indic-computing-users — Discussing the usage of indian language capable tools

[Indic-computing-users] Re: [bytesforall_readers] Bengali Open Source Community (fwd)

[FN <fr...@by...>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------

Hi Hasin Raj and all the list members,

I am helping to promote the 'Asian Open Source Centre'  - www.asiaosc.org
This site aims to form contacts between Asian open source people to
encourage collaboration on things like localization, producing open 
fonts, etc.

I have added your site to the information about Bangladesh, at the
collaborative 'wiki':

http://www.asiaosc.org/enwiki/page/Bangladesh.html

Currently, the Wiki doesn't have much information about open source 
activities /
contacts within Bangladesh.  If you have time, it would be great if you 
could register
then add more information to the Bangladesh page.

Thanks
Imran William Smith, Malaysia
---
www.mimos.my - Mimos Berhad
www.asiaosc.org - Asian Open Source Centre



hasin_raj wrote:

>Guys,
>
>I have uploaded my site today at www.banglaosc.cjb.net . It is a site 
>relating Bangla open Source community. I upload some special source 
>code into it
>
>Currently Available with source code:
>Anti Redlof Source Code with Real Time Scan
>bangla Menu ActiveX
>SysDlgShow ActiveX
>TransCTL ActiveX
>
>
>Soon I will upload English to Bangla Translator and Standard Emailer 
>without SMTP.
>
>Stay tuned
>Take a look at my site http://www.banglaosc.cjb.net. Please send me 
>comment . This site is stil under construction but you can download 
>easily
>
>
>
>
>
>To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
>byt...@ya...
>
> 
>
>Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ 
>
>
>
>  
>




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[Indic-computing-users] Fw: Re: [bytesforall_readers] Bengali Open Source Community

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

Begin forwarded message:

Date: Sat, 22 Feb 2003 21:55:55 +0800
From: Will Smith <wi...@wi...>
To: byt...@ya...
Subject: Re: [bytesforall_readers] Bengali Open Source Community


Hi Hasin Raj and all the list members,

I am helping to promote the 'Asian Open Source Centre'  -
www.asiaosc.org
This site aims to form contacts between Asian open source people to
encourage collaboration on things like localization, producing open 
fonts, etc.

I have added your site to the information about Bangladesh, at the
collaborative 'wiki':

http://www.asiaosc.org/enwiki/page/Bangladesh.html

Currently, the Wiki doesn't have much information about open source 
activities /
contacts within Bangladesh.  If you have time, it would be great if you 
could register
then add more information to the Bangladesh page.

Thanks
Imran William Smith, Malaysia
---
www.mimos.my - Mimos Berhad
www.asiaosc.org - Asian Open Source Centre



hasin_raj wrote:

>Guys,
>
>I have uploaded my site today at www.banglaosc.cjb.net . It is a site 
>relating Bangla open Source community. I upload some special source 
>code into it
>
>Currently Available with source code:
>Anti Redlof Source Code with Real Time Scan
>bangla Menu ActiveX
>SysDlgShow ActiveX
>TransCTL ActiveX
>
>
>Soon I will upload English to Bangla Translator and Standard Emailer 
>without SMTP.
>
>Stay tuned
>Take a look at my site http://www.banglaosc.cjb.net. Please send me 
>comment . This site is stil under construction but you can download 
>easily
>
>
>
>
>
>To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
>byt...@ya...
>
> 
>
>Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
>http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ 
>
>
>
>  
>




------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
Get 128 Bit SSL Encryption!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/FpY02D/vN2EAA/xGHJAA/C7EolB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->

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[Indic-computing-users] [Indic-Computing] Indic Font Workshop

[Vijay P. S. A. <vi...@ek...>]

Hi!

There are a few updates after the last announcement on the OTF workshop 
to share with the community. We had been trying our bit to resolve some 
of the problems, concerns, issues raised by the members in the list, 
which are definitely correct, understandable and required action. There 
had been an off-line debate on the topics and some issues got resolved 
as well as some support has came about, hence this announcement. It has 
also been recommended by some of members that all debates on workshop 
issues should be done on lists only. So here it is for all the member 
for open debate as well as there is strong appeal to the members 
particularly those who wish to develop open source tools for development 
of OTF, hence developers of tools and applications and other those who 
suggest alternate standards as against limitations of Unicode for Indian 
languages as discussed in Indic-Computing workshop Sept 2002 and again 
many time in the Indic-mailing lists.

This debate has been suggested to be only limited to "users" list so 
that it does not clutter "devel" & "standards" list. However for this 
time it is being posted on all lists, so that all members who are 
interested should join in users list (if they are already not subscribed 
there).

Some of the major issues that had been raised by members are:

1) Why OTF, open standards Vs Proprietary tools for development, simply 
the debate "How open is OTF"
2) Unicode/OTF - How relevant for Indian languages, concerns and 
alternatives
3) Registration Fee issue
4) Travel support & Honorarium for speakers
5) Sponsorship

At sponsorship front we have some good news to share, we have received 
some sponsorship that would help us now to offer some concessions to the 
participants.

SARAI, New Delhi (thanks to Ravikant) has agreed to cover the cost of 
travel of the speakers upto a total of 25,000 Rs (III AC, Train only, 
might not cover all speakers, hence limitations, those who can afford 
should please afford). Although we are still waiting for confirmation 
from CHIPS, who have agreed to sponsor logistics and food, but we can 
well assume that the same might come, as has been assured by Aman Grewal 
(thanks to him) [if it does not alternative would be suggested #]

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

In view of the new developments and the concerns of the members we are 
happy to announce:

1) To change the name of workshop to "Indic-Font workshop" and include 
in the workshop agenda the issues raised by Koshy, Hemamurthy, Nagarajan 
& others and have a debate on relevance of OTF for Indian languages and 
alternatives. Then the workshop would functionally focus on OTF related 
issues and at the same time bring up other issues and alternatives as 
well. Incase there are not enough people to volunteer to take up the 
relevant topics such as open-source rendering technologies like 
Graphite, how Omega handles typesetting of complex scripts and make a 
presentation on the same in the workshop, (Once confirmed these sessions 
could be added in the existing agenda), then this would be an opentype 
only workshop (then the existing agenda would stand).

