Comment 4 for bug 120576

Two comments:

1.Can we have a lawyer look at this? AFAICT, and IANAL, the dictionaries used by Linux in general and Ubuntu specifically, are simply lists, or compilations. Generally speaking, courts have held that compilations are not copyrightable - or more precisely, that the facts contained in the list - are not copyrightable. See Rural Vs Feist in the US, Nine Vs Ice TV in Australia, etc.

If it is the case that lists of words cannot be copyrightable, then neither the LGPL nor the LPPL can apply to the distribution of the list of words, since these licenses are themselves based on copyright. Again, IANAL. Or at least, someone can take the exact same list of words, reorder them if they want, then redistribute them.

Perhaps a lawyer will look at this and conclude "interesting, a judge might agree", in which we are no further ahead. But if a lawyer concludes "absolutely, that is spot on", then we have a way forward.

2. Why on earth is this marked wishlist? It's a bug! I am Canadian and this ain't no wishlist item, it is an absolute showstopper that impacts my ability to work (and I write documents for a living!).

My choices are 1) export as doc and spell in MS Word, yay, ain't that grand, 2) use another dictionary close to the Canadian, e.g., the British (NOT the American) and hope that I notice those Canadianisms that aren't going to be in the British dictionary, 3) use the awful install process described that one has to stumble upon out of sheer luck.

None of these are acceptable workarounds and given that this bug impacts the ability of people to do real work and use Ubuntu exclusively (my daughter emails her school projects to my wife so that she can spell check them under Word, since we haven't converted her yet!), it is a real bug, not a wishlist item.

Making it wishlist is akin to closing our eyes and hoping it will go away. It won't. Not until someone fixes it. It's a bug. It needs to be fixed. Not wished away as an enhancement.