Dear Gregg, My answer is about your first suggestion.
I think we should focus on Linux/Unix, since : - There is no need to support arabic in other operating systems, but in linux there is a lot of work to do. So, Linux should remain our primary developpement environnement. Now if our products could be easily adapted to other operating systems, whye not ? - Binary portability is impossible. Full source portability is an illusion. You should always adapt your program to a concrete operating system, library, tools, etc. So, first lets work on linux and then adapt for other environnements if needed. - 100% of arabeye's projetcs are designed for linux/unix. So the day when we would have 50% of our projects running on other operating systems, we could discuss the proposal of expanding Arabeyes'scope. UMHO of course ! Tarik Le Mercredi 12 Octobre 2005 13:29, Gregg Reynolds a écrit : > Hi all, > > I have two suggestions. > > First is to expand the scope of Arabeyes from Linux/Unix to Free/Open > software. Many (probably most) of us will not have the option of using > Linux/Unix, at least not at work, no matter how well it supports Arabic. > But we do have the option of using Arabic-enabled applications on > Windows. > > So I propose that Arabeyes change from "The Arabic Unix Project" to > something like "The Project for Free/Open Computing in Arabic". The > operating system should not be the focus; after all, these days many if > not most open source projects are OS agnostic, and usually even end up > supporting Windows. The focus should be first on Arabic support, and > second on portability. > > For end-users, the Arabeyes proposal then becomes "no matter what your > operating system is, we can help you compute in Arabic with free/open > software, and most of it will be cross-platform as well, so that you can > later switch to a different OS and your computing environment will look > the ssame." For developers, the proposal is "we can help you enable > Arabic support regardless of your target OS, and we'll also help you > make sure your app is portable across OS's." > > Now my second proposal is a little more concrete. I've been looking > into RDF since last winter, and although I'm still learning it looks > like a very promising and useful technology. (Lots of RDF info at > http://www.w3.org; I recommend the Primer at > http://www.w3.org/2000/10/swap/Primer.html) So the idea I have for > Arabeyes is to create an RDF vocabulary for describing the Arabic > capabilities of software. Given a piece of software like a text editor, > one needs to know basic things like which charsets it supports, does it > support arabic shaping, etc., but one would also like to know which > platforms it works on, whether it supports local date/time formats, > sorting/searching, etc. Also whether the GUI is fully R-to-L and in > Arabic, if help files are translated, etc. etc. > > What got me thinking about this is that last winter I spent a lot of > time researching diff programs and xml editors trying to find good > Arabic support. So I ended up with a checklist of products and > capabilities. I didn't know it at the time but RDF is perfectly suited > for that kind of metadata. > > For Arabeyes, development of an "Arabic-Capabilities" RDF vocabulary > could potentially make it much easier to find and evaluate > Arabic-enabled free/open software. If it were successful (easy to use > and understand, I guess), then software developers could start including > such info with each release. > > Naturally I don't have much time at the moment but I thought I'd throw > out the idea and see if anybody else likes it. > > Whaddya think? > > -gregg > _______________________________________________ > General mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.arabeyes.org/mailman/listinfo/general _______________________________________________ General mailing list [email protected] http://lists.arabeyes.org/mailman/listinfo/general