The existing topics besides OTF that are already part of agenda are:

a. Sunil Abraham, Mahiti, Bangalore, would arrange for an IPR (cyber 
laws) lawyer Lawrence Liang, who would discuss the issue of OTF openness 
after understanding the Adobe & Microsoft agreement on release of the fonts.
b. Development of Otf from Ttf (Akruti) & other fonts experiences: 
Karunakar, Nagarjuna, Ravi Pande, Raj Kumar, Sayamindu???
c. Open/free software tools for Otf development: M Arun ?????

Suggested Topics: VOLUNTEER, SPEAKERS & SESSION LEADERS NEEDED, also 
suggest additional topics relevant here

a. Alternate standards best for Indian languages, RKK ??? - Hemamurthy
b. Generic transliteration rules framework for Indian languages (input 
sequence & in context with display rendering)/Nagarajan
c. Open-source rendering technologies like Graphite
d. How Omega handles typesetting of complex scripts
e. Nepal case study; Nepali Font Standardisation Project: Amar Gurung???
f. Any more ?????????

We need a volunteer here to coordinate the open source sessions along 
with OTF sessions which Dr. Pavanaja is coordinating.

2) We are dropping the Registration Fee (as announced earlier) and would 
have a nominal registration fee of say 200.00 Rs. which could be 
submitted by participants at the time of registration. The amount 
collected thus would be for logistics/CD/reading material etc

3) Its is agreed that Speakers would voluntarily share there 
experiences, they shall not be provided any Honorarium, in view of 
concern raised by members.

4) All participants would have to travel at there own cost.

# We would request (if CHIPS support do not come) all participants to 
pay for there food and mattress/pillow rent (if they are staying in 
hostels). Those who are making there own staying arrangements, it is 
fine. We shall arrange for the food in mess on confirmation and 
participants can directly pay.

Lastly we hope that members would come up to volunteer for the sessions, 
if it is needed that workshop dates be extended from the present, to 
accommodate some of the open source topics (after confirmation of 
speakers), it could also be done. Till then the present agenda and dates 
would hold. We have already started getting applications from 
participants, those who are yet to submit can please write to me at 
<vi...@ek...>. We are also in process of putting up an online form 
for application, which shall be announced shortly.

We hope to move ahead with this workshop towards regional language 
focused workshops soon, we would request all members to keep thinking of 
them also.

regards

vijay

-- 

Vijay Pratap Singh Aditya
ekgaon technologies
email: vi...@ek...
website: http://www.ekgaon.com


Revised workshop Agenda:
---------------------------------
---------------------------------


Indic-Computing Consortium announces
-------------------------------------

First National Indic-Font Workshop

Date: 28th to 30th March 2003
Venue: PESIT, Bangalore

Sponsors:

PESIT, Bangalore
Vishwa Kannada, Bangalore
DeepRoot Linux Pvt. Ltd, Bangalore
Chattisgarh Infotech Promotion Society, Raipur
Sarai, New Delhi
Indlinux.org, Mumbai
ekgaon technologies pvt. ltd, Madurai

Indic-Computing Consortium:

The Indic-Computing Consortium is an initiative of software developers, 
businesses and academic institutions to help evolve appropriate 
standards, resources and technologies for the Indic-Computing community.

The Indic-Computing Consortium is designed as a national-level 
participatory organisation that serves as a common forum for discussion, 
information exchange and advocacy on behalf of all parties interested in 
the development of Indian Language Computing. The consortium aims to 
make true access of computing possible for Indian people by enabling 
support in local language.

A framework is being built for 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 
aimed that these consortia be participatory and inclusive to properly 
represent the viewpoint of local developers, users and other 
stakeholders. In step two, Indic-Computing Consortium would encourage & 
support formation of state-level consortia for each regional language, 
which could 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. The 
major roles to be 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 & 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

In September 2002 Indic-Computing organised its first National workshop, 
which aimed at finding the various problems faced by the developer 
communities and issues related to standardization, technical support, 
policy and tools. To know more about the consortium, workshops and other 
initiatives, visit us at
http://www.indic-computing.sourceforge.net

The workshop:

One of the working groups formed at the first Indic-Computing workshop 
was for development of OTF & issues related to language standardization 
and representation in international consortium. One of the action point 
and agenda for the group was to Hold OTF training workshop for 
developing major Indian language OTF fonts. Dr. U B Pavanaja took upon 
to hold and coordinate this workshop and Mr. Abhas Abhinav proposed to 
coordinate for logistics & sponsorship, Mr. G. Nagarjuna proposed to 
help coordinate with Akruti for making available fonts to be used for 
develop OTF. This group succeeded in its tasks making this workshop 
possible, Akruti released some free fonts to be used for conversion to 
OTF, which were taken up by some of the language groups (for more 
details on the language groups and the major issues being dealt by it 
please go through the proceedings of first workshop at our website)

Some of the major concerns raised by the language community were:

i. Developing good look fonts
ii. Development of open source tools for rendering and hinting of OTF 
fonts (currently OTF development uses proprietary tools)
iii. Finding font developers for all Indian languages and coordinating 
the group
iv. Making available fonts to be converted to OTF

This workshop seeks to address some of these issues and others enclosed 
in the workshop program as under. This is the first national workshop on 
the subject, while it shall focus on OTF, but it shall equally share 
concerns of open standards community and would have talks, demos and 
training sessions of open source tools, as well as various alternative 
technologies for Indian fonts. We propose to take up more regional 
language font workshops in future to give focused attention to each 
language, these workshops would be held all across India in different 
parts and would hold training programs and technology demonstration. We 
invite volunteers who would take upon to hold these workshops and 
provide coordination & logistics support. The Indic-Computing Consortium 
would provide necessary technical support and capacity building to these 
regional groups.

