From: "William Meriic" To: , , Subject: AEL The GlyphStudy Open-Source Projects Group announces its grand opening Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 16:23:32 -0500 The GOSP announced its formal opening today. Attached is the press release. Sorry for cross-posting. I hope not too many of you get duplicates. Enjoy! - - Will 6/11/2008: The GlyphStudy Open-Source Projects Group announces its grand opening. http://gosp.sourceforge.net The GlyphStudy Open-Source Projects (GOSP) Group is an association of software developers, Ancient Egyptian educators, students, and scholars of various levels devoted to open source and public domain tools and resources to aid in Egyptology. The flagship products of the GOSP are a series of Ancient Egyptian dictionaries containing over 12,000 entries from such sources as Faulkner's Middle Egyptian Dictionary. The software to generate the dictionaries and various supporting libraries have also been made available. The flexibility of the software promotes rapid generation of a variety of language resources including dictionaries, sign lists, and cross-references in any imaginable layout, structure, and output format. For instance, work is underway to produce a version of the dictionary for the iPod! The GOSP is also home to a number of other projects including efforts to produce high quality sign lists, a scholarly and fully referenced dictionary of Ancient Egyptian, and numerous collaborations including improvements being made to the open-source hieroglyphic text editor JSesh, and the wiki-based Egyptian dictionary Eglyptionary. Director and cofounder Ted Young explains, "This is a very exciting and fast moving project. Since the decision to go forward with this project seven days ago we now have a vast array of resources that we can use to support existing projects and to create new resources to fulfill existing needs. We also have a fantastic website full of information. "It all started when I announced to the GlyphStudy Yahoo group, dedicated to teaching Middle Egyptian, that I had designed a flexible piece of software that can generate arbitrary dictionaries from various sources such as Mark Vygus's wordlist. Mark's wordlist is phenomenal. He transcribed over 12,000 entries from Faulkner's dictionary. He continues to maintain this valuable resource and I wanted a solution that would create new dictionaries as he made improvements. "The response was phenomenal! Dozens of people came forward with suggestions, incredible new ideas, and offers of help. It was decided then that we needed to formalize our movement. Hence, the GOSP was born. "There is a wealth of Egyptology resources available to us now. For instance, we are able to produce high quality documents with the use of JSesh, which can export hieroglyphic text as SVG. As a Java library it is suitable for embedding in other applications such as ours. Another goal of the GOSP is to catalog these resources so they are readily available to other Egyptologists." For more information please visit the GOSP website: http://gosp.sourceforge.net The GOSP Mailing List and Yahoo Group: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/gosp_list/ ============================================================================== From: "Nicole B. Hansen" Subject: Re: AEL The GlyphStudy Open-Source Projects Group announces its grand opening To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 08:38:50 -0500 (CDT) Taking the copyrighted material of Faulkner's dictionary and putting it online without permission is not "open source"--it's stealing. If the Griffith Institute wanted to give away the dictionary, they would, like many of the other resources they have generously made available to the public for free, but they haven't chosen to do so, as is their right. Now before anyone says that this is a victimless crime, let me just point out that due to lack of funds since last year the Griffith Institute has had to stop awarding their Gardiner scholarships, which funded young Egyptian scholars who wished to travel to the Griffith Institute to do research on their unpublished collections, and which supported British Egyptologists who wanted to do original field work in Egypt. It's a shame that this has to stop as it means a loss of new knowledge about ancient Egypt being produced. But hey, why would someone care about finding out anything new about ancient Egypt when they can get Faulkner's dictionary for free? Not only is this aspect of the so-called open source project illegal, but it is also totally unnecessary. The Woerterbuch, a fully referenced scholarly dictionary is already available online, for free, along with all the index cards that were used to put together. It's unsurpassed. For the word jTA alone there are 72 cards, for anx, there are 8029! There are even cross-references to Faulkner, for those enamored of him. Having been involved in projects that make Egyptological knowledge available for free, as well as open source projects, for many years now myself, I am fully aware of the potential for good that can be done by making things accessible. And so it really saddens me to see the words "open source" being used to describe something that is based on open theft. Open source projects are often supported by dedicated individuals who collectively give their time to produce something original and useful. In this case, you have a group of dedicated individuals who don't believe in paying $26 for a dictionary so they copy it and put it online for everyone to steal. I am sure you are capable of producing original and useful content, but you need to remove the stolen material and start doing the work yourselves like everyone else in the Open Source and Egyptological communities does if you want to be taken seriously. And a donation to the Griffith Institute to help them get their Gardiner scholarship program up and running again probably wouldn't hurt either! ;-) Nicole B. Hansen, Ph.D. Egyptologist and E-Learning Developer ============================================================================== From: "A.K. Eyma" To: "Ancient Egyptian