Re: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-08 Thread Roozbeh Pournader
On Tue, 2004-06-08 at 19:55, Behdad Esfahbod wrote:
> Well we have done it a few times, but I meant the tentative
> list we prepared for that Persian Linux project, but that ain't
> nothing.

Yeah, that was not about Persian Computing. That was about
internationalizing and localizing GNU/Linux software for Persian.

roozbeh


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RE: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-08 Thread Roozbeh Pournader
On Tue, 2004-06-08 at 19:51, Behdad Esfahbod wrote:
> These indeed look exciting, but in my laptop, not theirs.

I'll try my best to get them on the laptop of everybody interested as
early as possible.

> Sure, if it really stays with *us*.  "They'll be doing" is what I
> asked if you still get excited about.

They're planning early release cycles and a very open process, almost
nothing confidential.

> Man, how many yours you
> have been in this business?

I can't remember. Many. And seeing how little amount of output I have
produced, I'm clearly a waster of my time, it seems.

> No, but any project run by IRI a foolish dumb one with no results
> wasting oil money. 

The project won't be run by IRI. It will be run by an NGO.

> You know I'm so disappointed about the
> National Persian Linux project.

That project is generally wasting oil money, I agree. Better work can be
done much cheaper with a much better quality.

BTW, the Persian Computing community may be interested to see the
technical output of certain projects there. I personally appreciate any
discussion of the following documents here on this mailing list:

Good (a specification and implementation for Persian fonts):
  http://projects.farsilinux.org/download.php/10/opentype.zip

Bad (a specification for the Iranian calendar):
  http://projects.farsilinux.org/download.php/13/PersianCalendar3.pdf
  http://projects.farsilinux.org/download.php/13/PersianCalendar4.pdf

Ugly (Compilation of some non-standard Persian fonts *released* by a
project who is supposed to write a specification about requirements of a
Persian keyboard driver for Linux):
  http://projects.farsilinux.org/download.php/6/Farsi_Font_Linux_2.zip

> I'm afraid not.  I'm afraid one of these days I theoretically
> prove it can't be solved.

I'd be happy enough with that. I'll call that a solution.

> (that bidi is not reversible
> simply means you can't get a 100% expected cursor position, huh?)

Can't get the idea. You need to elaborate. But it's OK with me if you
want to close the thread.

roozbeh


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Re: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-08 Thread Behdad Esfahbod
On Tue, 8 Jun 2004, Roozbeh Pournader wrote:

> On Tue, 2004-06-08 at 18:33, Behdad Esfahbod wrote:
> > About a list of open problems, no, there's no such thing yet, but
> > Roozbeh and I compiled a similar list sometime back that I don't
> > have it anymore.
>
> And I don't even remember doing it! :'-(
>
> When was it?

:)).  Well we have done it a few times, but I meant the tentative
list we prepared for that Persian Linux project, but that ain't
nothing.

> roozbeh

--behdad
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Re: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-08 Thread Behdad Esfahbod
On Tue, 8 Jun 2004, Roozbeh Pournader wrote:

> On Tue, 2004-06-08 at 19:19, Masoud Sharbiani wrote:
> > Roozbeh, is it possible to create a wiki for persian computing?
>
> That is *planned* for FarsiWeb's website. I'm sure Behnam Esfahbod and
> Elnaz Sarbar will announce here the good news about the new FarsiWeb
> website, when it became ready.
>
> roozbeh

Oh, so it's a "Who answers first" competition? :D.  "az khodam bepors" ;-).


--behdad
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RE: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-08 Thread Behdad Esfahbod
On Tue, 8 Jun 2004, Ehsan Akhgari wrote:

> > > I volunteer to implement a web interface for the dictionary,
> > Excellent!
> > You'll have to make it so that whether the user types in bi[ZWNJ]kaar,
> > bikaar, or bi kaar, the word will be found!
>
> Yes, that's right.  This is relatively easy to implement.
>
> > >  but I think we'll need other
> > > people's help as well, because I would guess the whole data
> > would be *huge*.
> > Will this require separate dedicated server(s)?
> > (I'm thinking about Behdad and the Persian Digital Library here...)
>
> Hmmm, not necessarily *dedicated*.  As long as there's enough web space for
> some part of the data to reside on the server, and I have access to it to
> install an application which processes the queries locally, it doesn't
> really have to be dedicated, unless the server's already fully loaded by
> other tasks.  I don't think we'll need dedicated servers for this job.  The
> process of searching can be done fast enough.

Like the old saying: "avval chaak o bekanin, ba'd menaare
bedozdin".  Guys, we are dreaming about the CSS stylesheet of the
imaginary dictionary data???

--behdad
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RE: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-08 Thread Behdad Esfahbod
On Tue, 8 Jun 2004, Roozbeh Pournader wrote:

> On Tue, 2004-06-08 at 13:44, Behdad Esfahbod wrote:
> > So don't say it this way that they are doing this great project
> > which will save the humanity blah blah...  You still get excited
> > by those words?
>
> I am excited, since I saw some output from the people involved: A
> commercial probabilistic English to Persian translation engine, a tagged
> corpus of pronunciations for lots of standard Persian, an OCR that
> worked wonderfully for handwritten disjoint Persian letters, and a
> script that inserted all the "kasre-ye ezaafe"s automatically (which
> worked not only on whole sentences, but even on things like book
> titles).
>
> Let's just say this: Isn't a database of famous people and places' names
> and their Persian translation not exciting if released as Open Source,
> something that tells you Democritus is "zimeghraatis" and Casablanca is
> "daar ol-beyzaa"? Specially if someone already has it?


These indeed look exciting, but in my laptop, not theirs.


> I get excited when I see people who have done something that stays with
> us. I get excited when they mention they'll be doing everything Open
> Source without anybody pushing them. And it was not only me.


