= Ruby-WordNet
== General Information

This library is a Ruby interface to WordNet®. WordNet® is an online lexical
reference system whose design is inspired by current psycholinguistic theories
of human lexical memory. English nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are
organized into synonym sets, each representing one underlying lexical
concept. Different relations link the synonym sets.

You can find out more about WordNet® at <http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/~wn/>.

This code was loosely based on the Lingua::Wordnet Perl module by Dan Brian, and
uses a similar strategy of converting the WordNet data files into a BerkeleyDB
database. The 'convertdb.rb' script in this directory can be used to build these
databases from the WordNet dictionaries.

This module is intended to offer basically the same functionality as
Lingua::Wordnet, and you should be able to use either (or both) to access and
modify the lexical database interchangeably. This module attempts to remain
fairly close in API to Lingua::Wordnet, so if you're familiar with it already,
you should be able to port things from one to the other with relatively little
trouble. This module, however, uses BerkeleyDB's transaction subsystem to allow
safe concurrent access to the databases.

Many thanks to Dan Brian, who did most of the hard work. His efforts made my job
mostly a matter of playing around.


== Caveats

IMPORTANT: This is a *beta* release. It might blow up, compromise your security,
write random data to sensitive portions of your hard drive, or otherwise fail to
work as advertised. It is intended to be used by developers who are interested
in helping out or curious onlookers who don't mind getting a bit wet.

The database-writing portions of this code have not been extensively tested, and
there are almost certainly bugs which will cause data to be lost or
miswritten. You should make backups of changes you make periodically.

I would greatly appreciate feedback on any aspect of this software. Suggestions,
feature requests, questions, design critiques, and bug reports are most
welcome. Relevant patches are particularly helpful. I may be reached at
<ged@FaerieMUD.org>.


== Installation

For installation instructions (such as they are at this point), see the INSTALL
file.


== More Information

There is a project page for Ruby-WordNet which can be found at:
<http://www.deveiate.org/code/Ruby-WordNet.shtml>.

This library was developed as part of the FaerieMUD Project. For more
information about the FaerieMUD project as a whole, and about the FaerieMUD
Consortium, see <http://www.FaerieMUD.org/> and the FaerieMUD Documentation Wiki
at <http://docs.FaerieMUD.org/>.

You may also access a web interface to the FaerieMUD CVS repository at:
<http://cvs.FaerieMUD.org/>, which includes instructions on checking out the CVS
version of this module.


== Authors

* Michael Granger <ged@FaerieMUD.org>


== Legal

Ruby-WordNet is Open Source Software which is Copyright © 2001-2003 by The
FaerieMUD Consortium.

You may use, modify, and/or redistribute this software under the terms of the
Perl Artistic License, a copy of which should have been included in this
distribution (See the file Artistic). If it was not, a copy of it may be
obtained from http://language.perl.com/misc/Artistic.html or
http://www.faeriemud.org/artistic.html).

THIS PACKAGE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES,
INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY AND
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

--

WordNet® is a registered trademark of Princeton University. 

--

Lingua::Wordnet is code licensed under the following terms:

  Lingua::Wordnet
  Copyright 1999,2000,2001 by Dan Brian.

  This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
  it under the same terms as Perl itself.


=== Version

$Id: README,v 1.5 2003/08/06 07:59:01 deveiant Exp $

