indic-computing-standards — Discussing standards governing information processing in Indian languages

Re: [Indic-computing-standards] Strategy

[Dr. U.B. P. <pav...@vi...>]

Hi all,

How about holding the workshop during the BangaloteIT.COM 
2002? It will be held during Nov.1-5. There was a session 
called "IT for common man" last year. We may propose to have 
our workshop under this. Please let me have the opinion of 
all. I can talk to the ppl at Govt of Karanata, IT Dept.

Rgds,
Pavanaja


>From:           	"Tapan S. Parikh" <ta...@ya...>
> Also, as to the proposed workshop Venky and I are planning, just to
> remind you we would like to get an initial list of invitees from all
> the session leaders by the end of the month, as well as a high level
> description for how you propose to structure the session.  -----------------------------------------------------
Dr. U.B. Pavanaja
Editor, Vishva Kannada
World's first Internet magazine in Kannada
http://www.vishvakannada.com/

Note: I don't worry about pselling mixtakes

[Indic-computing-standards] The linguistic properties of Malayalam "Chillaksharam"s?

[<jk...@Fr...>]

Background:

In the Malayalam script, a few consonants are termed as capable of
"standing by themselves without a supporting vowel" (definition
excerpted from a posting on this list on 11 Feb 2002 by Mr. Abraham
Mathen).

My understanding is that these "cillu" forms tend to be used as the
non-initial letters of written Malayalam words.

The Microsoft typography page at
[http://www.microsoft.com/typography/otfntdev/indicot/other.htm] seems
to indicate that decision to use a "cillu" form of a consonant is
purely a display/rendering one.  It ties the "cillu" consonants to the
"regular" consonants that are similar phonetically.

Question:

I'm trying to determine if the "cillu" consonants are different from
the regular Malayalam consonants only in terms of presentation.  By
this I mean:

  o How do we sort a Malayalam word that has a "cillu" consonant in
    it?
  
    How do Malayalam dictionaries treat a words containing "cillu"s?
    Is a "cillu" treated like the its base (regular) consonant when
    determining ordering?  If so which `regular' consonants do the
    five "cillu" consonants map to respectively?

  o Are there Malayalam words that are identical except for the fact
    that one uses a "cillu" 'c' and one uses the ``regular consonant''
    associated with the "cillu" 'c'?  Do these words have different
    meanings?


Regards,
Koshy
<jk...@fr...>
http://indic-computing.sourceforge.net/

[Indic-computing-standards] Strategy

[Tapan S. P. <ta...@ya...>]

Hi Everyone,

Please find below a strategy document which outlines a proposed
organizational framework for starting a more broad scale discussion on
standardization and technical issues wrt local language computing.  We
were thinking we at the the indic-computing could find ways to
facilitate the development of such a structure, it would be great.
Please get back to me with your feedback, ideas, etc.  Let me know if
you want the rtf which has the figure I have omitted below.

Also, as to the proposed workshop Venky and I are planning, just to
remind you we would like to get an initial list of invitees from all
the session leaders by the end of the month, as well as a high level
description for how you propose to structure the session.  Please feel
free to circulate the documents on the list so we can all discuss and
give feedback.

Also if anyone is interested in taking a larger role in this work,
please let me know.  We are still looking to find someone to lead the
Encodings section.  It would be great if someone would be interested
in that, or if someone could suggest a person for that.

I hope everyone is enthousiastic about this, without that it will
never work.  It is about all of us working together on this common
goal.  I hope by pitching in together we can help bring some real
sanity and technical grounding to the discussions going on on these
issues.

Ok, thats it.

--Tapan

---------------------------------------------

Indic-Computing Strategy Document
Date: 19-5-2002


The Problem:

India faces a unique local-language computing standardization and
capacity-
building problem simply due to the wide variety of regional and local
languages in
wide use, and the organizational and regional obstacles inherent in
the effort to
standardize this rich variety of languages.

Efforts to introduce national encoding / representation standards and
to introduce
processes to contribute and conform to international standards have
met with
limited success, often due to inadequate local, regional and
stakeholder
representation.  Standardization proposals coming from the Centre are
often
rejected and / or ignored by local and regional developers due to
limited regional
participation in the process and inadequate regional language
representation.

As computing enters the 21st century, and IT solution providers begin
to address
the large domestic market for local-language software, it is
imperative to address
the need for regional and national encoding and representation
standards.  It is
equally imperative to ensure that Indian local and regional languages
are
appropriate and completely represented in emerging international
standards.  By
continuing the process of creating a larger and larger number of
poorly supported
regional standards, we risk fragmenting the domestic software market,
reducing
interoperability, and reducing the tools and support available for
future local-
language software developers and users.


The Strategy:

We recommend the creation of a hierarchy of participatory consortia,
which
would facilitate broad regional and local participation in the
standardization and
development process from a variety of stakeholders with differing
areas of
expertise and specialization.  It is important that these consortia be
participatory
and inclusive to properly represent the viewpoint of local developers,
users and
other stakeholders.  We recommend the formation of state-level
consortia for
each regional language, which should include participants from the
following key
member groups:

? Developers: Software developers and managers developing local-
language tools
? Technologists: Academics and other experts in encoding and
representation issues
? Users / Practioners: Government agencies, publishers, NGOs and
other major users of local-language software
? Linguistic Groups: Academics and other experts of the linguistic
features of a language and it's script

Working closely with the State Government, this state-level consortium
would
serve as the representative body for deciding standards and other
technical
decisions for computing in a given regional language.  It would
support its
operating expenses through member fees charged to members companies,
with
possible subsidies from the state government or other agencies
allowing greater
participation of linguists, experts and other non-commercial
stakeholders.  The
major roles carried out by the state-level consortium would be as
follows:

? Discuss various technical, linguistic and practical issues related
to
computing in the regional language
? Serve as a capacity-building and educational resource for small
regional software developers and users
? Publish documents, tools and other materials helpful for
local-language
computing and development
? Represent the regional language at National consortium meetings
? Represent the regional language at International Standardization
consortiums and proceedings such as Unicode and ISO

Officers and delegates of the consortium to outside agencies ad
consortiums
would be elected by the consortium members, including stakeholders
from all of
the major focus groups mentioned above.  Additionally, the consortium
would
include three separate internal Working Groups, which would discuss
issues
specific to their area of expertise and make practical and technical
policy
recommendations to the state consortium.  These working groups would
include
the following:

? Technical Working Group - technical issues
? Linguistic Working Group - linguistic issues
? User Working Group - issues specific for Users

National IT companies and organizations with an interest in local
language
computing could choose to join and participate in some or all of the
state-level
consortia, or, alternatively, participate in the national
local-language computing
consortium.  The national consortia would allow such stakeholders to
meet and
discuss technical and linguistic issues pertinent on the national
scale, keep
abreast of developments in each of the state-level consortia, and to
make policy
and other recommendations to the same.