Sure, if it really stays with *us*.  "They'll be doing" is what I
asked if you still get excited about.  Man, how many yours you
have been in this business?


> > IRI is IRI, period.
>
> Does that make everybody living in IRI a fool?!


No, but any project run by IRI a foolish dumb one with no results
wasting oil money.  You know I'm so disappointed about the
National Persian Linux project.


> > By the way, yes, it IS that hard, the cursor
> > problem at least.
>
> I know. But it's not something unsolvable by the FarsiWeb team, at least
> theoretically. You don't agree?!


I'm afraid not.  I'm afraid one of these days I theoretically
prove it can't be solved.  But of course that would be
theoretically, not practically.  (that bidi is not reversible
simply means you can't get a 100% expected cursor position, huh?)

> roozbeh


BTW, guess enough of this thread.  Find another interesting thing
to continue this beautiful month.  :-)


Ok, Professor Yarshater, the author of the great Encyclopedia
Iranica[1] is going to be around in two weeks.  I may get the
chance to conduct a short interview with him.  So, ideas about
what to ask, what to focus, is appreciated.

[1] http://www.iranica.com/

--behdad
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Re: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-08 Thread Roozbeh Pournader
On Tue, 2004-06-08 at 18:33, Behdad Esfahbod wrote:
> About a list of open problems, no, there's no such thing yet, but
> Roozbeh and I compiled a similar list sometime back that I don't
> have it anymore.

And I don't even remember doing it! :'-(

When was it?

roozbeh


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Re: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-08 Thread Roozbeh Pournader
On Tue, 2004-06-08 at 19:19, Masoud Sharbiani wrote:
> Roozbeh, is it possible to create a wiki for persian computing?

That is *planned* for FarsiWeb's website. I'm sure Behnam Esfahbod and
Elnaz Sarbar will announce here the good news about the new FarsiWeb
website, when it became ready.

roozbeh


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RE: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-08 Thread Ehsan Akhgari
> > I volunteer to implement a web interface for the dictionary,
> Excellent!
> You'll have to make it so that whether the user types in bi[ZWNJ]kaar,
> bikaar, or bi kaar, the word will be found!

Yes, that's right.  This is relatively easy to implement.

> >  but I think we'll need other
> > people's help as well, because I would guess the whole data
> would be *huge*.
> Will this require separate dedicated server(s)?
> (I'm thinking about Behdad and the Persian Digital Library here...)

Hmmm, not necessarily *dedicated*.  As long as there's enough web space for
some part of the data to reside on the server, and I have access to it to
install an application which processes the queries locally, it doesn't
really have to be dedicated, unless the server's already fully loaded by
other tasks.  I don't think we'll need dedicated servers for this job.  The
process of searching can be done fast enough.

-
Ehsan Akhgari

Farda Technology (http://www.farda-tech.com/)

List Owner: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

[ Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ]
[ WWW: http://www.beginthread.com/Ehsan ]



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Re: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-08 Thread Behdad Esfahbod
On Tue, 8 Jun 2004, Masoud Sharbiani wrote:

> And, if someone starts a list, please add the problem of selecting a
> mixed text (english/persian) with a mouse. No matter what you do, or how
> experienced you are, you'll always get surprised.

Yeah, that's known as the twin of the cursor problem.

> Roozbeh, is it possible to create a wiki for persian computing?
> so people would describe their problems /known bugs there? or
> am I just talking from _the_ unpleasant organ of my body?

No, you are talking about a very pleasant organ of your body ;-).
The wiki is already planned for FarsiWeb, we can open a section
to public.


--behdad
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Re: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-08 Thread Behdad Esfahbod
On Tue, 8 Jun 2004, Ordak D. Coward wrote:

> Let me inject my foolish questions in the middle of this hot flaming
> discussion. What is the cursor problem exactly? And why is it hard to
> solve? Is there an FAQ on open problems in Persian Computing?

Hi there,

Well, the cursor problem is not Persian-specific, but
bidi-specific.  The problem is that in a text editor with mixed
right-to-left and left-to-right, you have a cursor and Left and
Right arrow to navigate in the text.  Now design the movement and
cursor shape such that it behaves in an expected/easy to
learn/predictable way.

About a list of open problems, no, there's no such thing yet, but
Roozbeh and I compiled a similar list sometime back that I don't
have it anymore.

--behdad
  behdad.org
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Re: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-08 Thread Masoud Sharbiani
Roozbeh Pournader wrote:
On Tue, 2004-06-08 at 18:24, Ordak D. Coward wrote:
 

What is the cursor problem exactly?
   

Have you tried typing multilingual text in an editor like MS Windows'
Notepad? The cursor, the selection, etc, are very hard to handle easily.
You'll get mad very soon.
 

Yeah, that one!
And why is it hard to solve?
   

Because:
1) You need to remain Unicode compliant w.r.t bidi algorithm.
2) You need to edit everything, from normal text to marked up XML or
LaTeX, and expected behavior is different with different kinds of text.
3) Different users have different expectations, so you need lots of
configurability for different kind of users in different locales.
 

Is there an FAQ on open problems in Persian Computing?
   

No. Unless you start one.
 

And, if someone starts a list, please add the problem of selecting a 
mixed text (english/persian) with a mouse. No matter what you do, or how 
experienced you are, you'll always get surprised.

Roozbeh, is it possible to create a wiki for persian computing? so people would describe their problems /known bugs there? or am I just talking from _the_ unpleasant organ of my body? 

roozbeh
 

cheers,
Masoud
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Re: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-08 Thread Roozbeh Pournader
On Tue, 2004-06-08 at 18:24, Ordak D. Coward wrote:
> What is the cursor problem exactly?

Have you tried typing multilingual text in an editor like MS Windows'
Notepad? The cursor, the selection, etc, are very hard to handle easily.
You'll get mad very soon.

> And why is it hard to solve?

