Actually, a number of points have been made in the course of this thread. Of course it is true that Apple's Last Resort font doesn't display every character with an approximation of its shape, I acknowledge that. I still think it's a lot better than nothing though. But - to clarify my expectations of an operating system - I actually DON'T care if it won't display Telugu correctly. I don't care if it doesn't display Japanese properly. Or Russian. I am unlikely to start caring about these things unless for some reason I should decide to start learning those languages.
I also don't necessarily expect to find fancy versions of the Latin script. These calligraphic (is that a word?) creations should quite rightly be considered the creation of the artist, and subject to the usual copyright laws.
But...
I DO expect my own language, and also the symbols I encounter every day in my culture, to be available in some form, on an OS bought in my own country. I don't believe that anyone could rightly argue that, for instance, musical symbols were "esoteric". They're a standard part of my culture. And yet, I still can't put a treble clef in my document using the standard Windows fonts, and nor can I put it on a web site and believe that it will be viewed correctly by most western viewers. This should be as straightforward as putting these letters into this email. Maybe fancy versions could be considered "added value", but a simple, plain, unadorned musical symbol set? That should just be there. These symbols have been used for centuries. Mostly they're just blobs with tails. That they occur in the handwriting of Bach and Beethoven implies to me that there shouldn't even be any copyright problems (unless, as I say, you're talking about fancy versions). By exactly the same reasoning, I expect all the math symbols to be there too, including mathematical alphanumeric symbols. This is not a strange or exotic requirement, it's just a part of living in this western culture and wanting to use they symbols of my culture. All these arguments about how I don't really need Telugu or whatever are probably true, but, come on guys, there are symbols we do use, frequently, at least on paper, that we can't use on the web. That has got to be wrong.
Jill