Why OpenType?

OpenType is an extension to TrueType, and uses Unicode as standard for 
character encoding. It also provides additional tables for defining rich 
set of mappings between characters and glyphs. It also provides for a 
having a large glyph set and even glyph varaints. All the features 
provided by OpenType format can be made use by having a application 
independent, preferable system level library with a api interface usable 
by applications.

For Indic script processing OpenType tables like GSUB (glyph 
substitution) and GPOS (glyph positioning) gives font designer to define 
his rules on what conjuncts or combinations could be made available. 
Application programmer is relieved of the burden of knowing all the 
linguistic part. Also OpenType sort of makes the concept of glyph 
standard or font encoding standard redundant, again giving font vendors 
freedom to follow their own glyph sets and not really affecting the 
application. To summarize OpenType provides lot of benefits to Indic 
computing and also renders redundant some issues faced in Indic computing.

There has been an ongoing debate on whether OTF is right for Indian 
Languages. The debate is relevant and contextual also. One of the 
perspectives penned by G Karunakar in support of OpenType is here for 
participants to explore. However the debate goes on and we invite all to 
participate in it on the Indic-computing mailing list. Please go through 
the attachment why_otf.txt for more on OTF fonts.

Who can participate & pre-requisites:

" Any developer/company/organization having interest in language 
technology and interested to learn development of OTF, understanding of 
Unicode, various technologies for Indian languages and related issues.
" Pre-requites
" Understand how to make a font
" Knowledge of Unicode
" Have a font that it/he/she can use for lab time
" A willingness to keep trying until it/he/she understands
" To get comprehensive information on pre-requisites mentioned above 
please go through the following links

" Creating and supporting OpenType fonts for Indic scripts
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/otfntdev/indicot/default.htm

" Building OTF
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/otfntdev/intro.htm

" Details about VOLT
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/developers/volt/default.htm

" Unicode FAQ about Indic
http://www.unicode.org/faq/indic.html

" Unicode code charts
http://www.unicode.org/charts/

(More links would be added subsequently on various development work on 
open source font technologies)

How to participate:

i. The workshop is by registration only, last date of registration in 
20th March 2003
ii. Participants interested to participate in the workshop should send 
there applications to Vijay Pratap Singh Aditya <vi...@ek...>. 
Shortly an online applicatiion form would also be made available.
iii. Application format
" Name
" Organisation
" Communication Address
" Whether participating in individual capacity or representing your 
organization
" In either case please write in 200 words your interests and what do 
you expect from the workshop
" If there are more then one participant from your organization/group 
please provide the numbers and communication address only.
iv. The registration fee of Rs. 200.00 is to be paid in cash by the 
participants on the first day.
v. Participants please note that all registered members would get, 
literature, CD with important font development softwares, lodging and 
boarding for three days (also dinner for the night before the workshop 
starts).

Contacts:

Participants are advised to contact the following for there queries:

Dr. U B Pavanaja: <pav...@vi...>

Technical clarification, sessions of the workshops, required 
preparation, fonts etc

Mr. Abhas Abinav: <ab...@de...>

Logistics, Lodging & Boarding, Venue etc

Mr. Vijay Pratap Singh Aditya: <vi...@ek...>

Workshop registration application, coordination, any other issue not 
covered above

Instructions for Participants:

1) The participants are advised to go through the pre-requisites and 
equip themselves with necessary knowledge on font & Unicode standard.
2) The staying arrangements are from the evening before the day of start 
of the workshop. Dinner would be provided for the night also, for all 
participants reaching before 9.00 PM only.
3) The lodging & boarding provided by PESIT is in hostels & mess, and is 
modest by all means. Participants who wish to opt out of this 
arrangement can make there own staying arrangements. Please notify the 
same to us, also it is expected that the lunch would be taken by all the 
participants irrespective of there place of stay at mess only as there 
is not much time available in between the session.
4) The staying arrangement in the hostel is till 3rd day evening, it is 
expected that the participants would vacate the rooms by evening.
5) PESIT is at outskirts of Bangalore, participants are expected to make 
there own arrangements for local travel, as nothing could be provided by 
the organizers.
Venue & how to reach:

PESIT (PES Institute of Technology)
100 Feet Ring Road,
Banashankri  IIIrd Stage, (Off. Mysore Road)
Bangalore
Phone: (080) 672 0007

For participants arriving at Airport, take a prepaid taxi to the above 
address, the place is known to the prepaid stand.

Directions from Airport:

Airport Road--->Domlur signal--->Inner ring road--->Koramangala-
-->BTM Layout--->Banneraghatta Road--->100 Feet (outer) ring
road--->PESIT on 100 Feet (outer) Ring Road

For participants arriving at Railway station & Bus station, best is to 
take a prepaid taxi to the above address, the place is known to the 
prepaid stand. A Bus is also available

Directions from Railway Station:

Station--->Chamrajpate--->Ashram--->Hanumant Nagar--->Hosakerehalli

--->PESIT 100 Feet Ring Road




Workshop program: (to be revised after confirmation of more speakers)
-------------------------

Day-1:

09:00 - 09:45 Registration
09:45 - 10:15 Welcome & Inauguration  J Koshy / Director PESIT
10:15 - 10:45 Overview - Pavanaja
10:45 - 11:00 Tea break
11:00 - 11:30 Planning glyph repertoire - Pavanaja
11:30 - 13:00 Introduction to Indian scripts, Character set, tools & 
Glyph Design & current trends in fonts- Ravi Pande
13:00 - 14:00 Lunch break
14:00 - 15:00 Testing glyphs, Generating Fonts, Font format - Ravi Pande
15:00 - 15:15 Tea break
15:15 - 17.15 Lab: Define glyphs and fill out repertoire
17.15 - Tea & informal interaction

Day-2:

09:30 - 10:15 Encoding - J Koshy
10:15 - 10:45 Introduction to OTF - Pavanaja
10:45 - 11:00 Tea break
11:00 - 11:30 Open Type Tables - Pavanaja
11:30 - 13:00 Introduction to VOLT - Pavanaja
13:00 - 14:00 Lunch break
14:00  Lab: Open type tables

Day-3:

09:30 - 10:15 Testing - Pavanaja
10:15 - 10:45 Hinting  Pavanaja
10:45 - 11:00 Tea break
11:00 - 11:30 Digitally signing the font - Pavanaja
11:30 - 13:00 Fonts on Linux - Karunakar
13:00 - 14:00 Lunch break
14:00  Lab: Open type tables

Special presentations proposed:

a. Sunil Abraham, Mahiti, Bangalore, would arrange for an IPR (cyber 
laws) lawyer Lawrence Liang, who would discuss the issue of OTF openness 
after understanding the Adobe & Microsoft agreement on release of the fonts.
b. Development of Otf from Ttf (Akruti) & other fonts experiences: 
Karunakar, Nagarjuna, Ravi Pande, Raj Kumar, Sayamindu???
c. Open/free software tools for Otf development: M Arun ?????

[Indic-computing-users] [Fwd: Application for participation to the First national OTF Workshop]

[Vijay P. S. A. <vi...@ek...>]

  Hi,

An interesting application for the workshop, worth sharing to explore 
common ideas...

vijay

-- 

Vijay Pratap Singh Aditya
ekgaon technologies
email: vi...@ek...
website: http://www.ekgaon.com



-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Application for participation to the First national OTF Workshop
Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2003 16:31:32 +0545
From: "Amar Gurung" <ama...@in...>
To: <vi...@ek...>



Name: Amar Gurung (Director), Nepali Font Standardization Project
Organization: Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya [MPP]
Email: ama...@in... 
<mailto:ama...@in...>   (www.mpp.org.np <http://www.mpp.org.np>)
Participation: Representing the organization
 
What we expect from the workshop
 

The Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya is a non-profit institution of 45 years 
standing, a respected repository of Nepali language and literature. It 
manages the largest archive in the Nepali language, and supports the use 
of Nepali for the social, economic and cultural advancement of all Nepalis.

 

The Pustakalaya, in accordance with this goal, has been involved in a 
project for Nepali Font Standardization, which means making the many 
Nepali fonts compatible by deciding on one coding standard. In its first 
(and current) phase, the Pustakalaya project has achieved the following:

 

1.       A Unicode-compatible Nepali font and corresponding keyboard driver.

2.       A customizable sorting utility for the Nepali language.

3.       A typing tutor software to be distributed freely.

4.       A Nepali font converter utility

 

 

For full details of the project please refer to our website. The 
completion of the first phase of work by the Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya 
lays the groundwork for the extensive usage of computing in the Nepali 
language. The standardization exercise will generate social dividends 
when software developers are spurred to develop applications in the vast 
area that opens up, from governance to administration, social and 
development work, in accounting, communications, education and so on.
 
However, we need to keep ahead with time and learn from other similar 
experiences. We believe the workshop you are organizing is the right 
platform for us to learn new things as well as share our experience with 
others.
 
Therefore I request you to accept our application to participate in the 
workshop. Myself and a collegue (Pawan chitrakar) from the technical 
team would like to attend your workshop.
 
Hope to hear from you soon regarding the above.
 
Thank you,
 
Amar Gurung

[Indic-computing-users] [Fwd: updates (Linux-Complete-Backup-and-Recovery-HOWTO, Secure-CVS-Pserver, Tamil-Linux-HOWT))]

[Sayamindu D. <unm...@So...>]

-----Forwarded Message-----

From: Greg Ferguson <gf...@sg...>
To: la <ann...@en...>, cc...@tr..., mo...@su..., ve...@ta...
Subject: updates (Linux-Complete-Backup-and-Recovery-HOWTO, Secure-CVS-Pserver, Tamil-Linux-HOWT))
Date: 18 Feb 2003 16:54:48 -0500

[....snipped]

Tamil Linux HOWTO
V. Venkataramanan  <ve...@ta...>
v1.0  2003-02-14

  Document will help set up a working Tamil Linux environment.
  
  * NEW
  http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Tamil-Linux-HOWTO/


______________________________________
for more info look at http://tldp.org/ 

-- 
Sayamindu Dasgupta [ http://www.peacefulaction.org/sayamindu/ ]

=========================================
Speak out on social and cultural issues
		at
	PeacefulAction.Org
    http://www.peacefulaction.org
*****************************************


Due to circumstances beyond your control, you are master of your fate
and captain of your soul.

[Indic-computing-users] Fwd: Re: OCR Help

[Swapnil K. <swa...@ya...>]

Note: forwarded message attached.


__________________________________________________
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Yahoo! Shopping - Send Flowers for Valentine's Day
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[Indic-computing-users] Fw: , Re: [Indlinux-group] ocr help

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

Fwding this to mail Indic computing list, where OCR issues are more
relevant.
Karunakar

Begin forwarded message:

Date: Sat, 15 Feb 2003 09:48:10 -0800 (PST)
From: Swapnil Khedekar <swa...@ya...>
To: ind...@li...
Subject: Re: [Indlinux-group] ocr help


Hi,

     I am Swapnil Khedekar, working as Research
Assistant in CEDAR, Buffalo NY. I saw you referencing
our research center on this list.