Because:
1) You need to remain Unicode compliant w.r.t bidi algorithm.
2) You need to edit everything, from normal text to marked up XML or
LaTeX, and expected behavior is different with different kinds of text.
3) Different users have different expectations, so you need lots of
configurability for different kind of users in different locales.

> Is there an FAQ on open problems in Persian Computing?

No. Unless you start one.

roozbeh


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Re: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-08 Thread Ordak D. Coward
Let me inject my foolish questions in the middle of this hot flaming
discussion. What is the cursor problem exactly? And why is it hard to
solve? Is there an FAQ on open problems in Persian Computing?

On Tue, 8 Jun 2004 05:14:40 -0400, Behdad Esfahbod
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 8 Jun 2004, Roozbeh Pournader wrote:
> 
> > On Mon, 2004-06-07 at 22:50, Behdad Esfahbod wrote:
> > > Over our dead body!  The whole world is still to solve that
> > > cursor movement problem, and you expect...
> >
> > I expect to solve that "ourselves" (say, FarsiWeb and FriBidi teams), at
> > least for the perspective of Persian and Iranian users. Is it *that*
> > hard?
> 
> So don't say it this way that they are doing this great project
> which will save the humanity blah blah...  You still get excited
> by those words?
> 
> > We don't need to pass over our own dead bodies. They will fund, we will
> > solve their problem.
> 
> IRI is IRI, period.  By the way, yes, it IS that hard, the cursor
> problem at least.
> 
> > roozbeh
> 
> --behdad
>  behdad.org
> 
> 
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RE: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-08 Thread Behdad Esfahbod
On Tue, 8 Jun 2004, Roozbeh Pournader wrote:

> On Mon, 2004-06-07 at 22:50, Behdad Esfahbod wrote:
> > Over our dead body!  The whole world is still to solve that
> > cursor movement problem, and you expect...
>
> I expect to solve that "ourselves" (say, FarsiWeb and FriBidi teams), at
> least for the perspective of Persian and Iranian users. Is it *that*
> hard?

So don't say it this way that they are doing this great project
which will save the humanity blah blah...  You still get excited
by those words?

> We don't need to pass over our own dead bodies. They will fund, we will
> solve their problem.

IRI is IRI, period.  By the way, yes, it IS that hard, the cursor
problem at least.

> roozbeh

--behdad
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RE: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-08 Thread Roozbeh Pournader
On Tue, 2004-06-08 at 13:44, Behdad Esfahbod wrote:
> So don't say it this way that they are doing this great project
> which will save the humanity blah blah...  You still get excited
> by those words?

I am excited, since I saw some output from the people involved: A
commercial probabilistic English to Persian translation engine, a tagged
corpus of pronunciations for lots of standard Persian, an OCR that
worked wonderfully for handwritten disjoint Persian letters, and a
script that inserted all the "kasre-ye ezaafe"s automatically (which
worked not only on whole sentences, but even on things like book
titles).

Let's just say this: Isn't a database of famous people and places' names
and their Persian translation not exciting if released as Open Source,
something that tells you Democritus is "zimeghraatis" and Casablanca is
"daar ol-beyzaa"? Specially if someone already has it?

I get excited when I see people who have done something that stays with
us. I get excited when they mention they'll be doing everything Open
Source without anybody pushing them. And it was not only me.

> IRI is IRI, period.

Does that make everybody living in IRI a fool?! 

> By the way, yes, it IS that hard, the cursor
> problem at least.

I know. But it's not something unsolvable by the FarsiWeb team, at least
theoretically. You don't agree?!

roozbeh


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RE: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-08 Thread Roozbeh Pournader
On Mon, 2004-06-07 at 22:50, Behdad Esfahbod wrote:
> Over our dead body!  The whole world is still to solve that
> cursor movement problem, and you expect...

I expect to solve that "ourselves" (say, FarsiWeb and FriBidi teams), at
least for the perspective of Persian and Iranian users. Is it *that*
hard?

We don't need to pass over our own dead bodies. They will fund, we will
solve their problem.

roozbeh


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RE: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-07 Thread Behdad Esfahbod
On Mon, 7 Jun 2004, Roozbeh Pournader wrote:

> On Mon, 2004-06-07 at 21:20, C Bobroff wrote:
> > Now, do you have any more questions before [hopefully] heading off to bed?
>
> OK, my mom just called. She was a little upset. ;-)
>
> BTW, wait for the news from the next cool thing, called "tarh-e jaame'-e
> gostaresh-e kaarbari-e zabaan-e faarsi". The guys involved are wonderful
> (incomparable to any other such meetings I've attended), and they are
> planning to create things much better than your Sokhan Dictionary in the
> process, like a Persian equivalent of the Collins Cobuild dictionary.
> And at the same time, things like, let's say, a Unicode compliant text
> editor whose cursor doesn't jump around unexpectedly, and a standard
> about how to markup synchronous text, speech, and translations and then
> a tool to convert it to a web page (like what Connie does sometimes
> manually). And guess what? All the output will be Open Source!

Over our dead body!  The whole world is still to solve that
cursor movement problem, and you expect...

> Keep a look here for saner announcements. I need to rush home.
>
> roozbeh

--behdad
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Re: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-07 Thread Roozbeh Pournader
On Mon, 2004-06-07 at 21:41, Behnam wrote:
> But for mortal 
> writers it's too complicated to master.

The writer is not supposed to master TeX. The publisher is.

roozbeh


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RE: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-07 Thread C Bobroff


On Mon, 7 Jun 2004, Roozbeh Pournader wrote:

>  And guess what? All the output will be Open Source!
>
> Keep a look here for saner announcements. I need to rush home.