Each state-level regional consortium would also be represented at the
national
consortium, which would meet once or twice a year.  At the national
meeting,
state-level representatives could exchange ideas, discuss successes
and
failures, and build on the successes of certain groups to make general
policy
recommendations to the other regional consortia.  Working closely with
the
National Government, this consortium could also ensure the timely
processing of
Regional Consortia Policy Requests to quickly become national
standards.  The
following would be the goals and responsibilities of the national
consortium:

? Act as a platform for discussion and exchange of ideas between
state-
level consortia
? Allow national IT companies and other organizations to keep abreast
of
developments in the various state-level consortia and to make policy
recommendations to the same
? Build up a list of best practices and case studies that can be used
by
others
? Make policy recommendations and extend support to regional
consortia
? Process policy recommendations and standardization requests from
regional consortia by working closely with National Government


Our Role:

The Indic-Computing Project would hope to facilitate the creation of
such a
structure and discussion process.  In the initial stages, it could
contribute in the
following ways:

? Develop a blueprint for the formation and operation of State-Level
consortia
? Help the development and formation of the State-Level and National-
Level consortia
? Act as a technical secretariat to each of the consortia, helping
them
frame policy discussions and standards, and provide valuable technical
advice and feedback
? Help establish necessary linkages to State and National governments
? Help establish linkages to International consortia such as the
Unicode
consortium, ISO and W3C
? Network State-Level consortia with interested stakeholders at the
local,
regional, national and international levels
? Provide technical advice and guidance to State- and National-Level
consortia
? Document and publish current best practices in regional and local
language computing and organization

We have already established an on-line resource
(http://indic-computing.sourceforge.net)
which serves as a community platform for discussion and a repository
for general
purpose tools and documentation useful to the local-language computing
community.  The next step we have imagined is a workshop - to allow
people
from a variety of backgrounds and expertise to meet, get to know each
other and
to decide to work together on this dream of making Indic-Language
Computing a
uniform and accessible dream for all of us.  Here is a list of results
we expect
from the workshop:

? Allow local and regional developers, technologists, users and
linguists
to meet, get to know each other, and exchange their perspectives on
difficulties and successes of computing in local language in India
? Allow a variety of stakeholders to become familiar with the issues
and
concerns in local language computing from a variety of perspectives
? Establish personal relationships which lead to faith and support for
an
open, transparent and inclusive model for working together on local
language computing issues
? Introduce our ideas and organisational strategy (outlined above) to
the
larger community, to extend this open model of collaboration to the
local, regional, national and international levels


FIGURE 1: Proposed Organizational Structure

Re: [Indic-computing-standards] Important: Forming Organization Committee

[Venkatesh \(Venky\) H. <ve...@me...>]

Dear Keyur,

Thanks for pointing that out. Koshy or Tapan would have to fix the "reply
to"- field.

Tapan and I will send a more detailed note on possible dates, format of the
workshop etc by the end of this week. Right now we are thinking of 27th and
28th September as possible dates.

Venky




----- Original Message -----
From: "Keyur Shroff" <key...@ya...>
To: "Venkatesh (Venky) Hariharan" <ve...@me...>
Sent: Tuesday, May 14, 2002 3:39 PM
Subject: Re: [Indic-computing-standards] Important: Forming Organization
Committee


>
> You have replied to me only and not to the list :-)
>
> I think Reply-To field should be there in every mail so
> that people don't have to click "Reply All" and remove the
> name of the sender. Can the list-maintainer solve this
> problem?
>
> - Keyur
>
> --- "Venkatesh (Venky) Hariharan" <ve...@me...>
> wrote:
> > Thanks Keyur. That leaves Koshy as the last man standing.
> >
> > Koshy, we are waiting to hear from you!!!
> >
> > Venky
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Keyur Shroff" <key...@ya...>
> > To: <ind...@li...>
> > Sent: Tuesday, May 14, 2002 2:46 PM
> > Subject: Re: [Indic-computing-standards] Important:
> > Forming Organization
> > Committee
> >
> >
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > --- "Venkatesh (Venky) Hariharan" <ve...@me...>
> > > wrote:
> > > > I notice that we haven't heard from Koshy and Keyur
> > yet.
> > > > Keyur, would you like to lead the fonts session.
> > >
> > > OK, I can contribute to the fonts session. Shrinath can
> > > also contribute to it. I together with shrinath will
> > decide
> > > what we can prepare for the session. Please let me know
> > the
> > > exact schedule for this workshop.
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > > Keyur
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > __________________________________________________
> > > Do You Yahoo!?
> > > LAUNCH - Your Yahoo! Music Experience
> > > http://launch.yahoo.com
> > >
> > >
> >
> _______________________________________________________________
> > >
> > > Have big pipes? SourceForge.net is looking for download
> > mirrors. We supply
> > > the hardware. You get the recognition. Email Us:
> > ban...@so...
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Indic-computing-standards mailing list
> > http://indic-computing.sourceforge.net/
> > > Ind...@li...
> > >
> >
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/indic-computing-standards
> >
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Tax Center - online filing with TurboTax
> http://taxes.yahoo.com/

Re: [Indic-computing-standards] Important: Forming Organization Committee

[Keyur S. <key...@ya...>]

Hi,

--- "Venkatesh (Venky) Hariharan" <ve...@me...>
wrote:
> I notice that we haven't heard from Koshy and Keyur yet.
> Keyur, would you like to lead the fonts session.

OK, I can contribute to the fonts session. Shrinath can
also contribute to it. I together with shrinath will decide
what we can prepare for the session. Please let me know the
exact schedule for this workshop.

Regards,
Keyur



__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
LAUNCH - Your Yahoo! Music Experience
http://launch.yahoo.com

Re: [Indic-computing-standards] Re: Nice to meet you

[Venkatesh \(Venky\) H. <ve...@me...>]

Shusha was developed by Harsh Kumar and was distributed free by the
BharatBhasha programme (www.bharatbhasha.net). It is a non-profit effort.
Harsh, could you please let us have your permission?

Thanks,

Venky



----- Original Message -----
From: "Shrinath Shanbhag" <shr...@ko...>
To: "Venkatesh (Venky) Hariharan" <ve...@me...>; "Tapan S. Parikh"
<ta...@me...>; <har...@vs...>
Cc: <ind...@li...>
Sent: Monday, May 13, 2002 3:30 PM
Subject: Re: [Indic-computing-standards] Re: Nice to meet you