Language List" Subject: Re: AEL The GlyphStudy Open-Source Projects Group announces its grand opening Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 22:15:25 +0200 I'm glad Nicole brought up the copyrights topic, as that was also my concern when seeing the GlyphStudy project. Someone might say "you cannot own words!", but there is such a thing as compilation copyright that e.g. also protects databases. >Not only is this aspect of the so-called open source project >illegal, but it is also totally unnecessary. The Woerterbuch, >a fully referenced scholarly dictionary is already available >online, for free, along with all the index cards that were >used to put together. See http://aaew.bbaw.de/tla/ Aayko Eyma ============================================================================== From: "William Meriic" To: "'Ancient Egyptian Language List'" Subject: RE: AEL The GlyphStudy Open-Source Projects Group announces its grand opening Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:11:12 -0500 Thank you for your comments. The purpose of this announcement was to encourage peer review of our projects. And you have raised good points. However, please keep in mind that we are developing software, not end products. The software is open source. We are not using the phrase open source to promote theft of copyright. The contents of Faulkner's book are copyrighted, I don't disagree. However, the source we are using has been maintained, and improved significantly over the years. It is by no means a word for word copy anymore. At this point, can one have a copyright on Egyptian and English words? Furthermore, since Faulkner's book is entirely handwritten, the textual encoding of the hieroglyphic entries (HieroWord or MdC) is all new work. This project was started in response to the following book: http://www.amazon.com/Egyptian-Hieroglyphic-English-Dictionary-Charles/dp/1434843092/ While the author claims the data comes from the Woerterbuch, inspection of the sample pages shows clear indications that the source is the same as ours (as it includes many of the mistakes found in old revisions). He does not indicate that he had permission to use Faulkner's dictionary, and he definitely did not have the permission of the person, who transcribed the book. Since the book was published, and is being sold by Amazon it was assumed that there was no copyright claim. Similarly the same exact data is also used by the EZPG in its free wordlist (with permission from the author): http://www.egpz.com/resources/egpz_wordlist.htm The number of resources already available using this source would indicate the copyright is not an issue. Now, our project is not devoted to stealing other people's hard work, or defrauding a fine institution. Our software can generate dictionaries from any source. We are investigating the use of the Woerterbuch too. Unfortunately, the Woerterbuch is in German. Since we want to produce English language resources as well, this has been a road block. If you feel that the Woerterbuch would be a better source for our dictionaries, we will continue to follow this path. And help would be appreciated. We feel the resources we are generating have significant value of printed resources; in that they can be searched, indexed, and cross referenced. We are not using the phrase "open source" to hide copyright theft. And our project is not based on one particular source of information. I would love to work this out with anyone who agrees that use of this data would be a problem. However, we need to keep our emotions in check so we can adequately resolve this concern. I sure as heck, do not want to be responsible for reducing funding to the Griffith Institute! What do other's think. If others feel this source of information would be ethically wrong to use, chime in. I have removed the dictionaries from public availability until we are certain that these concerns have been adequately addressed. Thanks, Will ============================================================================== From: "William Meriic" To: "'Ancient Egyptian Language List'" Cc: "'A.K. Eyma'" , "'Nicole B. Hansen'" Subject: RE: AEL The GlyphStudy Open-Source Projects Group announces its grand opening Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:23:22 -0500 As promised, I have now taken offline all resources, whose lineage with regards to Faulkner's work is in question. I will keep them off until this issue can be resolved. The question remains open. How far removed does content have to be before it is no longer copyrighted? If there is a copyright concern here, why are there so many resources using this without GI permission? I will send sample pages to anyone willing to review this issue. You can judge for yourself and let me know your thoughts. We have a valuable software product and I don't want it spoiled by concerns over copyright. We also have a dedicated group of hardworking people devoted to supporting open computer aided Egyptology. I don't want their efforts to be dismissed either. If enough people think our data source is too close to Faulkner's work then we will remove it permanently and pursue an alternative source. We are welcoming any suggestions there too. In the mean time, I have placed an order for a copy of Faulkner's dictionary. I am embarrassed to admit I don't yet have one. To paraphrase famous words, "D*** it Jim, I am programmer, not an Egyptologist!"