Hmmm, this sounds like a case of advanced delirium.
Tell Mom, no less than 48 hours of deep REM sleep will be required to
restore the good old Mesopotamian pessimism we have come to expect
and admire so much in our Roozbeh!
-Connie
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Re: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-07 Thread Roozbeh Pournader
On Mon, 2004-06-07 at 21:43, Masoud Sharbiani wrote:
> I bet you've never used MSFT word, have you? I had to use it for the 
> reports/thesis I did at Sharif (circa 1997-8). There is this feature 
> called 'Master Document' that is basically a binder for all kinds of 
> word files, and can handle the chapter/page numbering and such. (I am 
> talking about Word 6.0, the later versions should still have this feature).

I use MS Word 2003 regularly. It's bad and sad, I can't have good change
control with it, and I need to boot into MS Windows to use it, but it's
working fine. I can't get fancy typesetting or automatic index
generation with it, but it's generally OK for something like a report or
a specification. But I won't try typesetting books in it. Even
TeX-e-Parsi wasn't enough when I last typeset a book. It choked when I
was using an automatically generated table of contents with a multiple
numbering scheme for pages and non-standard footnotes. I needed to
prepare the table of contents in a special separate run.

I was not talking about small documents. I was talking about typesetting
a whole seven-volume dictionary, with complex text and requirements.

> Fortunately, I have a good pen now. I just use it to write :-)

But unfortunately, you've forgotten where that Meem thing was on the
Persian keyboard, Huh?

roozbeh


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RE: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-07 Thread Roozbeh Pournader
On Mon, 2004-06-07 at 21:20, C Bobroff wrote:
> Now, do you have any more questions before [hopefully] heading off to bed?

OK, my mom just called. She was a little upset. ;-)

BTW, wait for the news from the next cool thing, called "tarh-e jaame'-e
gostaresh-e kaarbari-e zabaan-e faarsi". The guys involved are wonderful
(incomparable to any other such meetings I've attended), and they are
planning to create things much better than your Sokhan Dictionary in the
process, like a Persian equivalent of the Collins Cobuild dictionary.
And at the same time, things like, let's say, a Unicode compliant text
editor whose cursor doesn't jump around unexpectedly, and a standard
about how to markup synchronous text, speech, and translations and then
a tool to convert it to a web page (like what Connie does sometimes
manually). And guess what? All the output will be Open Source!

Keep a look here for saner announcements. I need to rush home.

roozbeh


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Re: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-07 Thread Behnam
It's a well known fact that MS Word is mainly for office work. Short 
documents and presentations. Professional writers seldom use MS Office 
for large documents like books. This WP is known to crash when doing 
things like numbering and sorting on large documents. No writer can 
afford such disaster.
On Mac platform, Nisus Writer was a favorite of writers on OS 9. On OS 
X Mellel is trying to get there but it's not there yet.
I heard that TeX is used mostly for technical documents because it 
handles very well scientific characters and equations. But for mortal 
writers it's too complicated to master.

Behnam
On 7-Jun-04, at 12:38 PM, Roozbeh Pournader wrote:
On Mon, 2004-06-07 at 18:55, C Bobroff wrote:
Who said they didn't break it up into smaller files?
And managed all the numbering and sorting and all that by hand?
roozbeh
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Re: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-07 Thread Masoud Sharbiani
Roozbeh,
I bet you've never used MSFT word, have you? I had to use it for the 
reports/thesis I did at Sharif (circa 1997-8). There is this feature 
called 'Master Document' that is basically a binder for all kinds of 
word files, and can handle the chapter/page numbering and such. (I am 
talking about Word 6.0, the later versions should still have this feature).
Fortunately, I have a good pen now. I just use it to write :-)

Masoud
Roozbeh Pournader wrote:
On Mon, 2004-06-07 at 18:55, C Bobroff wrote:
 

Who said they didn't break it up into smaller files?
   

And managed all the numbering and sorting and all that by hand?
roozbeh
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RE: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-07 Thread C Bobroff

On Mon, 7 Jun 2004, Roozbeh Pournader wrote:

> And managed all the numbering and sorting and all that by hand?
They would have done that BEFORE exporting to their publishing software.

Now, do you have any more questions before [hopefully] heading off to bed?

-Connie
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Re: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-07 Thread Roozbeh Pournader
On Mon, 2004-06-07 at 19:24, Masoud Sharbiani wrote:
> Yeah, that and the fact that you really should have TONS of memory if 
> you want to have it all in one file, plus a dual processor (2000+ Mhz) 
> machine ;-)

And even then, the quality will be incomparable with something typeset
with, say, TeX-e-Parsi.

roozbeh


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RE: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-07 Thread Roozbeh Pournader
On Mon, 2004-06-07 at 18:55, C Bobroff wrote:
> Who said they didn't break it up into smaller files?

And managed all the numbering and sorting and all that by hand?

roozbeh


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Re: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-07 Thread Masoud Sharbiani
I know of a friend, Mr. Yusef Amiri, who with Mr. Rohani Rankuhi (long 
time DB expert and a professor at Shahid Beheshti/Melli University) 
wrote two books, all in MS Word, chapter by chapter.
One of the books was on C++, the other one (IIRC) was on OO design or 
something like it.

Yeah, that and the fact that you really should have TONS of memory if 
you want to have it all in one file, plus a dual processor (2000+ Mhz) 
machine ;-)

Masoud
C Bobroff wrote:
On Mon, 2004-06-07 at 08:20, C Bobroff wrote:
   

I just thought the typist had used MS Word, then exported to Excel and
then to some publishing program.
 

I'm sure both MS Word and MS Excel would crash under the weight of so
much text.
   

Who said they didn't break it up into smaller files?
-Connie
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Re: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-07 Thread C Bobroff
On Mon, 7 Jun 2004, Roozbeh Pournader wrote:

> Who is to decide about what is bad? Are we professional linguists or
> dictionary writers?

We can we directed by others to edit. I'm just saying the online
version has this potential, unlike the printed version.

