfand 16).
Congratulations.

roozbeh


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