ConsolidateSpellingLibs

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Revision 13 as of 2008-06-04 15:13:57
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 * '''Created''': 2005-10-30 by MatthiasKlose
 * '''Contributors''':
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Replace three of the spelling libraries by one implementation and use that one for all applications supported in main. Currently up to four implementations are in use:

 * ispell: still used by some applications, its getting replaced by aspell.

 * aspell: ispell replacement, biggest users in main are gnome and KDE

 * myspell: ispell replacement, currently used by thunderbird, mozilla, openoffice.

 * hunspell: fork/replacement for myspell, dictionaries beeing compatible with aspell.

Dictionaries are currently packaged either separately for each spelling checker, or in some cases, derived from one common dictionary source.

ispell and aspell do provide a C interface, myspell and hunspell do provide a C++ interface.
Reduce the number of spelling libraries used in main; modify / extend
applications currently not using the One True Spellchecker to do so.
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Support only one implementation in the long term, and more importantly, only support the dictionaries for on spelling library. Supporting only one implementation and set of dictionaries eases
long-term maintenance. Also, words which the user teaches to the
spellcheckers will be consistently available throughout the system.
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 * Jane spell-checks a document in Open``Office and adds a few new ones
 to her personal dictionary. Half an hour later she discusses the
 document with a colleague in ICQ. Gaim's spell checking automatically
 knows about the newly added words.

 * Hans pays by the byte for his internet connection. When installing Intrepid, it downloads a lot less for language support than Hardy did. He is happy that it installs faster, too.
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This affects all supported packages in Ubuntu which have
spell-checking capability.
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=== Status quo ===

Currently four implementations are in use in current Intrepid:

 * ispell: still used by some applications, it's getting replaced by
 aspell. Not used in Ubuntu main any more, and just 4 reverse
 dependencies in Universe (spell, sqwebmail, liblingua-ispell-perl,
 gnumed-client)

 * aspell: ispell replacement. Biggest users in main are Gnome and
 KDE. Other reverse dependency in main: ekg, pan, php5-pspell,
 python-gnome2-extras. About 20 reverse dependencies in universe.

 * myspell: ispell replacement. Not used by anything in Ubuntu any
 more.

 * hunspell: fork/replacement for myspell, dictionaries being
 compatible with myspell. Currently used by openoffice, Thunderbird,
 and Firefox.

 * Finnish currently uses the voikko system, which computes the
 multitude of possible word permissions from a common stem. Altaic
 (Turkish and related languages) and Ugric (Estonian, Finnish,
 Hungarian and relatives) languages with complex prefix and suffix
 systems generally work badly with above systems. So we will continue
 to support Voikko for Finnish. Since the supported languages of
 Voikko and hunspell do not overlap, this does not cause large
 compatibility problems.

ispell and aspell provide a C interface, myspell and hunspell provide
a C++ interface. The enchant library provides a way to abstract from
the underlying spell checker (aspell or myspell) and can be used to
convert applications to a common interface.

Dictionary support is splitted out in its own spec ConsolidateDictionaries.

=== Goal in Intrepid ===

hunspell is the most modern implementation and considered the best
choice in the free software world.

 * Change GNOME, KDE, and other packages in main to use hunspell.

 * Drop ispell/aspell dictionaries from `language-support-*` and from
 main.

 * Demote ispell to universe. Remove myspell from the archive.

 * Drop myspell dictionaries from `language-support-*` where a
 hunspell dictionary is available. Keep the myspell one for other
 languages.
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=== Code === === GNOME ===
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=== Data preservation and migration ===  * Fedora has patches to support hunspell through enchant now;
 The http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/FeatureDictionary spec has
 pointers to bugzilla.

 * [https://launchpad.net/~phanatic/+archive Szilveszter Farkas's PPA]
 has test packages with those patches applied.

=== KDE ===

KDE4 upstream already uses enchant/hunspell. Above Fedora
specification has patches for KDE 3, but since Intrepid will only ship
KDE 4.1, we do not need to do anything in particular for KDE for this
specification.
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== BoF agenda and discussion == The demotion of aspell has not been discussed. It would require
porting php and ekg to hunspell, which hasn't happened upstream yet.
Thus we will keep the aspell library itself in main for the time being.

Summary

Reduce the number of spelling libraries used in main; modify / extend applications currently not using the One True Spellchecker to do so.

Rationale

Supporting only one implementation and set of dictionaries eases long-term maintenance. Also, words which the user teaches to the spellcheckers will be consistently available throughout the system.

Use cases

  • Jane spell-checks a document in OpenOffice and adds a few new ones to her personal dictionary. Half an hour later she discusses the document with a colleague in ICQ. Gaim's spell checking automatically knows about the newly added words.

  • Hans pays by the byte for his internet connection. When installing Intrepid, it downloads a lot less for language support than Hardy did. He is happy that it installs faster, too.

Scope

This affects all supported packages in Ubuntu which have spell-checking capability.

Design

Status quo

Currently four implementations are in use in current Intrepid:

  • ispell: still used by some applications, it's getting replaced by aspell. Not used in Ubuntu main any more, and just 4 reverse dependencies in Universe (spell, sqwebmail, liblingua-ispell-perl, gnumed-client)
  • aspell: ispell replacement. Biggest users in main are Gnome and KDE. Other reverse dependency in main: ekg, pan, php5-pspell, python-gnome2-extras. About 20 reverse dependencies in universe.
  • myspell: ispell replacement. Not used by anything in Ubuntu any more.
  • hunspell: fork/replacement for myspell, dictionaries being compatible with myspell. Currently used by openoffice, Thunderbird, and Firefox.
  • Finnish currently uses the voikko system, which computes the multitude of possible word permissions from a common stem. Altaic (Turkish and related languages) and Ugric (Estonian, Finnish, Hungarian and relatives) languages with complex prefix and suffix systems generally work badly with above systems. So we will continue to support Voikko for Finnish. Since the supported languages of Voikko and hunspell do not overlap, this does not cause large compatibility problems.

ispell and aspell provide a C interface, myspell and hunspell provide a C++ interface. The enchant library provides a way to abstract from the underlying spell checker (aspell or myspell) and can be used to convert applications to a common interface.

Dictionary support is splitted out in its own spec ConsolidateDictionaries.

Goal in Intrepid

hunspell is the most modern implementation and considered the best choice in the free software world.

  • Change GNOME, KDE, and other packages in main to use hunspell.
  • Drop ispell/aspell dictionaries from language-support-* and from main.

  • Demote ispell to universe. Remove myspell from the archive.
  • Drop myspell dictionaries from language-support-* where a hunspell dictionary is available. Keep the myspell one for other languages.

Implementation

GNOME

KDE

KDE4 upstream already uses enchant/hunspell. Above Fedora specification has patches for KDE 3, but since Intrepid will only ship KDE 4.1, we do not need to do anything in particular for KDE for this specification.

Outstanding issues

The demotion of aspell has not been discussed. It would require porting php and ekg to hunspell, which hasn't happened upstream yet. Thus we will keep the aspell library itself in main for the time being.

ConsolidateSpellingLibs (last edited 2008-08-06 16:16:08 by localhost)