-Connie
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RE: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-07 Thread C Bobroff
> On Mon, 2004-06-07 at 08:20, C Bobroff wrote:
> > I just thought the typist had used MS Word, then exported to Excel and
> > then to some publishing program.
>
> I'm sure both MS Word and MS Excel would crash under the weight of so
> much text.
>

Who said they didn't break it up into smaller files?

-Connie
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Re: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-07 Thread Roozbeh Pournader
On Mon, 2004-06-07 at 08:26, C Bobroff wrote:
> That would be a problem. However, the bad entries can be edited out as
> they are discovered.

Who is to decide about what is bad? Are we professional linguists or
dictionary writers?

roozbeh


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RE: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-07 Thread Roozbeh Pournader
On Mon, 2004-06-07 at 08:20, C Bobroff wrote:
> I just thought the typist had used MS Word, then exported to Excel and
> then to some publishing program.

I'm sure both MS Word and MS Excel would crash under the weight of so
much text.

roozbeh


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Re: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-06 Thread C Bobroff
On Sun, 6 Jun 2004, Roozbeh Pournader wrote:

> new parts are not comparable in quality to Moin's work, with wrong
> etymologies, bad definitions, etc.

That would be a problem. However, the bad entries can be edited out as
they are discovered.

> I don't agree. I believe the publisher has long time commercial interest
> in this (and won't be able to understand that this will actually help
> his sales, too).

I wonder!

> full, but that thing is clearly called "ghash-gir" if someone knows the
> device and its name.
Thank you for clearing that up!

> No one cares for that, in a dictionary. A good dictionary should have
> all the Academy-approved words, but it should list all the words in
> usage, approved by the slow Academy or not.

They can also be added as they get approved.

-Connie
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RE: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-06 Thread C Bobroff

On Sun, 6 Jun 2004, Roozbeh Pournader wrote:

> MS Word?!! You really believe a professional publisher can prepare
> Persian print quality books in MS Word?!
I just thought the typist had used MS Word, then exported to Excel and
then to some publishing program. That was in response to Behdad
mentioning typing. I didn't think there would be any typing involved.
Don't know about Zarnegar.

-Connie

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Re: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-06 Thread Roozbeh Pournader
On Sun, 2004-06-06 at 10:04, C Bobroff wrote:
> On Sat, 5 Jun 2004, Roozbeh Pournader wrote:
> 
> > There are many claims that this doesn't add anything to the Mo'in
> > Persian dictionary,
> How is that possible when it's physically twice as big?

Well, I was not talking literally. "Doesn't add *much*" may be better
wording. The claim is that the work is based on Moin's heavily, and the
new parts are not comparable in quality to Moin's work, with wrong
etymologies, bad definitions, etc.

> And now Pedram informs us it has a different approach, namely
> *definitions* rather than *synonyms*.

I can't confirm the definition vs synonyms part. I need to go ask, or
check. I don't have either Moin's or Sokhan. We use Sadri-Afshar's
"Farhang-e Faarsi-e Emrooz" mainly in FarsiWeb, since it has the modern
sense of the words (but is sometimes inadequate, specially when decoding
legal texts).

> "Waste" is what's in our favor here! Sokhan stands to lose no money if
> they just hand over the data and all rights.

I don't agree. I believe the publisher has long time commercial interest
in this (and won't be able to understand that this will actually help
his sales, too).

> It will be good publicity
> for them!

It will be.

> I'm sure it has a million defects. For example, I found one word
> "ghash-gir" meaning "book-end" and tried to use that on my Iranian friends
> but they'd never heard of it. (I'm not sure if the word was incorrect or
> you don't have book-ends in Iran! You know, the support you put at the end
> of your shelf to keep your books from toppling over...)

Don't test these things on those Iranian friends next time, then. They
seem to not have heard many other things also ;-)

BTW, the word is the only one I know for a book-end. And no, I
personally don't use the thing because my shelfs are always more than
full, but that thing is clearly called "ghash-gir" if someone knows the
device and its name. I don't know any other Persian word for it.

> I don't know if
> all the modern words have been approved by the Academy.

No one cares for that, in a dictionary. A good dictionary should have
all the Academy-approved words, but it should list all the words in
usage, approved by the slow Academy or not.

> Dictionaries get superceded rapidly ...

Not in Iran. Even if we want to be inclusive, there are only a few
usable Persian dictionaries: Dehkhoda's, Sokhan, Amid's, Moin's, and
Emrooz. That's all! And the only ones that *may* get updated are Sokhan
and Emrooz.

roozbeh


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RE: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-06 Thread Roozbeh Pournader
On Sun, 2004-06-06 at 09:59, C Bobroff wrote:
> I think we all agree the Sukhan dictionary is going to waste in print
> form.

Well, as I mentioned already, there are people who believe it is a
complete waste by itself, not only in print form ;)

> >   * Get it typed.
> Can I not assume it was originally typed in MS Word and the data can be
> uploaded in minutes?

MS Word?!! You really believe a professional publisher can prepare
Persian print quality books in MS Word?! There *have* been claims that
MS Word 2003 does *something* for the first time in MS Word history that
one can publish a professional-looking book with lots of efforts with it
(I actually heard this from a publisher), but that's all.

The books are usually prepared using software developed in Iran, like
Zarnegar. In case of dictionaries, usually very specialized software is
used to create a, say, Zarnegar document which can then be typeset.

roozbeh


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Re: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-06 Thread Roozbeh Pournader
On Sat, 2004-06-05 at 20:41, Pedram Safari wrote:
> The problem with encoding Persian into computer is rather fundamental
> though, as there is no standard yet, not even for use in every-day life,

You raise a valid point, but please note that this is not about
encoding, but about *orthography*. Every publisher has the same
problems, even if he doesn't use a computer to typeset his text.

> Please see a very well written article by Dr Masoumi-Hamedani in
> a recent issue of Nashr-e Danesh for this matter (don't have the exact
> reference).