> Susha would do provided we know who the vendor is and he allows me to
> use it. Or if we know that it is under GPL or similar license specifically
> allowing
> modification of the core font.
>
> Most font's have a free for use but no modifications please kind of
> license.
>
> Does any one know if Susha is available free (as in both free beer and
free
> speech)  for modification ?
> or its vendor ?
>
> -shrinath
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Venkatesh (Venky) Hariharan" <ve...@me...>
> To: "Tapan S. Parikh" <ta...@me...>; "Shrinath Shanbhag"
> <shr...@ko...>; <har...@vs...>
> Cc: <ind...@li...>
> Sent: Monday, May 13, 2002 3:12 PM
> Subject: Re: [Indic-computing-standards] Re: Nice to meet you
>
>
> > Dear Harsh,
> >
> > Can we try converting the Shusha fonts to TTF?
> >
> > Venky
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Tapan S. Parikh" <ta...@me...>
> > To: "Shrinath Shanbhag" <shr...@ko...>
> > Cc: <ind...@li...>
> > Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2002 12:18 PM
> > Subject: [Indic-computing-standards] Re: Nice to meet you
> >
> >
> > >
> > > Shrinath - I have taken the liberty to add you to the indic-computing
> > lists.
> > >
> > > Your points about InputMethod are well-taken, I see your point...
> Great,
> > I hope you will continue to be involved in the planning of
> > > the workshop....   Let the list know if you have any other ideas...
> > >
> > > This tutorial you mention would be very useful I think, for the
workshop
> > and otherwise, as we have talked about making otfs from
> > > ttfs for some time on the list, and having a standard method and
> > documentation to do so would allow us to distrbute that to all
> > > kinds of people who would want to start building Indic-language OTF
> fonts
> > from existing ttf's....  Do you need a font for an example
> > > to do the tutorial with?  Anyone have a ttf they want otf'ed?
> > >
> > > --Tapan
> > >
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: "Shrinath Shanbhag" <shr...@ko...>
> > > To: "Tapan S. Parikh" <ta...@me...>
> > > Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2002 10:09 AM
> > > Subject: Re: Nice to meet you
> > >
> > >
> > > > Hello Tapan,
> > > >
> > > > I've been reading the Indic-Computing list.
> > > >
> > > > Who do I mail to - to join the list ?
> > > > As of now, i am unable to post there.
> > > >
> > > > On clicking on Project Admin I get
> > > >
> > > > Error
> > > > Permission: User Not Found
> > > >
> > > > Anyways,
> > > >
> > > > my comments on "Important : Forming Organization Committee" thread
> > > >
> > > > 1) Apurva Joshi in Microsoft is Prof. R. K. Joshi's daughter. It's a
> > well
> > > > known fact.
> > > >
> > > > 2) IMHO the session 4 titled "Keyboard Layouts" should be titled as
> > Input
> > > > Methods.
> > > > Justification :
> > > > Each different layout is essentially a different input method.
> > > > If it were just a layout change (like going from QWERTY to DVORAK)
the
> > > > keysequences
> > > > required to achieve at a particular word would all be the same.
Which
> is
> > > > clearly not the
> > > > case in the Indic case. The WebDuniya input method is sustantially
> > different
> > > > from the
> > > > InScript one which is again totally different from the typewriter
> input
> > > > methods.
> > > >
> > > > 3) There is one input method missing from those listed under section
> > "4".
> > > > The Desha input method,
> > > > which follows the pure consonant philosophy. It should be added.
> > > >
> > > > Please note, all of the input methods can be supported on Unicode or
> any
> > > > other encoding.
> > > >
> > > > 4) I could contribute to the group by writing a tutorial for
> converting
> > a
> > > > freely available
> > > > true-type font to OpenType (for devanagari script). If you think
this
> is
> > > > important, let me
> > > > know which font to use. The font should not have any
> > licenses/restrictions
> > > > attached with it :)
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > -shrinath
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Indic-computing-standards mailing list
> > http://indic-computing.sourceforge.net/
> > > Ind...@li...
> > > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/indic-computing-standards
> >
>

Re: [Indic-computing-standards] Important: Forming Organization Committee

[Venkatesh \(Venky\) H. <ve...@me...>]

I notice that we haven't heard from Koshy and Keyur yet.

Koshy, would you like to lead the encoding session.

Keyur, would you like to lead the fonts session.

We would love it if both of you agreed to lead the respective sessions.
Alternately, can you please suggest someone else? We want to freeze the
names of the session leaders so that we have enough time to come up with an
event that takes the whole movement forward in a substantive way. In other
words, this should not end up being just another workshop, just another
waste of time and money.

Session leaders would be expected to think through what would be discussed
in their sessions, circulate essential background documents to this list so
that participants at the workshop come thoroughly prepared. Wherever
neccessary, session leaders may even have to write white papers. For
example, Tapan is working on a white paper on Unicode and Karunakar is
working on a white paper on Open Type Fonts.

I'll also send a note out on sponsorship for the event, costs, main heads of
expenses etc by the end of this week. If you know any one willing to be a
sponsor or are open to being a sponsor yourself, let me know.

Regards,

Venky

Re: [Indic-computing-standards] Re: Nice to meet you

[Shrinath S. <shr...@ko...>]

Susha would do provided we know who the vendor is and he allows me to
use it. Or if we know that it is under GPL or similar license specifically
allowing
modification of the core font.

Most font's have a free for use but no modifications please kind of
license.

Does any one know if Susha is available free (as in both free beer and free
speech)  for modification ?
or its vendor ?

-shrinath


----- Original Message -----
From: "Venkatesh (Venky) Hariharan" <ve...@me...>
To: "Tapan S. Parikh" <ta...@me...>; "Shrinath Shanbhag"
<shr...@ko...>; <har...@vs...>
Cc: <ind...@li...>
Sent: Monday, May 13, 2002 3:12 PM
Subject: Re: [Indic-computing-standards] Re: Nice to meet you


> Dear Harsh,
>
> Can we try converting the Shusha fonts to TTF?
>
> Venky
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Tapan S. Parikh" <ta...@me...>
> To: "Shrinath Shanbhag" <shr...@ko...>
> Cc: <ind...@li...>
> Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2002 12:18 PM
> Subject: [Indic-computing-standards] Re: Nice to meet you
>
>
> >
> > Shrinath - I have taken the liberty to add you to the indic-computing
> lists.
> >
> > Your points about InputMethod are well-taken, I see your point...
Great,
> I hope you will continue to be involved in the planning of
> > the workshop....   Let the list know if you have any other ideas...
> >
> > This tutorial you mention would be very useful I think, for the workshop
> and otherwise, as we have talked about making otfs from
> > ttfs for some time on the list, and having a standard method and
> documentation to do so would allow us to distrbute that to all
> > kinds of people who would want to start building Indic-language OTF
fonts
> from existing ttf's....  Do you need a font for an example
> > to do the tutorial with?  Anyone have a ttf they want otf'ed?
> >
> > --Tapan
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Shrinath Shanbhag" <shr...@ko...>
> > To: "Tapan S. Parikh" <ta...@me...>
> > Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2002 10:09 AM
> > Subject: Re: Nice to meet you
> >
> >
> > > Hello Tapan,
> > >
> > > I've been reading the Indic-Computing list.
> > >
> > > Who do I mail to - to join the list ?
> > > As of now, i am unable to post there.
> > >
> > > On clicking on Project Admin I get
> > >
> > > Error
> > > Permission: User Not Found
> > >
> > > Anyways,
> > >
> > > my comments on "Important : Forming Organization Committee" thread
> > >
> > > 1) Apurva Joshi in Microsoft is Prof. R. K. Joshi's daughter. It's a
> well
> > > known fact.
> > >
> > > 2) IMHO the session 4 titled "Keyboard Layouts" should be titled as
> Input
> > > Methods.
> > > Justification :
> > > Each different layout is essentially a different input method.
> > > If it were just a layout change (like going from QWERTY to DVORAK) the
> > > keysequences
> > > required to achieve at a particular word would all be the same. Which
is
> > > clearly not the
> > > case in the Indic case. The WebDuniya input method is sustantially
> different
> > > from the
> > > InScript one which is again totally different from the typewriter
input
> > > methods.
> > >
> > > 3) There is one input method missing from those listed under section
> "4".
> > > The Desha input method,
> > > which follows the pure consonant philosophy. It should be added.
> > >
> > > Please note, all of the input methods can be supported on Unicode or
any
> > > other encoding.
> > >
> > > 4) I could contribute to the group by writing a tutorial for
converting
> a
> > > freely available
> > > true-type font to OpenType (for devanagari script). If you think this
is
> > > important, let me
> > > know which font to use. The font should not have any
> licenses/restrictions
> > > attached with it :)
> > >
> > >
> > > -shrinath
> > >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Indic-computing-standards mailing list
> http://indic-computing.sourceforge.net/
> > Ind...@li...
> > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/indic-computing-standards
>

