Re: OT: ISO standards who? (was Re: French character names ingucharmap)

[Ramanan Selvaratnam <rama uklinux net>]

[I removed Noah, Danilo and Christian from the CC as I am sure they are
in the I18N list and could be busy with other important tasks]

On Sat, 2003-12-20 at 11:59, Keld Jørn Simonsen wrote:

> I do think this is directly related to what we do for Gnome
> translations, on a higher level.

I fully agree. Paramountly important. That is one reason I now find
myself alligned with many others in my community who are takng a steady
informed pace at l10n than just rush to be another statistical data (No
offence to Carlos a big excuse for the currently  very slow Tamil
translatons :)


> This discussion is
> also about freedom, and our own ways to ensure our freedom in the long
> run. At least that is why I take the bother.
Thanks.


> > > > In most industrialized countries 
> > 
> > ... but not loosing the plot and being selfish continuously trying to
> > improove ... see Why silgrphaite? at
> > http://silgraphite.sourceforge.net/
> 
> I don't understand what points you are trying to make here.

I cut and paste this from the above website to highlight my point... 
"Why SIL Graphite?
There are many complex scripts (writing system) that are currently daily
used by many many people. A lot of these people do not live in a high
economic environment now. Most of the commercial companies will not
invest to support these writing systems into their operating
systems/applications. SIL Graphite is designed to fill that hole."

Their archives records for support for minority languages and closely
related links are a good read.
Also FYI: Tamil by no means is a minority language.70 milion. But SIL is
the only way to get Tamil Mozilla working without compile time
adjustments in free software systems.

My point being standards like OpenType are not complete as they 
blatantly follow the economic patterns set by industialised countries'
(now years old) and non free attitudes that spring from therein.

> > 
> > > all companies are allowed to go to the 
> > > > standards commitees. I think the standards organizations are obliged to 
> > > > allow all companies.
> > > 
> > > You may not be a company. You may only be a random expert.
> 
> Yes, that is more or less what I am/was. I joined a users group
> (no! I founded a users group:-) - where there is a will, there is a way.

So am I. Probably fast becoming an expert :) at standards issues too.
(But a very fortunate one than most other people in the planet.
Definitely compared to other Tamils. I just had my second fullfilling
meal for the day and sitting back cushily at my broadband connection...)


> So I understand that you as a more-or-less independent expert,

Independent ... yes. Less so now as Unicode adoption is starting off
slowly (which is a good thing IMO)
 
>  sit
> together with other Tamil experts from big Tamil companies.
Hell no! 

Just because they hacked Latin-1 to work for Tamil sometime back (in
that too using different tactics) some I know have even got a movement
going to attempt to change the rules of our alphabet to suit their their
primary mistakes :)

Then there is a mad posse constantly nagging about how many less 
Unicode code points were allocated to us than XYZ ... so lets boycott it
altogher!
...
There are many many more  Tamil experts almost measured by the the
number of different Yahoo groups. But AFAIK only one emerging grouping
that puts freedoms in software as a primary goal.
I like to think I belong with this group.

Please realise that this is a comment on experts. Not people.
There is one Tamil language/people and most do not even have a computer
yet. 

> In what connection? With Unicode? With Gnome? With local ISO?
Free software that empowered me. increasingly so with Gnome.

> 
> > [I recently found out that even to participate in general discussions
> > relating to Unicode take up is behind a $10 membership fee barrier,
> > individual egos etc..all negative stuff.]
> > (Apart from the obvious principles I find a $10 charge and ways to get
> > it across impossible. I live in the UK BTW) 
> 
> So a USD 10 charge is impossible? 
Yes. Actually to make a point (if you wish) it will be nice if you can
it and I go in there and highlight that and many other points.

> I don't understand that.

(Also as an answer to what Roozbeh seems confused about in an earlier
reply to me ...)
Please see
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gbinfitt/

membership details I gather are dropped on you when you ask too many
questions in other groups. $10 for associate membership... I understand.
The grassroot level strucure is fast becoming a load of lies as I
continue to wait without any reply for requests to get info on the many
(>8 ) keyboard layouts to other info relating to clear l10n. Some very
important like close cooperation with glossaries.
What is amusing is that it seems the whole hierachy seems to have few
"IT experts" (apart from the obvious rep for the Giant multinational)
and they stalk free software lists. Definitley the wrongly named 'linux'
groups and drop out of the woodwork whenever some development related to
thier direct economic interests emerges only to withdrw back to
...Whatever. 

I personally simply do not care.
As pointed out by others there are standards and review processes one
can fall onto and make complaints/amends.

But given the fact I have  a style of writing that can be confusing to
others at times  and 'rocking the boat' too much like in this public
post could proove to be very unhelpful to those ever positive people
trying to make amends. I also remain hopeful that people will realise
the benits of free software and adopt it wholeheartedly.


> except if you have real unique expertise, such as knowledge on Tamil or
> Danish issues. 
Not Danish but Tamil. Yes. :)
(I found it hard to undertsand the argument that led to the above but I
must stand my ground to point out I am not just Tamil also fortunate
share these info in a free software development forum.)


> > I hope the work of efforts like openi18n [www.openi18n.org] unite with
> > other efforts like Freedesktop.org and be effective in countering  some
> > of the dysfunctional aspects of ISO.
> > Maybe I got it wrong here... please let me know.
> 
> I am partitioning in openi18n and I am getting ignored. I don't know
> what is happening there, or how procedures work. I believe I am one of
> only 5 persons in the active openi18n group - that is what I tried to
> sign up for. I regard openi18n as a quite closed group that works in its
> own ways and in practice it is not as open as it is on paper.
> openi18n is as the rest of the free standards group a vendor run
> organization - random experts (even like me who have done quite some
> i18n specs) have a hard time there.
This might help you understand my brief encounter...
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tamilinix/message/2656

Although it ended a bit sourly I remain positive.
More positive that our own 'grassroot level' Unicode implementors.

> > In the case of of Unicode they, whoever that is who takes decisions must
> > be really daft to let them selves be used by the negative setups like
> > the one I described above.
> 
> I dont understand, maybe explain it in another way?

Clear now?
It is simply not fair that I have to go into all this just to get a
bunch of translations done. I worry about tools, information ...
actually everything to do with software.
I also see clear connections to software freedons related issues and if
it still remains confusing please contact off list (as I do not want to
rock  the boat too much)

> > But while trying to get the standards organised one risks rocking the
> > local 'boat' too much which is not good in the interest of the end user,
> > to whom such headaches should be opaque. Big dilema.
> 
> Yes, that is something to watch out for.
> 
> > So just having a review process after making ill thought out decisions
> > without any considerations for the intended end user is itself not
> > adequate enough IMHO.
> 
> What then? I think it is important to have equal voting rights on the
> adoption of the specifications.

I did not make my point clearly (yet again) and you did not answer to my
point too :). All I would like to point out is that this majority vote 
thing is wrong. Consensus based on informed real grassroot level
feedback is needed in every tchnology related case. Other wise we are
all playing with fire that risks getting out of control.

Best Regards,

Ramanan 

PS: The $10 ... to be serious I am always up for it to make a point.
Also another good way I know to spend it on free software.
To be more serious $10 is a significant amount of money for most who
care and are outside the economic wealth zones and care about free
software.