We can try to scan the article and post the link to the list. BTW,
Dr Masoumi-Hamedani has changed his stance on the matter recently, it
seems. I heard this from him last Monday, but he didn't have the time to
elaborate on the matter then. I can't get his exact opinion either,
since he should be in France now and he's not coming back until about
two months later, it seems.

> for example Hezareh, as it has more 
> diversity in selecting word equivalents, and is more comprehensive.

I agree that Hezareh is a good superset of Aryanpour. But the
equivalents Persian terms are not always as good as "Bateni".

roozbeh


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Re: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-06 Thread Pedram Safari
Hi there,

Sokhan's dictionary is a first of its kind in Persian, since it gives the
"definitions" of the words, rather than "synonyms", which earlier works
did. So, despite its deficiencies, I think it is a useful starting point.

I understand Connie's point about the absence of vowels, etc., and I think
that's an intrinsic problem for the learners of Persian, as usually
"harakaat" are not written in Persian. 

The problem with encoding Persian into computer is rather fundamental
though, as there is no standard yet, not even for use in every-day life,
such as writing combinations (should we write a word like "bi-maaye"
attached or separately? What about "bi-kaar"? ...). These are things that
make things difficult in computer programs, especially for searching
purposes. Please see a very well written article by Dr Masoumi-Hamedani in
a recent issue of Nashr-e Danesh for this matter (don't have the exact
reference).

Yet another comment about making Persian dictionaries electronic (of
course if somebody is up to it): there are now more progressive
dictionaries than Aryanpour's, for example Hezareh, as it has more 
diversity in selecting word equivalents, and is more comprehensive.

Best,
Pedram


On Thu, 3 Jun 2004, C Bobroff wrote:

> On Thu, 3 Jun 2004, Pedram Safari wrote:
>
> > I do not know about pronunciation, but the dictionary at
> > http://www.math.columbia.edu/~safari/dictionary/
> > (which was discussed above) is transliteration-based (using the so-called
> > "mikhi" alphabet, available on the right side of the page), if that is
> > what you want. It is platform-independent, as well as use-to-use
> > (clickable).
>
> Pedram,
>
> Thanks but it's not what I need.
>
> First of all, I've actually been a *user* of this dictionary
> especially a few years ago when it was one of the ONLY online Persian
> dictionaries and I don't remember it ever being down or not working!  
> I even had to write a report for some governmental agency on the state
> of online Persian materials in which I explained that on one hand this
> sort of dictionary is really only for Persian speakers wanting to
> learn English. Think of it: no vowels (harakat), no tashdid's. Is it
> not absurd that a dictionary should have half the letters missing?!  
> On the other hand, due to the lack of textbooks with proper lists of
> vocabulary, the poor beginning students of Persian are forced to waste
> their time flipping through paper dictionaries which leads to fatigue
> and they don't have any energy left to actually *learn* the words.
> Therefore, I concluded this dictionary is much better than nothing at
> all.  My professor even asked me to find out exactly which dictionary
> it was and that's how I came to know it was the Aryanpour "Concise
> English-Persian dictionary" and had that answer at the ready when
> Behdad asked the other day!
>



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Re: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-05 Thread C Bobroff
On Sat, 5 Jun 2004, Roozbeh Pournader wrote:

> There are many claims that this doesn't add anything to the Mo'in
> Persian dictionary,
How is that possible when it's physically twice as big?
And now Pedram informs us it has a different approach, namely
*definitions* rather than *synonyms*.

> and is a real waste of paper and shelf space.
"Waste" is what's in our favor here! Sokhan stands to lose no money if
they just hand over the data and all rights.  It will be good publicity
for them!

> I've
> heard oral critiques by Dr Masoumi-Hamedani (head of the Persian
> Academy's Language and Computer group) and Mr Pourmomtaz (a linguist,
> and the head of "tarh-e jaame'-e kaarbari-e zabaan-e faarsi"). I'm not
> into the game of ethymology etc, but can ask the people who claimed such
> for more details, if you insist.

I'm sure it has a million defects. For example, I found one word
"ghash-gir" meaning "book-end" and tried to use that on my Iranian friends
but they'd never heard of it. (I'm not sure if the word was incorrect or
you don't have book-ends in Iran! You know, the support you put at the end
of your shelf to keep your books from toppling over...) I don't know if
all the modern words have been approved by the Academy. Even so, it's
wonderful!


> This was funded by a private publisher, as far as I know.
No publisher could have afforded that without subsidy.
In any case, they'd better do something with it soon, whether sell to
someone who can afford it or give to us for free.  Dictionaries get
superceded rapidly so they'd better hurry!

-Connie
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RE: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-05 Thread C Bobroff
On Fri, 4 Jun 2004, Behdad Esfahbod wrote:

>   * Finding a good source.
I think we all agree the Sukhan dictionary is going to waste in print
form. It is as if meant for this project! (However, I'm open to other
suggestions, just that if the dictionary is better, the owner may have
commercial plans for it.)

>   * Getting permission for online publication.
This will indeed be a delicate matter!

>   * Get it typed.
Can I not assume it was originally typed in MS Word and the data can be
uploaded in minutes?

>   * Find proof-readers.
There has to be system of how to handle bug reports and fix typos.

I submitted a typo to http://www.persopedia.com/ months ago and they never
fixed it. Presumably it is technically too difficult to fix small things.
This should be avoided.

-Connie
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RE: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-05 Thread C Bobroff

On Fri, 4 Jun 2004, Ehsan Akhgari wrote:

> I volunteer to implement a web interface for the dictionary,
Excellent!
You'll have to make it so that whether the user types in bi[ZWNJ]kaar,
bikaar, or bi kaar, the word will be found!

>  but I think we'll need other
> people's help as well, because I would guess the whole data would be *huge*.
Will this require separate dedicated server(s)?
(I'm thinking about Behdad and the Persian Digital Library here...)