Re: [Indic-computing-standards] Re: Nice to meet you

[Venkatesh \(Venky\) H. <ve...@me...>]

Sorry, that should read OTF.

Venky


----- Original Message -----
From: "Venkatesh (Venky) Hariharan" <ve...@me...>
To: "Tapan S. Parikh" <ta...@me...>; "Shrinath Shanbhag"
<shr...@ko...>; <har...@vs...>
Cc: <ind...@li...>
Sent: Monday, May 13, 2002 3:12 PM
Subject: Re: [Indic-computing-standards] Re: Nice to meet you


> Dear Harsh,
>
> Can we try converting the Shusha fonts to TTF?
>
> Venky
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Tapan S. Parikh" <ta...@me...>
> To: "Shrinath Shanbhag" <shr...@ko...>
> Cc: <ind...@li...>
> Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2002 12:18 PM
> Subject: [Indic-computing-standards] Re: Nice to meet you
>
>
> >
> > Shrinath - I have taken the liberty to add you to the indic-computing
> lists.
> >
> > Your points about InputMethod are well-taken, I see your point...
Great,
> I hope you will continue to be involved in the planning of
> > the workshop....   Let the list know if you have any other ideas...
> >
> > This tutorial you mention would be very useful I think, for the workshop
> and otherwise, as we have talked about making otfs from
> > ttfs for some time on the list, and having a standard method and
> documentation to do so would allow us to distrbute that to all
> > kinds of people who would want to start building Indic-language OTF
fonts
> from existing ttf's....  Do you need a font for an example
> > to do the tutorial with?  Anyone have a ttf they want otf'ed?
> >
> > --Tapan
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Shrinath Shanbhag" <shr...@ko...>
> > To: "Tapan S. Parikh" <ta...@me...>
> > Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2002 10:09 AM
> > Subject: Re: Nice to meet you
> >
> >
> > > Hello Tapan,
> > >
> > > I've been reading the Indic-Computing list.
> > >
> > > Who do I mail to - to join the list ?
> > > As of now, i am unable to post there.
> > >
> > > On clicking on Project Admin I get
> > >
> > > Error
> > > Permission: User Not Found
> > >
> > > Anyways,
> > >
> > > my comments on "Important : Forming Organization Committee" thread
> > >
> > > 1) Apurva Joshi in Microsoft is Prof. R. K. Joshi's daughter. It's a
> well
> > > known fact.
> > >
> > > 2) IMHO the session 4 titled "Keyboard Layouts" should be titled as
> Input
> > > Methods.
> > > Justification :
> > > Each different layout is essentially a different input method.
> > > If it were just a layout change (like going from QWERTY to DVORAK) the
> > > keysequences
> > > required to achieve at a particular word would all be the same. Which
is
> > > clearly not the
> > > case in the Indic case. The WebDuniya input method is sustantially
> different
> > > from the
> > > InScript one which is again totally different from the typewriter
input
> > > methods.
> > >
> > > 3) There is one input method missing from those listed under section
> "4".
> > > The Desha input method,
> > > which follows the pure consonant philosophy. It should be added.
> > >
> > > Please note, all of the input methods can be supported on Unicode or
any
> > > other encoding.
> > >
> > > 4) I could contribute to the group by writing a tutorial for
converting
> a
> > > freely available
> > > true-type font to OpenType (for devanagari script). If you think this
is
> > > important, let me
> > > know which font to use. The font should not have any
> licenses/restrictions
> > > attached with it :)
> > >
> > >
> > > -shrinath
> > >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Indic-computing-standards mailing list
> http://indic-computing.sourceforge.net/
> > Ind...@li...
> > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/indic-computing-standards
>

Re: [Indic-computing-standards] Re: Nice to meet you

[Venkatesh \(Venky\) H. <ve...@me...>]

Dear Harsh,

Can we try converting the Shusha fonts to TTF?

Venky


----- Original Message -----
From: "Tapan S. Parikh" <ta...@me...>
To: "Shrinath Shanbhag" <shr...@ko...>
Cc: <ind...@li...>
Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2002 12:18 PM
Subject: [Indic-computing-standards] Re: Nice to meet you


>
> Shrinath - I have taken the liberty to add you to the indic-computing
lists.
>
> Your points about InputMethod are well-taken, I see your point...  Great,
I hope you will continue to be involved in the planning of
> the workshop....   Let the list know if you have any other ideas...
>
> This tutorial you mention would be very useful I think, for the workshop
and otherwise, as we have talked about making otfs from
> ttfs for some time on the list, and having a standard method and
documentation to do so would allow us to distrbute that to all
> kinds of people who would want to start building Indic-language OTF fonts
from existing ttf's....  Do you need a font for an example
> to do the tutorial with?  Anyone have a ttf they want otf'ed?
>
> --Tapan
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Shrinath Shanbhag" <shr...@ko...>
> To: "Tapan S. Parikh" <ta...@me...>
> Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2002 10:09 AM
> Subject: Re: Nice to meet you
>
>
> > Hello Tapan,
> >
> > I've been reading the Indic-Computing list.
> >
> > Who do I mail to - to join the list ?
> > As of now, i am unable to post there.
> >
> > On clicking on Project Admin I get
> >
> > Error
> > Permission: User Not Found
> >
> > Anyways,
> >
> > my comments on "Important : Forming Organization Committee" thread
> >
> > 1) Apurva Joshi in Microsoft is Prof. R. K. Joshi's daughter. It's a
well
> > known fact.
> >
> > 2) IMHO the session 4 titled "Keyboard Layouts" should be titled as
Input
> > Methods.
> > Justification :
> > Each different layout is essentially a different input method.
> > If it were just a layout change (like going from QWERTY to DVORAK) the
> > keysequences
> > required to achieve at a particular word would all be the same. Which is
> > clearly not the
> > case in the Indic case. The WebDuniya input method is sustantially
different
> > from the
> > InScript one which is again totally different from the typewriter input
> > methods.
> >
> > 3) There is one input method missing from those listed under section
"4".
> > The Desha input method,
> > which follows the pure consonant philosophy. It should be added.
> >
> > Please note, all of the input methods can be supported on Unicode or any
> > other encoding.
> >
> > 4) I could contribute to the group by writing a tutorial for converting
a
> > freely available
> > true-type font to OpenType (for devanagari script). If you think this is
> > important, let me
> > know which font to use. The font should not have any
licenses/restrictions
> > attached with it :)
> >
> >
> > -shrinath
> >
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Indic-computing-standards mailing list
http://indic-computing.sourceforge.net/
> Ind...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/indic-computing-standards