      Currently we are working on developing new
page-segmentation techniques & character seperation &
recognition techniques for Devanagari Script. 

      I & Surya are working on developing a Truthing
application for training Devanagari OCR systems. It
will be made public in March in Hydrabad.

      Apart from us, there is lot of work going on in
this are under RMK Sinha at IIT Kanpur & under BB
Chaudhari at Indian Statistical Institute Kolkata.
Also many small projects are going on in some uni &
companies.

      One commercial Devanagari OCR is called
"Chitrankan" by C-DAC. I had worked on this project,
when I was in Pune. It was our effort to make it as
professional & advanced as Finereader. 

     I think more work is needed in recognition
algorithms, designing new set of classifiers which can
be extended to other similar Indian scripts. Also very
less work has been done in Devanagari Handwriting
recognition. 

     That's all I have to say. I am regularly reading
this list. It is really good to see you all working. 

     I have less knowledge of linux internals. But
still, if I could have been of any use to you, it will
be my pleasure.

Swapnil


      
--- Guntupalli Karunakar <kar...@fr...>
wrote:
> On Thu, 13 Feb 2003 11:19:15 +0000 (GMT)
> SWAPNIL HAJARE <dre...@ya...> wrote:
> 
> > Hallo all,
> >   I am trying to develop an ocr for devanagari.I
> want
> > to use "pattern matching" for it. I've heard that
> IITM
> > have used the same for malyalam.Can anyone plz
> help in
> > this matter.
> 
> These provide some info on OCR for devanagari.
> 
> http://tdil.mit.gov.in/humis/ach-humis.htm
> http://www.cedar.buffalo.edu/ILT/
> 
> HTH
> 
> Regards,
> Karunakar
> 
> -- 
> Hating people is like burning down your house to get
> rid of a rat -
> Anon
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------
> * Indian Linux project, www.indlinux.org          *
> * Indic-Computing project, indic-computing.sf.net *
> ---------------------------------------------------
> 
> 
>
-------------------------------------------------------
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Hating people is like burning down your house to get rid of a rat -
Anon

---------------------------------------------------
* Indian Linux project, www.indlinux.org          *
* Indic-Computing project, indic-computing.sf.net *
---------------------------------------------------

Re: [Indic-computing-users] NEWS: International Open Source Network (localisation too)

[Sunil A. <su...@ma...>]

Dear All,

> Isa Seow <is...@ap...> informs us that the Asia-Pacific Development
> Information Programme (APDIP) has launched the International Open Source
> Network (IOSN), which will serve as a Centre of Excellence on Open Source
> technologies and applications. 
> For more information, please see http://www.apdip.net/iosn/default.asp

According to netcraft.com 
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?mode_u=off&mode_w=on&site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.apdip.net&submit=Examine
Operating System and Web Server for www.apdip.net
The site www.apdip.net is running Microsoft-IIS/5.0 on Windows 2000.  

Another case of 'blind leading the blind'. The consolation is that they
are moving in the right direction. So who will bell this cat?

Thanks,

Sunil

-- 
Sunil Abraham, CEO
MAHITI Infotech Pvt. Ltd.
'Reducing the cost and complexity of ICTs'
314/1, 7th Cross, Domlur
Bangalore - 560 071 Karnataka, INDIA
Ph/Fax: +91 80 4150580. Mobile: 98441 01150
su...@ma... http://www.mahiti.org

[Indic-computing-users] NEWS: International Open Source Network (localisation too)

[FN <fr...@by...>]

Open Source Network
-------------------

Isa Seow <is...@ap...> informs us that the Asia-Pacific Development
Information Programme (APDIP) has launched the International Open Source
Network (IOSN), which will serve as a Centre of Excellence on Open Source
technologies and applications. 

It will aid countries in sharing information on Open Source (OS), assist
with the development of needed toolkits and resource materials, support
"localization" efforts and, generally, help facilitate and co-ordinate OS
programmes and initiatives through networking. 

For more information, please see http://www.apdip.net/iosn/default.asp
-- 
 _____             _           _      _
|  ___| __ ___  __| | ___ _ __(_) ___| | __  Freelance Journo, Goa India
| |_ | '__/ _ \/ _` |/ _ \ '__| |/ __| |/ /  http://linuxinindia.pitas.com
|  _|| | |  __/ (_| |  __/ |  | | (__|   <   http://www.bytesforall.org
|_|  |_|  \___|\__,_|\___|_|  |_|\___|_|\_\  http://opennews.indianissues.org
--
Frederick Noronha * Freelance Journalist * Goa * India 832.409490 / 409783
Writing with a difference... on what makes *the* difference

[Indic-computing-users] A bit of history

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

Stumbled across this piece of history talking in early days of 8-bit
ascii.  See they were thinking about us even then!

(I dont know why I am procrastinating on my work on Google Groups
instead of doing it... ;)


Date: 18 Nov 1982 1603-PST
From: Pierre MacKay <MACKAY at WASHINGTON>
Subject: Range of ASCII, alias ISO 646-1973
To: LES at SU-AI
cc: Furuta at WASHINGTON, Binding at WASHINGTON,

Your 8 bit ASCII message of 10 Nov 1982, found its way to me by a
somewhat roundabout route, since I am not on the WorkS list, and,
given the size of my mail file as it is, I am hesitant to get there.

You underestimate the range of even 7-bit ASCII.  In conjunction
with the appropriate escape sequences from ISO 2022-1973, alias (for
all practical purposes) ANSI X3.41-1974, the good old 7-bit table
speaks several languages.  For instance:

        Greek---ISO 5428-1980 (I haven't actually seen this yet.