-Connie
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Re: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-05 Thread Roozbeh Pournader
On Fri, 2004-06-04 at 07:46, C Bobroff wrote:
> Now,I wonder if some of you who are so experienced technically could do
> another dictionary project? At least as far as getting the data up in a
> legal way and then others could make the interface according to the needs
> of the target audience and connect with English and other languages.
> For example, I  think this very nice dictionary is a complete waste as it
> is available only in printed form in unmanageable 8 volumes:
> AUTHOR   Anvari, Hasan
>  TITLEFarhang-e bozorg-e Sokhan / beh sarparasti-e Hasan Anvari
>  PUBL INFOTehran : Sokhan, 1381 [2002]
> ISBN 9646961983 (set)
> 
> It is in very clear typesetting, has latin transliteration, many idioms
> (estellah), examples of how to use in sentences, new words, dialect
> variations, etc.

There are many claims that this doesn't add anything to the Mo'in
Persian dictionary, and is a real waste of paper and shelf space. I've
heard oral critiques by Dr Masoumi-Hamedani (head of the Persian
Academy's Language and Computer group) and Mr Pourmomtaz (a linguist,
and the head of "tarh-e jaame'-e kaarbari-e zabaan-e faarsi"). I'm not
into the game of ethymology etc, but can ask the people who claimed such
for more details, if you insist.

> I'm sure this dictionary must have been funded by the Iranian government
> and no profits expected.

This was funded by a private publisher, as far as I know.

roozbeh


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RE: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-04 Thread Behdad Esfahbod

Again, the problem is not and never has been the technical part,
but the data.  In short:

  * Finding a good source.
  * Getting permission for online publication.
  * Get it typed.
  * Find proof-readers.

And then different presentations (web, CD, ...) is just a matter
of an afternoon...


On Fri, 4 Jun 2004, Ehsan Akhgari wrote:

> [snip]
> > I'm sure this dictionary must have been funded by the Iranian
> > government and no profits expected. I'm shocked to see that less than
> > a dozen US universities have purchased it. I should think the author
> > and publisher would be very happy to see it put online and all the
> > efforts go to some use.  Surely they will agree if their name is kept
> > with the data!  As for the technical part, I no longer have any doubts
> > as to the abilities of the members of this group, especially after
> > hearing the keyboard hack job for the sake of the ZWNJ earlier today!
>
> :-)
>
> I did the keyboard job just because I thought it's a lot easier to use
> Shift+Space instead of Shift+B, and also because I was in the process of
> typing in a lot of Persian data.  It took only about half an hour (not the
> time to download the MSKLC tool of course) and improved my typing speed
> considerably.
>
> About your proposal, I'm personally interested in doing the technical part
> of the job.  I volunteer to implement a web interface for the dictionary,
> and I can also provide the hosting for the web interface.  I can provide
> some amount of web space for the data as well, but I think we'll need other
> people's help as well, because I would guess the whole data would be *huge*.
> If the data has to reside on multiple web servers, I can code some sort of
> distributed query mechanism which transparently fetches the definitions for
> remote web servers and display them to the end user transparently.
>
>
> -
> Ehsan Akhgari
>
> Farda Technology (http://www.farda-tech.com/)
>
> List Owner: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> [ Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ]
> [ WWW: http://www.beginthread.com/Ehsan ]
>
>
>
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>

--behdad
  behdad.org
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RE: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-04 Thread Ehsan Akhgari
[snip]
> I'm sure this dictionary must have been funded by the Iranian
> government and no profits expected. I'm shocked to see that less than
> a dozen US universities have purchased it. I should think the author
> and publisher would be very happy to see it put online and all the
> efforts go to some use.  Surely they will agree if their name is kept
> with the data!  As for the technical part, I no longer have any doubts
> as to the abilities of the members of this group, especially after
> hearing the keyboard hack job for the sake of the ZWNJ earlier today!

:-)

I did the keyboard job just because I thought it's a lot easier to use
Shift+Space instead of Shift+B, and also because I was in the process of
typing in a lot of Persian data.  It took only about half an hour (not the
time to download the MSKLC tool of course) and improved my typing speed
considerably.

About your proposal, I'm personally interested in doing the technical part
of the job.  I volunteer to implement a web interface for the dictionary,
and I can also provide the hosting for the web interface.  I can provide
some amount of web space for the data as well, but I think we'll need other
people's help as well, because I would guess the whole data would be *huge*.
If the data has to reside on multiple web servers, I can code some sort of
distributed query mechanism which transparently fetches the definitions for
remote web servers and display them to the end user transparently.


-
Ehsan Akhgari

Farda Technology (http://www.farda-tech.com/)

List Owner: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

[ Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ]
[ WWW: http://www.beginthread.com/Ehsan ]



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Re: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-03 Thread C Bobroff
On Thu, 3 Jun 2004, Pedram Safari wrote:

> I do not know about pronunciation, but the dictionary at
> http://www.math.columbia.edu/~safari/dictionary/
> (which was discussed above) is transliteration-based (using the so-called
> "mikhi" alphabet, available on the right side of the page), if that is
> what you want. It is platform-independent, as well as use-to-use
> (clickable).

Pedram,

Thanks but it's not what I need.

First of all, I've actually been a *user* of this dictionary especially a
few years ago when it was one of the ONLY online Persian dictionaries and
I don't remember it ever being down or not working!  I even had to write a
report for some governmental agency on the state of online Persian
materials in which I explained that on one hand this sort of dictionary is
really only for Persian speakers wanting to learn English. Think of it: no
vowels (harakat), no tashdid's. Is it not absurd that a dictionary should
have half the letters missing?!  On the other hand, due to the lack of
textbooks with proper lists of vocabulary, the poor beginning students of
Persian are forced to waste their time flipping through paper dictionaries
which leads to fatigue and they don't have any energy left to actually
*learn* the words. Therefore, I concluded this dictionary is much better
than nothing at all.  My professor even asked me to find out exactly which
dictionary it was and that's how I came to know it was the Aryanpour
"Concise English-Persian dictionary" and had that answer at the ready when
Behdad asked the other day!

