FSLog » Open Source

MontyLingua3 – GPLed fork of MontyLingua

cnu — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 08:52:32 +0000

MontyLingua is a popular Natural Language processing tool which can understand english language and also correct it based on common sense – used by many people around the world for research. It did have a small problem – licensing. The author released it under two licenses which states that:

If it is your intent to use this software for non-commercial,
non-prioprietary purposes, such as for academic research purposes,
this software is free and is covered under the GNU GPL License,
given here: and in the
APPENDIX of this document.

If you are interested in this software for commercial purposes,
commercial licensing information is available. Please email
(hugo@media.mit.edu) for more information.

In my company, we have been trying to get to the author for the commercial license but he hasn’t replied to any emails. So we decided to make use of another NLP tool and move on. But a few days back there was a discussion at Reddit where it was noted that someone can get the software for non-commercial use under GPL – which gives him the full right offered by GPL. So he can copy, modify and share the software to anyone and the person who gets the software from him (not Hugo) can get it under GPL. This essentially avoids the commercial license path of MontyLingua Version 2.0 license.

I thought since I was already working on improving the code, why don’t I fork it, do the bug fixes and release it under GPL. This will allow anyone else to come up and fix the code and improve the project. Since the author isn’t actively working on this project, I think using this fork will benefit everyone to get a better version.

I have created a public repository in bitbucket called MontyLingua3 (the old one is in version 2.1). Right now I am going to clean up the code and since I am not a NLP expert there won’t be any new additional features. If someone can contribute with new features/functions then I would be very happy to include their patches.

To get the source code, install mercurial and clone the repository as

$ hg clone http://bitbucket.org/cnu/montylingua3/

So, please contribute to the project.

Google Summer of Code 2006

cnu — Sun, 16 Apr 2006 05:58:05 +0000

Google has announced the Summer of Code this year too. Summer of Code is a program started by Google last year to make more students to develop Free/Open Source Softwares. The students will be aided by organisations which develop Open Source softwares. Each student will be assigned one mentor and will also get stipend. If a student is selected in the program, then Google pays $500 initially. Then during the middle of the program (if sufficient progress has been made), then it pays $2000, and at the end of the program, will pay $2000. The mentoring organisation will also get $500 for every student it helps. So, Google spends $5000 for every student. Last year of the 8744 applicants, 419 students were accepted into the program and more than 80% of them succeeded, which means they received the full stipend of $4500. This year, Google plans to take in more students.

This is a nice oppurtunity for students to showcase their coding skills and also contribute to the open source community – also get paid for it.

google, summer of code, open source, free software

Songbird – Open Source Alternative to iTunes

cnu — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 16:59:40 +0000

A team led by ex-Winamp-er Rob Lord today released a preview edition of Songbird, a desktop media player that offers an open source alternative to services like Apple’s iTunes and the Windows Media Player. Instead of connecting to one locked store full of DRMmed goods, it can connect to any and all available music (and video) on the internet.

It is built on the same platform as that of Firefox and it acts as a specialised browser for music. Looks like a nicer solution getting good songs.

Currently the site is overloaded so here are the download mirror1 and mirror2.

[Via BoingBoing]

songbird, itunes, windows+media+player,mp3,music

Open AJAX – Sets Standards for AJAX framework

cnu — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 15:11:02 +0000

IBM and dozen others have united to create an open source Ajax project to unify the lack of common tool for the popular technology of the day.

The project, called Open Ajax, aims to create a single framework that standardizes development and debugging on a common library of Ajax widgets that could run on multiple Ajax runtimes. Like J2EE before it, Open Ajax is all about assembling critical mass convergence around a stack to prevent Microsoft from co-opting it. And, like Linux before it, it’s about vendors trying to hop a train that was already leaving the station with or without their support.

The goal of Open Ajax is to standardize around a common set of widgets, interfaces, and plug-ins to Eclipse so it can morph into an industrial strength rich web development environment. And with the standards, any Eclipse-compliant Ajax toolkit should be able to plug into any compliant Ajax run time, regardless of browser client or server deployment platform.

