[kidsgames] wordnet

[pkienzle@kienzle.powernet.co.uk (Paul Kienzle)]

I don't recall if WordNet has been mentioned here before, but I use it
as my primary dictionary -- it is that complete.  The great thing about
it is that it is crosslinked to death, and includes not only synonyms
and antonyms, but also part-whole categorizations and a whole host of
other things.  If you want a machine readable semantic network for the
English language, then this is it:  
	http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/~wn/w3wn.html
Or you can install the dict-wn package from your Debian distribution.

Here is the copyright notice:

	This software and database is being provided to you, the
	LICENSEE, by Princeton University under the following license.
	By obtaining, using and/or copying this software and database,
	you agree that you have read, understood, and will comply with
	these terms and conditions.:

	Permission to use, copy, modify and distribute this software and
	database and its documentation for any purpose and without fee
	or royalty is hereby granted, provided that you agree to comply
	with the following copyright notice and statements, including
	the disclaimer, and that the same appear on ALL copies of the
	software, database and documentation, including modifications
	that you make for internal use or for distribution.

	WordNet 1.6 Copyright 1997 by Princeton University.  All rights
	reserved.

	THIS SOFTWARE AND DATABASE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND PRINCETON
	UNIVERSITY MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES, EXPRESS
	OR IMPLIED.  BY WAY OF EXAMPLE, BUT NOT LIMITATION, PRINCETON
	UNIVERSITY MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES OF MERCHANT-
	ABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR THAT THE USE OF
	THE LICENSED SOFTWARE, DATABASE OR DOCUMENTATION WILL NOT INFRINGE
	ANY THIRD PARTY PATENTS, COPYRIGHTS, TRADEMARKS OR OTHER RIGHTS.

	The name of Princeton University or Princeton may not be used
	in advertising or publicity pertaining to distribution of the
	software And/or database.  Title to copyright in this software,
	database and any associated documentation shall at all times
	remain with Princeton University and LICENSEE agrees to preserve
	same.

There is also a EuroWordNet project (http://www.hum.uva.nl/~ewn/)
which takes this framework and adds a bunch of other languages
(Dutch, Spanish, Italian, German, French, Czech and Estonian),
but charges a hefty fee.  Might be worth it if I were still
doing translation.  I notice they have freely available samples at
http://www.hum.uva.nl/~ewn/data/sampleData.html.  The particularly
tempting one is:

	ili.zip (20.4MB) The Inter-Lingual-Index for matching
                         synsets across wordnets.

Sure sounds like this might be a multilingual dictionary.  Anyone have
access to a reliable fast connection, Windows 9x and some time on
their hands to see if this is really what I hope it is?

Their copyright doesn't explicitly prohibit or allow redistribution with
or without modification, but "any purpose" sure sounds like we could
use it:

	This data is being provided to you, the LICENSEE, by the
	Universiteit van Amsterdam on behalf of the EuroWordNet
	Builders/Providers under the following license.  By obtaining
	and using this data, you agree that you have read, understood,
	and will comply with these terms and conditions:

	Permission to use this data and its documentation for any
	purpose and without fee or royalty is hereby granted, provided
	that you agree to comply with the following copyright notice
	and statements, including the disclaimer, and that the same
	appear on ALL copies of the data, and documentation, including
	modifications that you make for internal use.

	THIS DATA IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND the Universiteit van Amsterdam
	and the EuroWordNet Builders/Providers MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS
	OR WARRANTIES,	EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. BY WAY OF EXAMPLE, BUT
	NOT LIMITATION, the EuroWordNet Builders/Providers and the
	Universiteit van Amsterdam MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES
	OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR THAT
	THE USE OF THE LICENSED DATA OR DOCUMENTATION WILL NOT INFRINGE
	ANY THIRD PARTY PATENTS, COPYRIGHTS, TRADEMARKS OR OTHER RIGHTS.

	The names of the EuroWordNet Builders/Providers or EuroWordNet
	may not be used in advertising or publicity pertaining to
	distribution of the data. Title to copyright in this software,
	database and any associated documentation shall at all times
	remain with the EuroWordNet Builders/Providers and the LICENSEE
	agrees to preserve the same.


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