Hi all,
I've been packaging Finnish spell checking support for Fedora (see http://voikko.sourceforge.net/) and now I've packaged a Firefox extension which uses the Voikko library to do spell checking in Finnish. My initial testing package can be found here: http://vpv.fedorapeople.org/packages/mozvoikko/
What do you think about packaging Firefox extensions, are they allowed and would someone be interested in reviewing this package if I submitted it?
Beagle-firefox is probably the only Firefox extension packaged currently in Fedora and I made my package so that it matches the locations etc. used in that package.
Of course the extensions can be installed from Mozilla's web site as well, but especially with this extension there would be a couple of benefits if it was shipped as an RPM: It can be built against the libvoikko and libmalaga libraries available in Fedora and it uses the Finnish data files available in Fedora (malaga-suomi-voikko).
The extension version which probably will be shipped from Mozilla's web site needs to have the libraries and the data files compiled in it, because it can't assume much from the target system. Thus it will probably be much larger (the uncompressed data files seem to be around 8 megabytes) whereas the extension built to call the stuff already in the system takes around 70 kilobytes (uncompressed). Also, if the extension is installed via Firefox from Mozilla's site, it will only be installed for the single user, so if the system has for example 5 users and all of them install the extension for themselves, the difference will be even bigger.
On Fri, May 23, 2008 at 5:17 PM, Ville-Pekka Vainio vpivaini@cs.helsinki.fi wrote:
Hi all,
I've been packaging Finnish spell checking support for Fedora (see http://voikko.sourceforge.net/) and now I've packaged a Firefox extension which uses the Voikko library to do spell checking in Finnish. My initial testing package can be found here: http://vpv.fedorapeople.org/packages/mozvoikko/
What do you think about packaging Firefox extensions, are they allowed and would someone be interested in reviewing this package if I submitted it?
It's fine, see also the mugshot package for use of the system-installed extensions standard. I haven't looked at the Beagle extension but hopefully it's doing the right thing.
The main thing lacking is integration of the addon dialog and PackageKit.
Colin Walters wrote:
It's fine, see also the mugshot package for use of the system-installed extensions standard. I haven't looked at the Beagle extension but hopefully it's doing the right thing.
Ok, I did. Both of these packages seem to do the same thing, they have their files in %{_libdir}/mozilla/extensions/%{firefox_app_id}/%{mugshot_ext_id} or something similar.
The main thing lacking is integration of the addon dialog and PackageKit.
I don't quite understand what you mean. If the firefox-voikko package passes review, I plan to have it in the Fedora repositories just like any other package. I don't really see what PackageKit specifically has to do with that. The addon dialog "just works", when you install the RPM, Firefox detects the new extension files and opens up the addon dialog when (re)started.
To get the ball rolling, I have made a review request of firefox-voikko, which is here: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=448215
Literally during the same minute that I posted the RR, upstream released a new version, so the spec and SRPM are actually outdated, but I will go and make an updated package now.
On 05/23/2008 05:17 PM, Ville-Pekka Vainio wrote:
Hi all,
I've been packaging Finnish spell checking support for Fedora (see http://voikko.sourceforge.net/) and now I've packaged a Firefox extension which uses the Voikko library to do spell checking in Finnish. My initial testing package can be found here: http://vpv.fedorapeople.org/packages/mozvoikko/
Is there a reason the dictionary can't be integrated into hunspell? I don't want to get to the point where we have an extension for every language spellcheck. Hunspell exists to make this easier, and I'd rather see this happen there...
Christopher Aillon wrote:
Is there a reason the dictionary can't be integrated into hunspell? I don't want to get to the point where we have an extension for every language spellcheck. Hunspell exists to make this easier, and I'd rather see this happen there...
The Voikko project initially started as the hunspell-fi project, but hunspell was dropped for now, because using malaga http://home.arcor.de/bjoern-beutel/malaga/ gives better results with the Finnish language. If you're interested, please read http://voikko.sourceforge.net/architecture.html. One big decision maker was also the fact that someone called Hannu Väisänen maintains a big Finnish vocabulary known upstream as suomi-malaga, in Fedora packaged as malaga-suomi-voikko. This, as the name suggests, requires using malaga.
Voikko gives excellent results with the Finnish language currently, much better than any other free software implementations (myspell/ispell/aspell and hunspell, whose upstreams are practically non-existent currently). In my opinion Voikko is now working at least as well as the only proprietary Finnish spell checker for Linux I know, Soikko. So it's pretty much the best you can get.
There are less than 10 people working on Voikko right now, probably more like 5 and they're doing a great job. You do have a valid point, but I really don't see the architechture changing to hunspell or any other in the near future.
Remember we don't need to have the Voikko stuff in every Fedora installation, for example the openoffice.org-voikko package is currently only installed if the user installs OO.o and the Finnish language support group.
On 05/24/2008 12:04 PM, Ville-Pekka Vainio wrote:
The Voikko project initially started as the hunspell-fi project, but hunspell was dropped for now, because using malaga http://home.arcor.de/bjoern-beutel/malaga/ gives better results with the Finnish language. If you're interested, please read http://voikko.sourceforge.net/architecture.html.
Actually, that page says the malaga backend is worse than hunspell, lacking important items such as threadsafety and does not perform well in comparison. We already have a backend which we deem to be the right backend and it would be great if work could be moved there to help get hunspell in order.
One big decision maker was also the fact that someone called Hannu Väisänen maintains a big Finnish vocabulary known upstream as suomi-malaga, in Fedora packaged as malaga-suomi-voikko. This, as the name suggests, requires using malaga.
Right, this is the only reason that I can tell for using malaga. Someone did the work for malaga, but not for hunspell.
Voikko gives excellent results with the Finnish language currently, much better than any other free software implementations (myspell/ispell/aspell and hunspell, whose upstreams are practically non-existent currently). In my opinion Voikko is now working at least as well as the only proprietary Finnish spell checker for Linux I know, Soikko. So it's pretty much the best you can get.
Don't confuse the dictionary with the backend. So far I haven't seen a reason why the hunspell backend couldn't support Finnish as well as malaga if people would simply work on a dictionary for that backend instead. I think it is important to note our strong desire for making it work with hunspell. We went through great lengths to make hunspell THE dictionary. See http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/FeatureDictionary which this would now regress.
Christopher Aillon wrote:
Don't confuse the dictionary with the backend. So far I haven't seen a reason why the hunspell backend couldn't support Finnish as well as malaga if people would simply work on a dictionary for that backend instead. I think it is important to note our strong desire for making it work with hunspell. We went through great lengths to make hunspell THE dictionary. See http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/FeatureDictionary which this would now regress.
Noted, I can also mention this discussion in the Voikko mailing list. I wasn't even following the Voikko project at 2006 when this decision was apparently made, I also don't know the code well enough to discuss the differences in detail.
I know about FeatureDictionary and I have talked about Voikko, which is already in Fedora anyway, with Caolan, among others. At this point the thing is though, either we have very good Finnish spell checking in Fedora with Voikko or we don't have any Finnish spell checking at all.
Right now, as far as I can see, the Voikko project is lacking manpower for such drastic changes as changing the backend. They are doing a good job improving the current codebase in small steps, however.
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Christopher Aillon -
Colin Walters -
Ville-Pekka Vainio