* I feel at a minor disadvantage in this discussion not having a copy to refer to myself. Thanks, Will * Please don't construe my use of StarTrek slogans as a disregard for copyright! ;-) ============================================================================== From: "A.K. Eyma" To: "'Ancient Egyptian Language List'" Subject: Re: AEL The GlyphStudy Open-Source Projects Group announces its grand opening Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2008 12:36:03 +0200 >The question remains open. How far removed does content have >to be before it is no longer copyrighted? If there is a copyright >concern here, why are there so many resources using this without >GI permission? **The internet is alas very, very full of plagiarism, so should never be taken as standard. >The number of resources already available using this source would indicate >the copyright is not an issue. **That is no safe assumption -- publishers sometimes are surprisingly lax. Why not simply ask the opinion of the Griffith Institute? Perhaps they indeed have no problems with it, if you tell them about the additions and improvements and what more. Then the problem is solved. >If you feel that the Woerterbuch would be a better source for our >dictionaries, we will continue to follow this path. I think that if you contact the German Woerterbuch, they would have little problems allowing you to translate the original paper version into English and put the translations in a database. Such a consent AND added effort would resolve any copyright issues. (My expectation of consent is based on the fact that a Russian site put up scans of the WB -- their whole site is full of copyright breaches -- and when I contacted the WB staff about it, they seemed little concerned, as their improved TLE version would go up soon. Also, I bet Hannig's dictionary is based on the WB very heavily) >>* Please don't construe my use of StarTrek slogans as a disregard for copyright! ;-) **Any Trekkie gets my blessing. ;) Aayko Eyma ============================================================================== From: "William Meriic" To: "'Ancient Egyptian Language List'" Subject: RE: AEL The GlyphStudy Open-Source Projects Group announces its grand opening Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2008 10:22:11 -0500 Hi, Actually, we are considering contacting the Griffith Institute. We would love to support them, and I feel that printed and CD-distributed versions of this resource would be welcomed by the Egyptology community and bring revenue to GI. You are right; the Internet is full of plagiarism. As a software developer who uses and develops open-source software I am particularly sensitive to that fact, which is why I am taking this so seriously. That is why I would like to know exactly where this data source stands. These points raised by you and Dr. Hanson are very valid and need to be addressed definitively. So, we are retaining legal council. Here in Dallas we have an overwhelming supply of copyright and IP lawyers from which to choose. If our lawyers suggest that there is even a small chance that our source is in violation of copyright law we will remove the source data until we can get adequate permission from the publisher. Either way, we will continue our efforts to incorporate other publicly available references and consider ideas about how this resource can be used to support fine institutions like GI. And until our lawyers get back to us, we will continue to keep the derivative resources offline. Thanks, Will ============================================================================== Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2008 18:20:00 +0200 From: Serge Rosmorduc To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: Re: AEL The GlyphStudy Open-Source Projects Group announces its grand opening Actually, it might be worthwhile to ask the Griffith Institute. The institute indeed agreed to let the "Projet Rosette" (http://projetrosette.info/page.php?Id=599) use a simple lexical list, so it's possible that they would allow something similar, provided they don't feel it threatens the sales of Faulkner. Best regards, S. Rosmorduc ============================================================================== From: "Nicole B. Hansen" Subject: Re: AEL The GlyphStudy Open-Source Projects Group announces its grand opening To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2008 08:44:54 -0500 (CDT) I've made some comments below. >**The internet is alas very, very ful= l of plagiarism, so should = >never be taken as standard. > This is very true. There is one very large site with many Egyptological articles on it. Almost all of these have been plagiarized from numerous Egyptological books and Web sites, along with images lifted from these books and sites. I'd known about it for a long time and then one day one of my students posted a link to an article on the site saying it was a good article on a particular topic. I went to read the article, and was struck how familiar it was, and then I realized it was because the real author was ME! >>The number of resources already available using this source would indicate >>the copyright is not an issue. > >**That is no safe assumption -- publishers sometimes are >surprisingly lax. > I can confirm this. With regards to the above-mentioned article, I had signed copyright over to the publisher, a major university press. Still, I did not appreciate someone else's name being attached to my work, since I had been credited in the original publication. So I emailed the publisher and the Egyptologist who had edited the work and asked them to take action to get the article removed. Neither had even the courtesy of replying or taking any action and the article is still online. Needless to say, I won't allow that publisher to publish any of my work again. I have a policy on my own site to not link to anything on the said plagiarism site, whether it is original work or not, and I know Ayako has the same policy on the EEF list. It's the least we can do to respect our colleagues' rights. >Why not simply ask the opinion of the Griffith Institute? Perhaps >they indeed have no problems with it, if you tell them about the >additions and improvements and what more. Then the problem >is solved. > No personal offense, but I would caution any Egyptological organization to think carefully about entering into such an arrangement with an amateur group unless it is done so in writing with the right to have the content removed at any time retained by the organization and legal penalties to back it up. I have seen a casual arrangement (similar to the Projette Rosetta in that it involved translation of content) with some amateurs go bad, with the amateurs refusing requests to remove the material when it became outdated and