Two comments:

1.Can we have a lawyer look at this? AFAICT, and IANAL, the dictionaries
used by Linux in general and Ubuntu specifically, are simply lists, or
compilations. Generally speaking, courts have held that compilations are
not copyrightable - or more precisely, that the facts contained in the
list - are not copyrightable. See Rural Vs Feist in the US, Nine Vs Ice
TV in Australia, etc.

If it is the case that lists of words cannot be copyrightable, then
neither the LGPL nor the LPPL can apply to the distribution of the list
of words, since these licenses are themselves based on copyright. Again,
IANAL. Or at least, someone can take the exact same list of words,
reorder them if they want, then redistribute them.

Perhaps a lawyer will look at this and conclude "interesting, a judge
might agree", in which we are no further ahead. But if a lawyer
concludes "absolutely, that is spot on", then we have a way forward.

2. Why on earth is this marked wishlist? It's a bug! I am Canadian and
this ain't no wishlist item, it is an absolute showstopper that impacts
my ability to work (and I write documents for a living!).

My choices are 1) export as doc and spell in MS Word, yay, ain't that
grand, 2) use another dictionary close to the Canadian, e.g., the
British (NOT the American) and hope that I notice those Canadianisms
that aren't going to be in the British dictionary, 3) use the awful
install process described that one has to stumble upon out of sheer
luck.

None of these are acceptable workarounds and given that this bug impacts
the ability of people to do real work and use Ubuntu exclusively (my
daughter emails her school projects to my wife so that she can spell
check them under Word, since we haven't converted her yet!), it is a
real bug, not a wishlist item.

Making it wishlist is akin to closing our eyes and hoping it will go
away. It won't. Not until someone fixes it. It's a bug. It needs to be
fixed. Not wished away as an enhancement.

-- 
[needs-packaging] myspell-en-ca (Canada)
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/120576
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