[Indic-computing-standards] Real Excitement about Indic-Computing

[Pat H. <p.a...@op...>]

Dear Indic-Computing subscribers,

I am really responding to Tapan's email of 12th, but maybe a little 
late.  I am really excited about the developments that have led to the 
Indic-Computing list, and the proposed workshop in August/September.  I 
would really like to be at that meeting, but would find it easier to be 
there if it was at the end of August.

I have recently found myself swamped by the email around the meeting in 
Bhopal.  I am a little shocked that the debate about Unicode continues, and 
am really shocked that people are still talking about standardising 
fonts.  Makes a change from talking about standardising keyboards I 
suppose, but a lot worse - at least there is a need to standardise 
keyboards, but no need whatsoever to standardise fonts.  Maybe this debate 
had to be played through, and maybe I was partly responsible for not 
stopping things, or at least protesting, when Bharat Bhasha started up.

Going back to 1996 when I first met Venky and got involved, ISCII had 
seemed far-sighted, but limited by the reluctance of CDAC to make its 
technology and at least a subset of fonts freely available.  There were 
lots of fonts around on sale in exhibitions and in high-street shops, that 
used accidental encodings - by which I mean that some alignment of Indic 
characters with the keyboard is made, often phonetic, and then the 
characters are given the encoding of the ASCII character that also happens 
to land on that key.  When Bharat Bhasha came along it seemed likely to 
bring some order to the font/keyboard based chaos, and also maybe shame 
C-DAC into giving away their technology, but I should have seen the danger.

But things have moved on since then, Unicode has now been fully implemented 
on Windows platforms, there really does not seem to be any other way to do 
things.  So it is great to see support for Unicode, and determination to 
change Unicode to make things better for Indic languages.

But it does seem that argument goes on, and maybe it needs to be taken up 
at a number of national conferences and exhibitions, where are the key 
players are present.  Bharat Bhasha was endorsed by both MAIT and NASSCOM - 
where do they now stand?  And what about the academic/professional body, 
the Indian Computer Society?  What is being organised for the meeting in 
Pune in June?

With respect to OpenType, this seems to me to be an irrelevance, it is only 
a rendering engine.  Of course you would be able to get really high quality 
printing with Opentype, so maybe its relevance is to help people accept 
Unicode (and indeed ISCII).  I cannot see the point of glyph 
STANDARDISATION, but I can see the value in making freely available a 
complete set of glyphs that work with a particular rendering engine, for 
the reasons given by Primoz.

If it is any consolation the same confusion about fonts and keyboards 
happens in the UK.  We have a very energetic little company in London who 
some very good fonts for desk top publishing of Bengali and other writing 
systems common in East London.  Alas, they completely ignore Unicode - how 
could I persuade them to change their ways?


I am now involved in ISO, on behalf of the British Standards Institute 
committee that shadows some of its work.  For those who know ISO, this is 
the subcommittee SC22 on programming languages, where my particular 
interest is in internationalisation and the working group WG20 on 
Internationalisation.  This is one of the groups that Keld Simonsen works 
with - I have seen him quoted in the correspondence, and he may well be on 
your lists.  This working group on Internationalisation meets in Tromso in 
the second week of June, and I will pass on anything of interest or 
importance.

I am not aware of any South Asian state having voting rights in ISO, at 
least not the ones I know about.  SAARC participate in Unicode I 
understand, represented by Dr. Om Vikas.  What about W3C?  Does anybody know?

Wonderful news about Indic Computing and your proposed workshop.

Pat
------------------------------------------------------------------
Professor Pat Hall,  Computing Department, Open University, Milton Keynes 
MK7 6AA
tel:  01908 652694 (work at OU), 01825 71 2661 (home and work) 07813 603376 
(mobile always on)
------------------------------------------------------------------

[Indic-computing-standards] Asian Scripts Technology & Infrastructure (ASTI)

[Guntupalli K. <kar...@fr...>]

See
http://www.freestandards.org/news.php?id=26

Regards,
Karunakar

[Indic-computing-standards] Re: Nice to meet you

[Tapan S. P. <ta...@me...>]

Shrinath - I have taken the liberty to add you to the indic-computing lists.

Your points about InputMethod are well-taken, I see your point...  Great, I hope you will continue to be involved in the planning of
the workshop....   Let the list know if you have any other ideas...

This tutorial you mention would be very useful I think, for the workshop and otherwise, as we have talked about making otfs from
ttfs for some time on the list, and having a standard method and documentation to do so would allow us to distrbute that to all
kinds of people who would want to start building Indic-language OTF fonts from existing ttf's....  Do you need a font for an example
to do the tutorial with?  Anyone have a ttf they want otf'ed?

--Tapan

----- Original Message -----
From: "Shrinath Shanbhag" <shr...@ko...>
To: "Tapan S. Parikh" <ta...@me...>
Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2002 10:09 AM
Subject: Re: Nice to meet you


> Hello Tapan,
>
> I've been reading the Indic-Computing list.
>
> Who do I mail to - to join the list ?
> As of now, i am unable to post there.
>
> On clicking on Project Admin I get
>
> Error
> Permission: User Not Found
>
> Anyways,
>
> my comments on "Important : Forming Organization Committee" thread
>
> 1) Apurva Joshi in Microsoft is Prof. R. K. Joshi's daughter. It's a well
> known fact.
>
> 2) IMHO the session 4 titled "Keyboard Layouts" should be titled as Input
> Methods.
> Justification :
> Each different layout is essentially a different input method.
> If it were just a layout change (like going from QWERTY to DVORAK) the
> keysequences
> required to achieve at a particular word would all be the same. Which is
> clearly not the
> case in the Indic case. The WebDuniya input method is sustantially different
> from the
> InScript one which is again totally different from the typewriter input
> methods.
>
> 3) There is one input method missing from those listed under section "4".
> The Desha input method,
> which follows the pure consonant philosophy. It should be added.
>
> Please note, all of the input methods can be supported on Unicode or any
> other encoding.
>
> 4) I could contribute to the group by writing a tutorial for converting a
> freely available
> true-type font to OpenType (for devanagari script). If you think this is
> important, let me
> know which font to use. The font should not have any licenses/restrictions
> attached with it :)
>
>
> -shrinath
>

Re: [Indic-computing-standards] Important: Forming Organization Committee

[Dr. U.B. P. <pav...@vi...>]

Hi,

This is really a great step. My wholehearted support is with you all. 