        Japanese---National standard C6220-1969 (katakana only, of
        course, and this, in the form JISCII is a true 8-bit code,
        with ASCII residing in columns 0..7 and katakana in columns
        10..13.

        Russian---GOST 13052-67, a dreadful aberration set up for
        the use of SO and SI coding, with the Cyrillic alphabet
        scrambled to match the visually similar Latin letters.  Why
        even a Commissar would want to do that to his own language
        is beyond me, but it is AUTHORITATIVE, under the
        circumstances.

The Arabic case is chaos.  There is no reason why a good, efficient
Arabic script coding table cannot be included in a 7-bit range.  I
am working with one now, but it is rather my own invention.  It
resembles some of the work done by ISO TC-46 and similar work done
at the Library of Congress.  There was a fine suggestion put forward
at Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, about two and a half years ago, but it came
to nothing, and a dreadful Moroccan notion, cobbled up out of a set
of linotype matrices now has a certain currency, in that it has been
registered, whatever that means, as Number 59, dated June 1, 1982
with ISO.  It includes 4 ISO 2022 escape sequences to identify G0,
G1, G2, and G3 graphic sets, but does not say what is to be done
with all these alternatives.  ECMA has plunged into the same waters
with an entirely different proposal, which may even be worse.  They
all seem to assume that all Arabic ligature forms must be shown in
the coding table, rather as if Don Knuth's TeX were to require the
elimination of the open and close brace character positions so that
you could code the double-f ligatures directly.  The implications of
microprocessor technology have not yet got through.

Urdu, Pashto and Sindhi would probably overload a 7-bit table, since
you are really dealing with two incompatible alphabets mashed into
one in those cases.  Malay and Chinese-Turkish (as seen on the lower
right corner of PRC banknotes) will fit.  Persian, of course will
fit easily, as will Ottoman Turkish, a language for which I have a
bizarre atavistic affection.  Western Europe and Hungary have
national versions of ISO 646 to account for heavily used
diacriticals.  I don't know about Czech, which is a bit overloaded.
Modern Turkish is a nice problem too.

I believe the Sanskrit-derived Indian languages would fit, and the
Tamil family would certainly fit in a 7-bit table.  Chinese, and
Japanese Kanji would not.  The Japanese use a manageable subset of
Chinese ideographs, and have already established a multi-bit code.
One proposal for Chinese uses the 94 cells available in the Graphic
area of ISO 646 in a three level code.  There are 94 books of 94
pages each of 94 characters each, or 94 to the third power possible
characters.  That should suffice even for Chinese.

                                        --Pierre MacKay

[Indic-computing-users] FLOSS for windows - on translation

[Niranjan R. <nir...@ma...>]

Sunil Abraham wrote:
>>Translation of software packages is time consuming and it would
>>be better if we dont tie the release of the distribution to such 
> 
> 
> I agree. This can be a huge effort. Let us aim for small victories in
> the start. Hopefully we should be able to contribute 'hindi' and
> 'kannda' Plone.org / Zope.org within the deadline.

Right.
Translation of software packages is not the proposed target of this 
project.

The suggestion was for translation of the introductory materials, and 
possibly some books and articles which explain Free and Open Source 
concepts and ideas. These translations would be needed and are a good 
starting point irrespective of this particular project.

Perhaps someone is already doing/done the FSF India introductory 
materials, books of RMS, any articles, books, speeches, presentations 
etc of relevant persons in any indian languages.

Interviews with relevant people.

some suggestions:

Siva Vaidhyanathan <http://homepages.nyu.edu/~sv24/Bio.html>
review of his books
- The Anarchist in the Library <http://homepages.nyu.edu/~sv24/>
- Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How 
It Threatens Creativity (New York: New York University Press, 2001)

Rishab Ghosh of FLOSS study: http://www.infonomics.nl/FLOSS/report/index.htm

Lawrence Lessig <http://lessig.org>

Eben Moglen <http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/>

Michael Hart of Project Gutenberg http://promo.net/pg/

RMS, Linus Torvalds, Bruce Perens etc. etc.

[Indic-computing-users] Re: Fwd: Re: [FSF-WG] FLOSS for windows - any progress?

[Sunil A. <su...@ma...>]

> Translation of software packages is time consuming and it would
> be better if we dont tie the release of the distribution to such 

I agree. This can be a huge effort. Let us aim for small victories in
the start. Hopefully we should be able to contribute 'hindi' and
'kannda' Plone.org / Zope.org within the deadline.

Thanks,

Sunil

On Sun, 2003-02-16 at 00:11, Meyarivan wrote:
> 
> > 
> > IMHO, I think someone would be doing India  a *great* favour if they could
> > translate GNUWin into *any* Indian language. But who would that *someone*
> > be? Of course, this is apart from Ravikant's ideas, which could also be
> > gone ahead with if Sarai sees potential for it.
> > 
> 
> It is probably a good idea to start with the following:
> 
> *	Software package compilation 
> 
> 	either original compilation or borrowed from
> 	OpenCD, GNUWin etc
> 
> 	the time required to test the software is
> 	considerable .. 
> 
> 
> *	Documentation
> 
> 	starting with simple documentation on the
> 	purpose of each software in atleast 2-3
> 	indian languages ( in paper )
> 
> 
> Translation of software packages is time consuming and it would
> be better if we dont tie the release of the distribution to such 
> efforts and continue with whats available right now. As the translated
> versions become available (through efforts from indic-computing, sarai..)
> we can incorporate them.
> 
> 
> 
-- 
Sunil Abraham, CEO
MAHITI Infotech Pvt. Ltd.
'Reducing the cost and complexity of ICTs'
314/1, 7th Cross, Domlur
Bangalore - 560 071 Karnataka, INDIA
Ph/Fax: +91 80 4150580. Mobile: 98441 01150
su...@ma... http://www.mahiti.org

[Indic-computing-users] Re: Fwd: Re: [FSF-WG] FLOSS for windows - any progress?

