RE: MS Windows and Unicode 4.0 ?

[Arcane Jill]

Sigh. What it is to be constantly misunderstood.

In an earlier email on this thread, Peter Constable said "So, out of the box, Windows XP does not support (e.g.) Sinhalese, or ship with Sinhalese fonts. And so, if the next version of Windows does include support for Sinhalese and perhaps even ships with one or more Sinhalese fonts, that will be added value, right?". What I was trying to get at is that, essentially, I was agreeing with him, that yes, that would be added value, and something for which I would expect to pay money. Ditto Telugu. But I wasn't suggesting for a moment that it should constitute "added value" for those who use it every day as part of their culture. For them, it should be "out of the box". I stress that I imply no cultural bias. It is my opinion that, regardless of one's culture, the symbols you use every day should be the ones which come supplied out of the box, and the ones which would be considered rare or esoteric in one's own culture should be the ones for which you should be expected to pay extra.

So no, I was not suggesting a bias toward my culture. Rather, I was suggesting that the final sentence of my above paragraph should the rule in all cultures.

In short, in any given locale, one should get the symbols of that locale, out of the box. (And in my locale, that should include math and music symbols). My apologies if that was not clear, but rest assured I absolutely am not "ethnocentric". I was merely stating what I think is not an unreasonable user expectation for anyone, regardless of culture.

Jill


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael Everson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2003 11:22 AM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: RE: MS Windows and Unicode 4.0 ?
>
> I think some of what you are saying here is really ethnocentric and a
> bit offensive. There are 69 million speakers of Telugu. I don't think
> your need for math symbols outweighs their need to send basic e-mail
> and do online banking. And you can get math software for your
> platform if you really need it. Mathemeticians do.
> --
> Michael Everson * * Everson Typography *  * http://www.evertype.com