Now,I wonder if some of you who are so experienced technically could do
another dictionary project? At least as far as getting the data up in a
legal way and then others could make the interface according to the needs
of the target audience and connect with English and other languages.
For example, I  think this very nice dictionary is a complete waste as it
is available only in printed form in unmanageable 8 volumes:
AUTHOR   Anvari, Hasan
 TITLEFarhang-e bozorg-e Sokhan / beh sarparasti-e Hasan Anvari
 PUBL INFOTehran : Sokhan, 1381 [2002]
ISBN 9646961983 (set)

It is in very clear typesetting, has latin transliteration, many idioms
(estellah), examples of how to use in sentences, new words, dialect
variations, etc.

I'm sure this dictionary must have been funded by the Iranian government
and no profits expected. I'm shocked to see that less than a dozen US
universities have purchased it. I should think the author and publisher
would be very happy to see it put online and all the efforts go to some
use.  Surely they will agree if their name is kept with the data!  As for
the technical part, I no longer have any doubts as to the abilities of the
members of this group, especially after hearing the keyboard hack job for
the sake of the ZWNJ earlier today!

Thoughts?

-Connie
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Re: Persian-English Dictionary -- Was: Iranian Mac User group

2004-06-03 Thread Pedram Safari
Hi there,

I think Connie's answer is well put. I just need to make a note to clarify
a point. Quoting Behdad Esfahbod:

> I guess I did my part on showing the community, including Dr
> Pedram Safari, that the claim by Masoud Hashemi regarding
> authoring the dictionary which is apparently Aryanpour, is not
> justified.

I am sorry, Behdad, but I was not a bit convinced -- as far as I can
recall, you couldn't even tell which version and which edition of
Aryanpours dictionary was used. Besides, I am informed that some
translations are changed or updated, and the dictionary is amenable to
further changes, as the source is open and has been used by many, not just
irmug (I do not have a full list now and have to trace my communications).
Given this, I believe it would be a matter of concern (and even fairness)
if such a democratic dictionary is falsely attributed to Aryanpours.

In any case, I would like to testify again that the "program" is written
by Masood Hashemi, so there is no copyright infringement if his share in
this work, and his willingness to make it available to the public, is
acknowledged and appreciated. There has been no official claim yet by
anyone on the source of the "database" (I think Majid Khanban said that he
supervised a project by Masood Hashemi and someone else from which this
database came out, but he couldn't recall the name of the other person, am
I right, Majid?). Neither any official claim by anyone on the dictionary
"content", unless you, Behdad, are Aryanpours' official attorney. 

As I had promised before, I would give appropriate credits in my
dictionary page to the person who could produce convincing proof of
his/her involvement in that project.

Regards,
Pedram


On Wed, 2 Jun 2004, Behdad Esfahbod wrote:

> On Wed, 2 Jun 2004, C Bobroff wrote:
> 
> > Also I just heard from Ali Samadi that the Iranian Mac User group (in
> > Persian) is actually at:
> > http://www.irmug.org
> > (I think I had a mistake earlier.)
> >
> > -Connie
> 
> Hi Connie,
> 
> I appreciate it if when you are mentioning this "Iranian Mac
> Users Group"  on any of your pages, you also mention there that
> their dictionary available for download is infringing copyright
> of the Aryanpours, and the credits went to Masoud Hashemi are not
> justified.
> 
> I guess I did my part on showing the community, including Dr
> Pedram Safari, that the claim by Masoud Hashemi regarding
> authoring the dictionary which is apparently Aryanpour, is not
> justified.  Whether people remove the dictionary from their pages
> or not is up to them.
> 
> 
> --behdad
> 

On Wed, 2 Jun 2004, C Bobroff wrote:

> On Wed, 2 Jun 2004, Behdad Esfahbod wrote:
> 
> > their dictionary available for download is infringing copyright
> > of the Aryanpours
> 
> What I understood from that discussion was that a lot of online
> dictionaries are using Aryanpour data with no mention of the name
> Aryanpour. Others mention Aryanpour but no sign that the Aryanpour estate
> is getting any royalties or even that permission was asked or granted to
> use their data. Then I even noticed this one:
> http://www.aryanpour.com
> where I'm not even sure any Aryanpour data was used!
> 
> Since the Aryanpour family was in the dictionary business before anyone
> could foresee the computer age and with Iranian copyright laws being what
> they are, I'm not sure even that legally speaking, these people are
> breaking any laws. This data falls into a grey zone.
> 
> Now, morally speaking, I must say in principle, it is horrible to take
> someone else's labor without permission, especially when the Aryanpour
> family is still around and still making dictionaries.  I would like to
> know if they care or are they so big and famous that this is of no
> concern? Or maybe they are wringing their hands in despair that no one
> cares and then they'll thank you, Behdad!  Why doesn't someone go knock on
> their door and ask for an official statement! I am sure curious to know!
> 
> I don't think the Iranian Mac Users Group is any more or less guilty than
> all the others using the Aryanpour data and unless the Aryanpour family or
> their lawyers issue a directive, I can't do anything but urge people to
> say where they got the data and also join in this and other discussions
> because we are now entering the age of the database when all kinds of
> things are going to go online and I'm sure everyone would like to feel
> good about what they're doing. I think it's a good thing that nowadays
> there are EULA's, etc where the owner can explicitly say what may or may
> not be done with the property.
> 
> By the way, does anyone know of a Persian online dictionary which gives
> any sort of pronunciation or transliteration info in Latin script? I mean
> besides the Steingass and besides this one:
> http://iranianlanguages.com/dictionary.php?eng-per which is obviously
> being developed with much care and attention to quality but still seems to
> not have a very large word base.

I d