[Meyarivan <ma...@sa...>]

> 
> IMHO, I think someone would be doing India  a *great* favour if they could
> translate GNUWin into *any* Indian language. But who would that *someone*
> be? Of course, this is apart from Ravikant's ideas, which could also be
> gone ahead with if Sarai sees potential for it.
> 

It is probably a good idea to start with the following:

*	Software package compilation 

	either original compilation or borrowed from
	OpenCD, GNUWin etc

	the time required to test the software is
	considerable .. 


*	Documentation

	starting with simple documentation on the
	purpose of each software in atleast 2-3
	indian languages ( in paper )


Translation of software packages is time consuming and it would
be better if we dont tie the release of the distribution to such 
efforts and continue with whats available right now. As the translated
versions become available (through efforts from indic-computing, sarai..)
we can incorporate them.

[Indic-computing-users] Re: Indian translations

[FN <fr...@by...>]

Very interesting. Could any one on these lists take it forward? FN

On Fri, 14 Feb 2003, Bill Kendrick wrote:


> 
> Hi there!  I saw your comment on GNUWinII about translations to Indian
> languages.
> 
> I'm interested in having my Open Source application (which happens to be
> part of GNUWinII, as well), "Tux Paint" translated to Indian languages,
> if possible.
> 
>   http://www.newbreedsoftware.com/tuxpaint/
> 
> 
> Do you know anyone who could help?
> 
> So far, it's been translated into almost 25 other languages,
> including Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Greek.  (They've used UTF-8 encoding
> so far.  I think Unicode shouldn't be impossible.)
> 
> 
> Thanks in advance!
> 
> 

-- 
 _____             _           _      _
|  ___| __ ___  __| | ___ _ __(_) ___| | __  Freelance Journo, Goa India
| |_ | '__/ _ \/ _` |/ _ \ '__| |/ __| |/ /  http://linuxinindia.pitas.com
|  _|| | |  __/ (_| |  __/ |  | | (__|   <   http://www.bytesforall.org
|_|  |_|  \___|\__,_|\___|_|  |_|\___|_|\_\  http://opennews.indianissues.org
--
Frederick Noronha * Freelance Journalist * Goa * India 832.409490 / 409783
Writing with a difference... on what makes *the* difference

[Indic-computing-users] Re: Fwd: Re: [FSF-WG] FLOSS for windows - any progress?

[FN <fr...@by...>]

It's great that someone is starting somewhere! Over the past year, I've
found Sarai to be useful partners to work with when it came to
promoting/supporting Free Software. 

Incidentally, Niranjan sent me a set of 10 CDs (varied distros, including
GNUWin). I went through GNUWin and was absolutely amazed by the range of
software in that collection. Also, it does not overlook the 'ethical' and
'philosophical' side of Free Software, in favour of the technical
advantages.

IMHO, I think someone would be doing India  a *great* favour if they could
translate GNUWin into *any* Indian language. But who would that *someone*
be? Of course, this is apart from Ravikant's ideas, which could also be
gone ahead with if Sarai sees potential for it.

But translating GNUWin (even if only into Hindi or Hindi/Tamil for a
start) would be a great initiative. Wonder if someone from the
IndicComputing network could also help? There's a fair bit of translating
work to be done there. FN

On Fri, 14 Feb 2003, ravikant wrote:


> 
> Dear Niranjan,
> 
> Sarai will be happy to take up the project, independent of funding, etc. We 
> feel we have the infrastructure and the network to make and distribute 5, 000 
> cds to vendors and users, primarily in and around Delhi, but other areas as 
> well. This does not exclude the possibilty of any other group or individual 
> taking up the project and applying for the funding. The cds will be given out 
> free in both senses of the term.
> 
> What we may need is some voluntary contributions from translators in a couple 
> of South Indian langauges, say Tamil and Kannada. We have the resources to 
> translate manuals, etc. in hindi and Bangla. Alternatively, Sarai takes up 
> the distribution responsibilities for the north and somebody else, say FSF, 
> for the South? 
> 
> I agree with niranjan that we need to move as swiftly as we can.  We are 
> looking to a deadline in April to complete the selection of packages, burning 
> cds and translating manuals. 
> 
> Feedbacks, suggestions and and voluntary contributions are welcome. 
> 
> cheers
> ravikant
> www.sarai.net
> 
> 
> > >> Now what is the next step. Who will be the Manager for this effort
> > >>  ? (Some one should take the responsibility of followup with other
> > >>  or the effort will start dying).
> >
> > I hope by this time you have had someone to take care of or manage this
> > project. If not then we can safely forget about it, but if yes then a
> > faster and more vigorous activity is needed.
> >
> > I have actually talked to some possible donors, who are quite positive
> > to the idea, and could possibly contribute between and 1-2 lakh Rupees.
> >
> > So if this project is to be seen as promoting FLOSS as well as FSF, then
> > act fast.
> >
> > Since I am in Helsinki, and see my part of the deal as basically getting
> > some funding for you guys, please do not wait for my responses and go
> > ahead with whatever organizational method you have to realise this project.
> >
> > As said earlier, If you would like to pursue this, do make a preliminary
> > budget and a plan of action, describing in detail who will do what, and
> > how much will be spent on what. Once I have that paper, I will come back
> > with comments to make any changes if necessary and talk to the donors.
> >
> > FN wrote:
> > > Going a little off-track, could such support be sought also/instead
> > > for Prof Nagarajuna's long awaiting FLOSS-for-engineering-students
> > > distro? (This is a distro of useful FLOSS tools to be widely
> > > replicated and shared among engineering students in South Asia. You
> > > could imagine the impact this could have on the shaping of the
> > > thinking of a future generation). FN
> >
> > The donors can also be convinced about this
> > FLOSS-for-engineering-students project, if it is presented properly.
> >
> > However I would still think the first one is an easy start, and if you
> > manage to make enough money with it, you can then invest that money
> > further on the new project. If this project is successful, I could even
> > think of involving you guys (of course against a reasonable payment) in
> > a similar project which we are considering here in Finland.
> >
> > Just a note: here in Scandinavia, people are usually very thorough about
> > projects. If you do make a proposal, you have to try to think of all
> > possible questions and answer those *before someone asks for an answer*.
> > So make no presumptions, and clarify everything on paper.
> >
> > regards and good luck
> >
> > niranjan
> >
> > ###########################################
> > This message has been scanned by F-Secure Anti-Virus for Internet Mail.
> > For more information, connect to http://www.F-Secure.com/
> >
> > -------------------------------------------------------
> 