Thanks and regards,
Pavanaja

Subject:        	[Indic-computing-standards] Important: Forming Organization Committee
> 
> Dear Everyone,
> 
> As you may know, we at indic-computing have been thinking for some
> time to organize a consensus and education-building workshop for
> Indic-Language computing.  I am attaching the draft proposal for the
> workshop, which should give you some more backround as to what we are
> trying to achieve and how we have set out to do so.  We have managed
> to secure some support, so we are now concretely moving forward in our
> planning.
> 
> In the draft proposal you will see roughly the focus, time slot and
> structure we had envisioned for each session, although obviously that
> could be flexible if you wanted to do things a different way. 
> Comments on the agenda as a whole are welcome and encouraged.  Please
> read the agenda for more info.  We are thinking roughly of August or
> September to hold the workshop, exact time and location to be decided.
>  Nagarjuna of FSF has had some interesting ideas about that.
> 
> Currently we are trying to build the initial technical organizing
> committee for the workshop - which will be working to set the
> technical agenda and structure of the event.  We would like to invite
> you all to be a part of this process.
> 
> Our current idea is to divide the agenda into eight sections, and let
> one person be in charge of each section.  That person would be in
> charge of setting the agenda for that section (according to the time
> constraints), collate a list of main participants and invitees, and
> drive the whole process forward.  Here is the list we are currently
> thinking of.
> 
>  (Pracitioners) Vijay Pratap Singh
>  (Encodings) Joseph Koshy - HP-ISO
>  (Fonts) Keyur Schroff - NCST
>  (Keyboard Layouts) Karunakar - IndLinux
>  (Linguistic Approaches) Dr. Pavanaja - KGP
>  (Tools) Ashish Kotamkar - Mithi
>  (Organization) Tapan Parikh - MLA
>  (Future Directions) Pushpak Bhattacharyya - IIT-Mumbai
> 
> Senior Leaders:
>      Raveesh Gupta - Microsoft India
>      Pat Hall - SCALLA
>      Ken Keniston - MIT
> 
> This doesnt mean that any one else is excluded from this process. It
> just means for this type of process each person needs to be given some
> resonsibility to make sure it gets carried out correctly.  In fact I
> trust everyone on this list, so I hope everyone takes part in the
> discussion, and contributes their ideas and observations with the
> people above and everyone else on the list.
> 
> I hope you would be interested in working with us on this, as we all
> know it is an important step for the future of indic language
> computing, to be doing things in this kind of open, community-based,
> progressive, outward-looking manner.
> 
> Comments on the organization process itself are also invited.  What do
> you guys think, is this a good way to move forward?
> 
> Please let me know how excited you are about this, and how willing you
> are to chip in, especially those people I have listed as being section
> leaders. If possible, give me some feedback on this within a few days.
> 
> Thanks,
> Tapan Parikh
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 


-----------------------------------------------------
Dr. U.B. Pavanaja
Editor, Vishva Kannada
World's first Internet magazine in Kannada
http://www.vishvakannada.com/

Note: I don't worry about pselling mixtakes

[Indic-computing-standards] RE: Important: Forming Organization Committee

[Raveesh G. <rav...@mi...>]

Thanks Tapan,

This is a great start!

I look forward to being an enthusiastic participant and member in all
your discussions.

Thanks & regards,

Raveesh Gupta

Indian languages Support Program
Microsoft India
www.microsoft.com/india/office/indic/

-----Original Message-----
From: Tapan S. Parikh [mailto:ta...@ya...]=20
Sent: Friday, April 12, 2002 2:07 PM
To: ind...@li...; Kenneth Keniston;
Pushpak Bhattacharyya; Vijay-Sristi; Pat Hall; Raveesh Gupta
Subject: Important: Forming Organization Committee



Dear Everyone,

As you may know, we at indic-computing have been thinking for some time
to organize a consensus and education-building workshop for
Indic-Language computing.  I am attaching the draft proposal for the
workshop, which should give you some more backround as to what we are
trying to achieve and how we have set out to do so.  We have managed to
secure some support, so we are now concretely moving forward in our
planning.

In the draft proposal you will see roughly the focus, time slot and
structure we had envisioned for each session, although obviously that
could be flexible if you wanted to do things a different way.  Comments
on the agenda as a whole are welcome and encouraged.  Please read the
agenda for more info.  We are thinking roughly of August or September to
hold the workshop, exact time and location to be decided.  Nagarjuna of
FSF has had some interesting ideas about that.

Currently we are trying to build the initial technical organizing
committee for the workshop - which will be working to set the technical
agenda and structure of the event.  We would like to invite you all to
be a part of this process.

Our current idea is to divide the agenda into eight sections, and let
one person be in charge of each section.  That person would be in charge
of setting the agenda for that section (according to the time
constraints), collate a list of main participants and invitees, and
drive the whole process forward.  Here is the list we are currently
thinking of.

 (Pracitioners) Vijay Pratap Singh
 (Encodings) Joseph Koshy - HP-ISO
 (Fonts) Keyur Schroff - NCST
 (Keyboard Layouts) Karunakar - IndLinux
 (Linguistic Approaches) Dr. Pavanaja - KGP
 (Tools) Ashish Kotamkar - Mithi
 (Organization) Tapan Parikh - MLA
 (Future Directions) Pushpak Bhattacharyya - IIT-Mumbai

Senior Leaders:
     Raveesh Gupta - Microsoft India
     Pat Hall - SCALLA
     Ken Keniston - MIT

This doesnt mean that any one else is excluded from this process. It
just means for this type of process each person needs to be given some
resonsibility to make sure it gets carried out correctly.  In fact I
trust everyone on this list, so I hope everyone takes part in the
discussion, and contributes their ideas and observations with the people
above and everyone else on the list.

I hope you would be interested in working with us on this, as we all
know it is an important step for the future of indic language computing,
to be doing things in this kind of open, community-based, progressive,
outward-looking manner.

Comments on the organization process itself are also invited.  What do
you guys think, is this a good way to move forward?

Please let me know how excited you are about this, and how willing you
are to chip in, especially those people I have listed as being section
leaders. If possible, give me some feedback on this within a few days.

Thanks,
Tapan Parikh

Re: [Indic-computing-standards] Re: New Blood - Forget the Establishment

[Keyur S. <key...@ya...>]

--- G Karunakar <kar...@fr...> wrote:

>  I suppose it uses the same tables as mangal font of
> Win2K/XP, the marked similarity of it to mangal (in terms
> of no of glyphs, properties etc ) makes me say so. 

Yeah. It may be very much similar to that but not exactly
identical. Since both the fonts were designed by the same
designer (Prof R.K.Joshi) you can expect some kind of
similarities.

>  I hope these will be different from the MS ones.

