[tex-hyphen] Evolving usage for UK hyphenation patterns

[Arthur Reutenauer]

>    Well, although the patterns are now "in the cloud", they are accessible
>    only to Dominik & I, and neither of us will live forever, so it seemed
>    vital to both of us that they be made accessible to (at least some
>    members) of the wider (and younger) community.

  I couldn’t agree more.  I have often wondered if it wouldn’t even be
possible to get Oxford to simply release those patterns to the public,
in these days of free software and open access.  The list you’ve been
working on with Dominik can’t be of much economic value to them since
they’ve completely revised it over 20 years ago.  In addition, it’s not
even clear that a mere list is copyrightable at all, as I mentioned in
my email to Dominik.  At least in the US, I have been pointed to this
1991 Supreme Court decision:

	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications,_Inc.,_v._Rural_Telephone_Service_Co%2E

that seems pretty unambiguous as to the fact that, in that case, the
list simply wasn’t copyrightable.  Of course that’s only for the US, I
don’t know anything specific about the UK, this case may not be relevant
to all copyright questions about lists, and I’m not a lawyer (and the
person who pointed me to that court case was one, but not in the US),
etc.

>                                                    I have an indirect
>    association with Andrew Rosenheim (I typeset a book for OUP in the past),
>    so if he is still associated with OUP I could ask our mutual
>    (Dickensian-sense) friend if he would approach Andrew on our behalf ...

  If you can try, that certainly would be welcome.

	Best,

		Arthur