Grammarly-like soft, but with commercial license?

[Kaworu]

Hi :-)

I have kinda trouble... xD

I am working on a Polish-to-English translation, and, as you might guess, English is not my native language. This means that while my English is quite good, translating into a foreign language isn't as "smooth" as translating from English into Polish. And since I would like to publish my translation, we are running into some problems.

The most common solution would be to find a second person to work with - especially since I think I can translate, but not necessarily work as an editor to "polish" the text - but I am not sure if we will find a person like that (the translation is RPG-related and... well, you do need an insider).

The second solution would be to use something like Grammarly to take care of commas, missing articles and other language-related issues. The problem is, Grammarly does not allow for commercial use of the soft. Neither does ProWritingAid. Nor LanguageTool (which is "open source" - is this a jest? 0_O).

So right now my question is this - does anybody here know something just like Grammarly, but which would allow for commercial usage of the software?

Also, a "loose" thought - technological progress should have some use. And looking at the abundance of Grammarly-like soft, but with all of them closed to commercial usage - yup, it does! But only for a selected number of people! xD

[NichG]

It does look like there's a paid option for these things for business use, so isn't that what you were looking for? Or are you specifically looking for something free and for commercial use?

There seem to be some lists of alternatives out there. For example, a quick search found something called GrammarLookup that seems to be completely free (though web-based, so it's only okay if confidentiality of the content isn't a big issue): https://www.grammarlookup.com/

If you wanted to roll your own, you could probably get something fairly reasonable going using GPT-J which has publically available weights, but that's a whole project at that point - and you'd have to be comfortable enough with grammar and phrasing in English to recognize whether it's actually working and whether the quality of the rewrites are good.

[Rynjin]

I'm also gonna be honest with you, based on the number of clients/businesses I've worked with who have some kind of requirement to use Grammarly, there's probably no way that "no commercial use" clause is enforceable. How would they even find out?

[Kaworu]

Hi people :-) So...

1. I was looking for something with Pay-able licence - it would be okay, but truly open source solution much more :-P But it is not the problem with expensive license, it's the problem that those kinda solutions, massively, always, exclude commercial use (? xD). WARUUUUUM? XD

2. Maybe there is no way to prove that you have violated the license of Grammarly, but still, I do not wanna be a criminal : <

3. As to the project, I already have found some help with English through these forums :3 Yay :3

4. I wonder why those types of software are, well, almost always "only for non-commercial use"? I mean, I was looking kinda intense and by myself I could not find an exception to the rule? Wouldn't this "void" scream for filling, so to say? 0_O

[NichG]

But the ones you mentioned explicitly have paid Business plans. So, explicitly for commercial use.

[gomipile]

Maybe Kaworu is looking for software that can be used offline without the software company getting any data about what is typed? In that case, the best I can think of are Scrivener and the built-in grammar checkers in LibreOffice or Microsoft Office.

[Kaworu]

I use Libre Office, but I believe it cannot be even compared to Grammarly and similar soft? Still, would be nice if these capabilities would be added with some update :-P

[Smoutwortel]

No idea about the quality of the checks, but these have licenses that are not against commercial use.
On github you can find languagetool(apache-2)
On github you can find the PiyKat/Grammar-Checker(lgpl-2)
on gitlab you can find the pipesanta/grammar-checker(MIT)
You've to excuse me for only including FOSS projects. I'm more familiar with the FOSS license world than the proprietary one.
Also thanks to the way the forum anti-advertising rules are worded. I'm more comfortable with posting these than proprietary stuff.

finally found its entry on alternativesto

EDIT: porselino,(bsd-3), typeli(proprietary finally), editsaurus(MIT again), paperrrater(proprietary), wordtune(proprietary), INK(proprietary), Lengusa(proprietary) and grammarchecker.net(proprietary).

[Kaworu]

Whoa, that's a lot of stuff! :O Thank you ;-) And yup, FOSS is it :D

But... isn't LanguageTool "only for private use"? 0_O I believe I have read something like that in their rules, I could swear...

[theangelJean]

Hi! This isn't an answer to your question, but a different idea about your problem...

The most common solution would be to find a second person to work with - especially since I think I can translate, but not necessarily work as an editor to "polish" the text - but I am not sure if we will find a person like that (the translation is RPG-related and... well, you do need an insider).

What kind of insider do you need? I understand from one of your other threads that you're working on a document allowing one RPG system to be ported to another - and I'm betting you could easily find experts on both systems here in GitP, in the actual Gaming sections of the forum. Some of them also probably have editing and/or writing experience!

If you have no luck, I have no experience in either system and not much in TTRPG to start with, but I'm familiar enough with basic RPG terminology. If there are documents on the mechanics of each system freely available in English, I could probably pick up the vocabulary reasonably quickly.

Edit: Fate has an SRD, and there's an unofficial wiki for Exalted. Let me know if you really have no takers.

[Smoutwortel]

Whoa, that's a lot of stuff! :O Thank you ;-) And yup, FOSS is it :D

But... isn't LanguageTool "only for private use"? 0_O I believe I have read something like that in their rules, I could swear...

Their github says otherwise LGPL2.1(like every foss license it contains an explicit clause permitting unrestricted commercial and private.

Protip if you're looking for FOSS/open source programs use the keywords "github", "git", "source code" and "gitlab".
Even if you're looking for the binary the git is often nice enough to provide it.

[Kaworu]

I know what FOSS and GitHub is ;-) Still, this is what I have read on their website, so... :-P ;-)

[Tarmor]

But... isn't LanguageTool "only for private use"? 0_O I believe I have read something like that in their rules, I could swear...

You are correct. From their Terms of Service: " "The use of the free services offered on languagetool.org is only permitted for private use." You could still pay for their software license.

[Smoutwortel]

You are correct. From their Terms of Service: " "The use of the free services offered on languagetool.org is only permitted for private use." You could still pay for their software license.

Ah, oopsie.
I just checked the rules of the software, not the service.

Want to work around it. Set up your own server.
How to set up your own server can be found on their webiste.
Tip: use 127.0.0.1 as the ip for the server. The server will only work on the local computer, but it skips a lot of network configuration.