(!!?) I don't understand what is wrong even if these fonts
have some similarities with MS ones. If you closely look at
the kind of desktops and applications running on Linux, all
they also have similarities with their MS counterparts.
Font designers design the fonts as per their ideas and
intuition and so we always see some fixed pattern in terms
of number of glyphs and properties. And I think this you
have realized when working with the guy who earlier
designed fonts for CDAC.

> Most freely available fonts were done by people in their 
> free time ( and probably not that experienced in font 
> design), their main goal probably was to make usable 
> indian language fonts available freely, so very high 
> quality may not have been their first priority.

I agree. I didn't mean to say that design of low-quality
fonts should not be encouraged. It is infact fruitful
activity. These people are really serving the open source
community and we must appreciate their work! I also
understand that designing free fonts without any kind of
support (especially financial support) is not very easy. 

On the other hand, I feel that there is a lack of good
quality opentype fonts for Indian languages in the open
source community. So why we shouldn't take lead with the
support from our Government?

>  Also a distributed approach for the font development
> would significantly reduce the time taken. Here I mean
> identifying few professional font designers, and based on
> their script/language skills ,they be hired for the
> appropriate font development work. This way we will have
> 'very high quality' font quickly.

I agree. This issue I want to discuss with you whenever we
meet as proposed by Tapan. He told me that you are in
Hyderabad by this time. When are you coming back to Mumbai?

Regards,
Keyur



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[Indic-computing-standards] Test. Please Ignore

[Harsha R. <har...@ya...>]

and delete.

-Harsha


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Tax Center - online filing with TurboTax
http://taxes.yahoo.com/

Re: [Indic-computing-standards] Re: New Blood - Forget the Establishment

[G K. <kar...@fr...>]

On Thu, 11 Apr 2002 22:19:16 -0700 (PDT)
Keyur Shroff <key...@ya...> wrote:

> 
> >  Will those fonts be opensource?
> 
> Yes. All of these fonts will be open source and opentype
> layout tables will be made available. I will also try to
> look for possibility of realeasing opentype tables of Raghu
> font that we made available free for use.
> 

 I suppose it uses the same tables as mangal font of Win2K/XP, the marked similarity of it to mangal (in terms of no of glyphs, properties etc ) makes me say so. 

> >  Anyway Opentype fonts for Devanagari, Telugu, Kannada,
> > Gujarati, (i
> > think) malayalam also are under development. Also some
> > fonts ( bengali
> > ) are being taken from exisiting TeX fonts and coverted
> > to T1 -> TTF
> > -> Opentype. So I think by the time this effort starts
> > there would be
> > some simple open source opentype fonts available.
> 
> Great! But I think we really need some high quality fonts
> also along with reasonable good quality fonts. I have
> observed that most of the fonts available freely in the
> public domain are not of very good quality. We are
> concentrating more on very high quality fonts (like Raghu
> for Hindi) which can display almost all theoratically
> possible glyphs. All these fonts will have glyphs set
> having total number of glyphs between 600-1200. And we'll
> try to take care of including "maximal" set of glyphs in
> all these fonts.
> 
 I hope these will be different from the MS ones. Most freely available fonts were done by people in their free time ( and probably not that experienced in font design ), their main goal probably was to make usable indian language fonts available freely, so very high quality may not have been their first priority.

 Also a distributed approach for the font development would significantly reduce the time taken. Here I mean identifying few professional font designers, and based on their script/language skills ,they be hired for the appropriate font development work. This way we will have 'very high quality' font quickly.

Regards,
Karunakar

Re: [Indic-computing-standards] Important: Forming OrganizationCommittee

[Keyur S. <key...@ya...>]

--- "Tapan S. Parikh" <ta...@ya...> wrote:

> Ill take up w/ Raveesh about Apurva Joshy.  I had heard
> that she is Prof.
> R. K. Joshi's daughter - is that true?  Then maybe Keyur
> could find out also.

Yes. She is Prof Joshi's daughter. But I think it will be
difficult for her to come from Microsoft, USA. Prof. Joshi
is going there next month. So I can pass on this message to
him.

Regards,
Keyur



__________________________________________________
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[Indic-computing-standards] Fw: Important: Forming Organization Committee

[Tapan S. P. <ta...@ya...>]

----- Original Message -----=20
From: Kenneth Keniston=20
To: Tapan S. Parikh=20
Sent: Friday, April 12, 2002 6:03 PM
Subject: Re: Important: Forming Organization Committee


Tapan,

This is marvellous, the best thing to happen in this area in 10 years.  =
I'm off for a long weekend, but will try to express my enthusiasm and =
stuff later. =20

Anyway, it's great!!!

Ken

At 02:07 PM 4/12/2002 +0530, you wrote:


  Dear Everyone,

  As you may know, we at indic-computing have been thinking for some =
time to
  organize a consensus and education-building workshop for =
Indic-Language
  computing.  I am attaching the draft proposal for the workshop, which
  should give you some more backround as to what we are trying to =
achieve and
  how we have set out to do so.  We have managed to secure some support, =
so
  we are now concretely moving forward in our planning.

  In the draft proposal you will see roughly the focus, time slot and
  structure we had envisioned for each session, although obviously that =
could
  be flexible if you wanted to do things a different way.  Comments on =
the
  agenda as a whole are welcome and encouraged.  Please read the agenda =
for
  more info.  We are thinking roughly of August or September to hold the
  workshop, exact time and location to be decided.  Nagarjuna of FSF has =
had
  some interesting ideas about that.

  Currently we are trying to build the initial technical organizing =
committee
  for the workshop - which will be working to set the technical agenda =
and
  structure of the event.  We would like to invite you all to be a part =
of
  this process.

  Our current idea is to divide the agenda into eight sections, and let =
one
  person be in charge of each section.  That person would be in charge =
of
  setting the agenda for that section (according to the time =
constraints),
  collate a list of main participants and invitees, and drive the whole
  process forward.  Here is the list we are currently thinking of.

   (Pracitioners) Vijay Pratap Singh
   (Encodings) Joseph Koshy - HP-ISO
   (Fonts) Keyur Schroff - NCST
   (Keyboard Layouts) Karunakar - IndLinux
   (Linguistic Approaches) Dr. Pavanaja - KGP
   (Tools) Ashish Kotamkar - Mithi
   (Organization) Tapan Parikh - MLA
   (Future Directions) Pushpak Bhattacharyya - IIT-Mumbai

  Senior Leaders:
       Raveesh Gupta - Microsoft India
       Pat Hall - SCALLA
       Ken Keniston - MIT

  This doesnt mean that any one else is excluded from this process. It =
just
  means for this type of process each person needs to be given some
  resonsibility to make sure it gets carried out correctly.  In fact I =
trust
  everyone on this list, so I hope everyone takes part in the =
discussion, and
  contributes their ideas and observations with the people above and =
everyone
  else on the list.

  I hope you would be interested in working with us on this, as we all =
know
  it is an important step for the future of indic language computing, to =
be
  doing things in this kind of open, community-based, progressive,
  outward-looking manner.

