In the mid-1990's, the Free Software Foundation attempted to put a large English dictionary online. Here's a brief history of that first GNU Dictionary Project, as detailed in the FSF's "GNU's Bulletin".
Announcing the Dictionary Project
The FSF has a copy of the Century Dictionary, an unabridged dictionary now in the public domain, and we are planning to put it online. We tried OCR, but it wasn't reliable enough. So we're looking for volunteers to type it in--20 pages per volunteer. We estimate that takes around 45 hours if you type reasonably fast, including proofreading.
If you'd like to volunteer, please send mail to
dictionary@gnu.ai.mit.edu. We'll send you 20 xeroxed pages plus the description of the online dictionary format. (Be very careful to follow the format.)This project provides a way for people without programming skills or money to contribute to the GNU Project.
... We're now waiting for the results from the first batch of dictionary volunteers. We've decided to see how well the process works with the first batch before we ask anyone else to do work.
... The first group of dictionary volunteers have inputed some entries. We are evaluating their work to see how best to proceed.
... Russell Nelson is coordinating the project. Volunteers have entered close to fifty pages so far, but the project needs more help; to volunteer, send mail to dictionary@gnu.ai.mit.edu or contact the FSF.
[nothing new]
The FSF has a copy of the unabridged Century Dictionary, now in the public domain, and we want to put it online. We tried OCR, but it wasn't reliable enough. It looks like the only way to do this is to have people type it in. The job will need many volunteers; that means it first needs a manager with a can-do attitude and substantial time. If you want to volunteer to be the manager, please write to gnu@gnu.org.
This project provides a way for people without programming skills or money to contribute to the GNU Project.
Sometime in the first half of 1999, the Free Software Foundation started hosting Patrick Cassidy's Collaborative International Dictionary of English (based on the 1913 Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary and Princeton's WordNet). At first, it was in .../gnu/dictionary, but at some point (in 2002?) that changed to .../gnu/gcide. At the GNU ftp site, the file dictionary.README, dated 2002 Apr 15, says:
The Dictionary Project is now distributed as gcide, the GNU Collaborative Dictionary of English, in the gcide directory.You can download GCIDE from here, or an XML version of it from here.
-Michael Dyck, jmdyck@ibiblio.org