From: "Peter Kirk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > The cost of software is unlikely to be a serious issue. I haven't been > to Tajikistan, but in many countries in that region almost any software > is available for the cost of copying a CD. As a result Windows XP and > Office XP (probably now 2003) are in general use.
The cost of copying is not relevant. The cost of adapting a software so that it becomes usable for a given language is the one that prevails here. It's a serious issue. There are LOTS of legacy software (not necessarily standard OS or office software, but also private softwares used in administrations, banks, and various private organizations, etc...) which are needed today and will need to continue to work for many years as there's not a lot money to adapt them to Unicode immediately, but that must be used coherently with a 8-bit charset that will match the languistic needs. Of course for new development, the money will better go to make a software that will start immediately with Unicode support. But these new softwares will still need many years to be developed so that they become universally used. For now it's legitimate to use legacy software which does not work with multibyte encodings (Unicode encoding schemes and forms being some of them).
