> On Mon, 16 May 2005, Igor Sobrado wrote:
> 
> You may want to look at OpenBSD's spell(1):
> 
> http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/usr.bin/spell/
> 
> "spell command from 4.4BSD, now freed by Caldera." with "significant
> changes".

Hi Jeremy.

Thanks a lot for that URL.  Indeed, it is a good implementation
of the Berkeley spell(1) with some improvements.  But, IMHO, it is
better a Berkeley-based spell(1) that does not depends on
external software (e.g., detex or delatex) that is not in the
base system.  OTOH, the data structure used to store the words
has been improved to allow faster lookups, though.

As deroff, detex, and delatex are nice filters, easy to use with
pipes, I think that there is no reason for adding options
to automatically call them.

I know that there is a feel in these mailing lists that there are
possible issues adding software under Caldera license to the
base system.  That is the reason I am working on a spell(1)
command written from scratch.

I am open to any suggestion in relation with spell(1).  I can
try to add the OpenBSD's spell(1) to the source tree (easy
task, but I guess that some people will complain).  I can add the
standard Berkeley spell(1) (I will look for it on the 4.4BSD-Lite
source code... if it is not in that tree, it is probably not
free).  Or continue working on a new implementation of spell(1)
as compatible as possible with the standard one.

Any advice?  :-)

Igor.