Open Ajax is endorsed by IBM, BEA, Borland, the Dojo Foundation, Eclipse Foundation, Google, Laszlo Systems, Mozilla, Novell, Openwave, Oracle, Red Hat, Yahoo, Zend, and Zimbra.

[from Computer Business Review Online]

ajax, open+ajax, ibm, google, j2ee, microsoft

Nokia goes on open source Safari

cnu — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 14:55:00 +0000

Nokia, the mobile phone giant has created an open-source browser based on Safari for smartphones. This team of Nokia and Safari will deliver a web browser for the S60 smartphone sotware platform.
Nokia says the browser, which will be made available to other companies licensing the S60 platform for their own smartphones, will give users a better surfing experience. It is designed to display Web pages on a phone exactly as they look on a monitor.
The browser includes pop-up blocking, access to RSS feeds and a text search feature. It uses components from Apple’s Safari Web Kit

OpenBSD 3.8 released

cnu — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 15:01:00 +0000

OpenBSD 3.8 was released November 1, 2005. This is the 18th release via CD (and 19th via FTP).
Though I haven’t tried OpenBSD, I have heard really good reviews of it. It is having a great record for 8 years with only a single remote hole in the default installation. Here are the mirrors where you can download OpenBSD.
Anybody have tried OpenBSD, please put in your valuable comments here.

BeleniX LiveCD version 0.2 released

cnu — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 00:26:00 +0000

From Distrowatch.com: “BeleniX is the first live CD based on the OpenSolaris source base that boots into a full graphical desktop (with XFce). Developed at the India Engineering Centre of Sun Microsystems in Bangalore, BeleniX is trying to popularise OpenSolaris in the growing open source user and developer community in India and abroad.” OSDir provides the screenshots.

But I wonder why they have named it as Belenix. The name suggests that it is some sort of a GNU/Linux distribution. Anyway what other name can they have chosen? Any suggestions?

Tech Tags: belenix opensolaris open+solaris solaris open+source opensource

Free as in Free Beer

cnu — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 01:10:00 +0000

After reading the article I wrote earlier where opensource powers a milking robot, I saw another link where someone has brewed beer from milk.
There is also another link where they have posted a recipe for brewing beer under the Creative Commons License and so you can create your own open-source beer.
Who said “free as in free beer” is not possible.

Can someone try the recipe and tell whether it tastes the same as the original one?

Tech Tags: free open opensource free+beer beer+recipe recipe beer+milk milk

Linux powers robotic cow-milking machine

cnu — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 00:11:00 +0000

A 122-year-old dairy equipment company has used Linux to control a robotic cow-milking system (the system is robotic, not the cows). Delaval’s “Voluntary Milking System” lets the cows decide for themselves when to be milked, and gives dairy farmers a more independent lifestyle, free from regular milkings. The system runs a 2.4.18 Linux kernel.

Tech Tags: linux gnu/linux vms milking milk robot dairy

Minix 3 released

cnu — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 00:10:06 +0000

MINIX 3 is a new open-source operating system designed to be highly reliable and secure. It is based somewhat on previous versions of MINIX, but is fundamentally different in many key ways. MINIX 1 and 2 were intended as teaching tools; MINIX 3 adds the new goal of being usable as a serious system on resource-limited and embedded computers and for applications requiring high reliability.

MINIX 3 is initially targeted at the following areas:

Applications where very high reliability is required
Single-chip, small-RAM, low-power, $100 laptop for Third-World children
Embedded systems (e.g., cameras, DVD recorders, cell phones)
Applications where the GPL is too restrictive (MINIX 3 uses a BSD-type license)
Education (e.g., operating systems courses at universities)

MINIX 3 Features

POSIX compliant
Networking with TCP/IP
Two ANSI C compilers (ACK and gcc)
Over 300 UNIX programs
Many improvements since V2
Full multiuser and multiprogramming
Support for memory up to 4 GB
Device drivers run as user processes
Full C source code supplied
Runs on 386, 486, Pentium, etc.

Tech Tags: minix minix3 linux kernel freebsd