the organization decided it did not want to continue offering translated versions. To add insult to injury, the amateurs posted negative remarks about the organization on the site that they refused to remove. >I think that if you contact the German Woerterbuch, they would >have little problems allowing you to translate the original paper >version into English and put the translations in a database. Such >a consent AND added effort would resolve any copyright issues. I'm not sure that would be worth the effort since the online version can be accessed via a German or English interface. You also will be running up against German copyright law, which is quite strict and gives publishers very little rights to put already printed works online without the explicit permission of authors. That's the reason we don't see many Egyptological works or journals being digitized as we see in English in French. The publishers' hands are tied. What would be really useful would be something along the lines of Meeks' Ann=E9e lexicographique, which unfortunately, was published for only deux ann=E9es. You could make it a database to which anyone could add references (from any dates) to publications that mention specific words. Nicole B. Hansen, PhD Egyptologist/E-learning developer ============================================================================== Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2008 18:32:02 +0200 From: Vincent Euverte To: Ancient Egyptian Language List Subject: AEL The GlyphStudy Open-Source Projects Group announces its grand opening Dear All, with particular attention to William Meriic and Nicole Hansen. First I like to congratulate and encourage the GOSP project, as a great initiative to spread the Egyptology culture and the hieroglyph epigraphy via a benevolent and free approach. I found a lot of similarities with our own Rosette project, now four years old, and I would enjoy sharing our lessons learnt and perspectives on many topics that we all are facing. Regarding the copyright debate, I fully support Nicole Hansen's position. It is essential that the Web community acts in full respect of the author rights. As an example, before publishing our dictionary in the Rosette online application, we first obtained the official authorization to use the Faulkner's wordlist from the Griffith Institute. As well, the copyright laws also apply on photographies, computer fonts, transliteration, translation, bibliography references, .... basically to most of the things a project like GOSP or Rosette wants to distribute. This does not prevent to publish very valuable information for free usage on the Web, but simply requires a structured and documented approach to the copyright concepts. By the way, are you aware of the I & E (Informatique & Egyptologie) Computer Meeting in Vienna on July 8-11th ? I would see this conference as a good opportunity to present the GOSP project to the professionnal community. Is not it a right route to gain credibility ? For more information on this meeting, please see at : http://www.newton.ac.uk/egypt/ie2008/index.html Looking forward seeing the progress on GOSP in a near future, Friendly yours, /*Vincent Euverte, for the Rosette Team*/* Projet Rosette : http://projetrosette.info * ============================================================================== From: "William Meriic" To: "'Ancient Egyptian Language List'" , Cc: Subject: AEL GOSP Dictionary Copyright Concerns Resolved. Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2008 17:49:16 -0500 I want to thank everyone for their feedback concerning the copyright issues over the source data used for the GOSP dictionaries. We came to the AEL looking for a scholarly review of our resources and that is what we received. I never said that I had to like the responses I received! I wish to clarify once again that the primary project of the GOSP is to develop software capable of generating dictionaries, cross-references, and other learning and research aids; and that its software and results are freely available. We chose one particular source of data to generate our initial set of databases. No one on the project suspected that there would be concerns over copyright. In fact, one of our members researched the public announcement of a similar effort in the past and found no concerns over copyright expressed on this list. After the issue was raised here we immediately removed the materials until clarification could be obtained. Subsequently, at great expense to ourselves we retained legal counsel. The intent was to have them review our data source for potential copyright infringement. We decided though that this will not solve our problem; that most members of the Egyptology community will find this resource un-useful. That defeats the purpose of our efforts. As such, we have also pursued efforts to find a data source that would be more useful to the Egyptology community and would not raise any concerns over copyright. Fortunately, one such project saw through the immediate allegations of copyright infringement to see what our project truly was about and offered their resources. At this time we are still in negotiations about the relationship of our projects. However, rest assured that soon we will have a suite of high quality freely available products, whose scholarly and copyright reputations are beyond reproach. We feel that this partnership will be a tremendous benefit to both of our projects in the Egyptology community as a whole. We ask for your patience to allow us time to restructure our website, project, and to proceed with this partnership. We'll make an announcement shortly of the availability of new software and resulting resources. In the meantime I hope that our actions make it clear that we are dedicated to intellectual property and copyright, and that we are devoted to improving computer aided Egyptology; and not let this reflect in your vision of our project, its members, or its results. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me, Will Meriic ==============================================================================