bug#25443: Unnecessary building of dictionary files

[Phillip Lord]

On Thu, January 19, 2017 10:40 pm, Richard Stallman wrote:
> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>
>
>>> If this is because no one has wanted to change it, then it is neither
>>>  here nor there.
>
>> It cannot be updated from the original source, because that source has
>> gone.
>
> That's an abrupt change of topic, not related to what I said.  But
> never mind.

I am sorry if you feel this.

> I would comment on what you said, but its meaning is vague.
>
> What, concretely, do you mean by the "original source"?
> What does it mean to say it "has gone"?

For example, the file CTLau.html is documented (in the readme) as:

They are verbatim copies of those distributed by the author; they used to
be at <http://umunhum.stanford.edu/~lee/chicomp/>.  Each file contains a
license notice.

(The license notice in question is GPL).

My assumption is that CTLau.html is reformatted as part of the build
because it might be updated from its original source. This would make
sense to me: otherwise, why not reformat it once into a new source file.
If this is the case, then it is no longer true, since the original source
(given at that URL) does not exist.

Again, I am making suppositions here. Shall we wait until handa san has
responded? If he does not respond, we can either decide what to do anyway,
or do nothing at all. A simpler build is nice, but not critical.

Phil