  Comments on the organization process itself are also invited.  What do =
you
  guys think, is this a good way to move forward?

  Please let me know how excited you are about this, and how willing you =
are
  to chip in, especially those people I have listed as being section =
leaders.
  If possible, give me some feedback on this within a few days.

  Thanks,
  Tapan Parikh

Re: [Indic-computing-standards] Important: Forming OrganizationCommittee

[Tapan S. P. <ta...@ya...>]

Maybe it would be hard to avoid all conflicts, but we will decide dates as
with all else - with feedback from all in the group.  As Nagarjuna said the
most important thing is that all whom we want to attend would be able to
make it.

Ill take up w/ Raveesh about Apurva Joshy.  I had heard that she is Prof.
R. K. Joshi's daughter - is that true?  Then maybe Keyur could find out
also.

--Tapan


>
> Is it possible to get Apurva Joshy of MS for a talk on Opentype stds for
> indic scripts? I guess she is the person who wrote the std for MS.
>
> Any ideas on the tentative dates for the conference? TUG2002 is on 1st
week
> of Sept, so it will be nice if the dates do not collide with it.
>
> raj

Re: [Indic-computing-standards] Important: Forming Organization Committee

[Rajkumar S <s_...@my...>]

On Fri, 12 Apr 2002, Tapan S. Parikh wrote:

>  (Pracitioners) Vijay Pratap Singh
>  (Encodings) Joseph Koshy - HP-ISO
>  (Fonts) Keyur Schroff - NCST
>  (Keyboard Layouts) Karunakar - IndLinux
>  (Linguistic Approaches) Dr. Pavanaja - KGP
>  (Tools) Ashish Kotamkar - Mithi
>  (Organization) Tapan Parikh - MLA
>  (Future Directions) Pushpak Bhattacharyya - IIT-Mumbai
>
> Senior Leaders:
>      Raveesh Gupta - Microsoft India
>      Pat Hall - SCALLA
>      Ken Keniston - MIT

Perfect.

Is it possible to get Apurva Joshy of MS for a talk on Opentype stds for
indic scripts? I guess she is the person who wrote the std for MS.

Any ideas on the tentative dates for the conference? TUG2002 is on 1st week
of Sept, so it will be nice if the dates do not collide with it.

raj

Re: [Indic-computing-standards] Important: Forming Organization Committee

[Tapan S. P. <ta...@ya...>]

IMHO ICON has a very different focus and set of people attending.  That is
primarily a research conference having to do with Natural Language
Processing.  This is primarily a practical workshop having to do with core
practical technical and system-level issues.  It seems unwise to cloud our
focus with research and theory when that has led to lack of concreteness in
the past.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Nagarjuna G." <nag...@hb...>
To: "Tapan S. Parikh" <ta...@ya...>
Cc: <ind...@li...>
Sent: Friday, April 12, 2002 2:28 PM
Subject: Re: [Indic-computing-standards] Important: Forming Organization
Committee


>
> ICON 2002, and KBCS 2002 are scheduled to takeplace concurrently
> during Dec 18-21 in Mumbai.  Many people working in language
> technologies are also going to be there particularly in ICON
> 2002.  It may be better if we can manage either one more
> concurrent session or arrange it separately before or after the
> above dates.
>
> Nagarjuna

[Indic-computing-standards] Important: Forming Organization Committee

[Tapan S. P. <ta...@ya...>]

Dear Everyone,

As you may know, we at indic-computing have been thinking for some time to
organize a consensus and education-building workshop for Indic-Language
computing.  I am attaching the draft proposal for the workshop, which
should give you some more backround as to what we are trying to achieve and
how we have set out to do so.  We have managed to secure some support, so
we are now concretely moving forward in our planning.

In the draft proposal you will see roughly the focus, time slot and
structure we had envisioned for each session, although obviously that could
be flexible if you wanted to do things a different way.  Comments on the
agenda as a whole are welcome and encouraged.  Please read the agenda for
more info.  We are thinking roughly of August or September to hold the
workshop, exact time and location to be decided.  Nagarjuna of FSF has had
some interesting ideas about that.

Currently we are trying to build the initial technical organizing committee
for the workshop - which will be working to set the technical agenda and
structure of the event.  We would like to invite you all to be a part of
this process.

Our current idea is to divide the agenda into eight sections, and let one
person be in charge of each section.  That person would be in charge of
setting the agenda for that section (according to the time constraints),
collate a list of main participants and invitees, and drive the whole
process forward.  Here is the list we are currently thinking of.

 (Pracitioners) Vijay Pratap Singh
 (Encodings) Joseph Koshy - HP-ISO
 (Fonts) Keyur Schroff - NCST
 (Keyboard Layouts) Karunakar - IndLinux
 (Linguistic Approaches) Dr. Pavanaja - KGP
 (Tools) Ashish Kotamkar - Mithi
 (Organization) Tapan Parikh - MLA
 (Future Directions) Pushpak Bhattacharyya - IIT-Mumbai

Senior Leaders:
     Raveesh Gupta - Microsoft India
     Pat Hall - SCALLA
     Ken Keniston - MIT

This doesnt mean that any one else is excluded from this process. It just
means for this type of process each person needs to be given some
resonsibility to make sure it gets carried out correctly.  In fact I trust
everyone on this list, so I hope everyone takes part in the discussion, and
contributes their ideas and observations with the people above and everyone
else on the list.

I hope you would be interested in working with us on this, as we all know
it is an important step for the future of indic language computing, to be
doing things in this kind of open, community-based, progressive,
outward-looking manner.

Comments on the organization process itself are also invited.  What do you
guys think, is this a good way to move forward?

Please let me know how excited you are about this, and how willing you are
to chip in, especially those people I have listed as being section leaders.
If possible, give me some feedback on this within a few days.

Thanks,
Tapan Parikh

Re: [Indic-computing-standards] Re: New Blood - Forget the Establishment

[Keyur S. <key...@ya...>]

>  Will those fonts be opensource?

Yes. All of these fonts will be open source and opentype
layout tables will be made available. I will also try to
look for possibility of realeasing opentype tables of Raghu
font that we made available free for use.

>  Anyway Opentype fonts for Devanagari, Telugu, Kannada,
> Gujarati, (i
> think) malayalam also are under development. Also some
> fonts ( bengali
> ) are being taken from exisiting TeX fonts and coverted
> to T1 -> TTF
> -> Opentype. So I think by the time this effort starts
> there would be
> some simple open source opentype fonts available.

Great! But I think we really need some high quality fonts
also along with reasonable good quality fonts. I have
observed that most of the fonts available freely in the
public domain are not of very good quality. We are
concentrating more on very high quality fonts (like Raghu
for Hindi) which can display almost all theoratically
possible glyphs. All these fonts will have glyphs set
having total number of glyphs between 600-1200. And we'll
try to take care of including "maximal" set of glyphs in
all these fonts.

NCST is among those few organizations which have been
working in the language technology area since last 25
years. So much amount of information is available here in
all languages :-). Prof R.K.Joshi is working in that
direction. 

- Keyur



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