-- 
 _____             _           _      _
|  ___| __ ___  __| | ___ _ __(_) ___| | __  Freelance Journo, Goa India
| |_ | '__/ _ \/ _` |/ _ \ '__| |/ __| |/ /  http://linuxinindia.pitas.com
|  _|| | |  __/ (_| |  __/ |  | | (__|   <   http://www.bytesforall.org
|_|  |_|  \___|\__,_|\___|_|  |_|\___|_|\_\  http://opennews.indianissues.org
--
Frederick Noronha * Freelance Journalist * Goa * India 832.409490 / 409783
Writing with a difference... on what makes *the* difference

[Indic-computing-users] Viewing webpages in Malayalam

[FN <fr...@by...>]

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

Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 14:39:12 +0530
From: baiju m <ba...@ep...>
Subject: [fsug-calicut] Mozilla 1.3 Beta Released

 Hi, 

Mozilla 1.3 Beta Released : 

http://www.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla1.3b/ 

Now almost all Malayalam webpages can view, 
by just copying the fonts to $HOME/.fonts 
directory (and enter $fc-cache, once) 

When I tested this with alpha release Manorama 
has shown some problems, I have to select 
Latin-1 encoding from View menu. All other 
websites like 
keralakaumudi.com,deshabhimani.com,weblokam.com 
deepika.com and mangalam.com has rendered properly. Again mathrubhumi's
display is not perfect. 

I have created some free fonts with 
font-encodings of these fonts, it will be 
available from http://www.keralaindustry.org/malayalam 
(wait for few days) 

If you are trying to view deepika.com and mangalam.com cuncurrently by
using their karthika fonts. it will again make problem,  infact these two
are different encodings of same family fonts, so the free fonts  will
incorporate font-encoding! s of both in one font, so that you can view
both sites by using the same font. 

Regards, 
Baiju M 


_____________________________________________________________________ 

[Indic-computing-users] Re: [Indic-computing-devel] [Indic-Computing-announce] First National OpenType Font Workshop

[Krishnamurthy N. <kn...@ya...>]

Hi all,

My comments on OpenType

* This being an extension of TrueType, M$ and Adobe   
   hold patents on the format. So, though the format
is    published, it's not open. It may be possible, in
that   case, to develop open source tools to
create/edit
  opentype font files (such as extending pfaedit), but
   then M$ and Adobe always have the last say and may 
    have hidden extensions that only their
  tools would be able to handle.
* The rendering algorithms right now are embedded in  
   commecial tools such as M$'s Inscribe. So, they may
    even patent the rendering algorithms thus
  blocking any open source rendering tools.
* Now about the great advantages of the GSUB, GPOS    
   tables - something fundamental is being missed out 
  by all developers here : display rendering is
closely   tied with (keyboard) input and since Indian
  languages are phonetic, the mapping of input to     
   appropriate choice of glyphs, their relative       

  Moreover, the contextual positioning of various     
   glyphs, especially the mathras and dependent vowel 
    signs (more so with 'split vowel signs') is very
much   dependent on the input context of relevant
letters.

  Subtle contexts such as when a 'm' should be mapped 
   to an anuswara can't be specified with these GSUB  
    table rules at all.

  Though the documentation of GSUB tables says "The   
   text-processing client uses the GSUB data to manage
    glyph substitution actions", it's quite a bit of  
     burden on 'each' of the applications to figure
out      what glyph substitution to use when!

  Of the six types of glyph substitution, the one that
   is touted as the most powerful, "contextual        
    substitution", works on the context of surronding 
     glyphs and not the input context! And that's not
what   one looks for.

  All in all, every app has to bother about looking up
   the GSUB and GPOS tables to figure out various     
    substitions. So, no common library that will
  do the job (like pango/gtk).  

By contrast, the generic transliteration rules
framework for Indian languages that I developed and
presented in the Sep 2002 Indic-computing workshop
intelligently ties together the input sequence &
context with display rendering, with very
sophisticated facilities for context specification
(both input and display), glyph reordering and so on.
The C library, which is independent of any of the
input languages/scripts, is available in sourceforge,
along with sample rule files for four of the Indian
languages
(Hindi, Telugu, Tamil and Kannada).

About this upcoming OTF workshop/seminar : it's not
free and not related to open source projects. So, why
is it being advertised on indic-computing list which
is for open source development ?  

cheers,
Nagarajan



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[Indic-computing-users] [Indic-Computing] Text to speech software

[Vijay P. S. A. <vi...@ek...>]

Hi,

I came across a recent article (although not this one) about the work on 
"Vachak" by this company, a text to speech software launched by this 
company for Indian languages. There website is www.prologixsoft.com and 
are based in Lucknow. There contact email id is 
co...@pr.... The software is also supported on Linux. I 
have tested there online speech files (.wav files) and its really 
amazing. Might help the speech group people.

best

vijay

------------------
When your PC converses with you

By Royden D'Souza, Times News Network
The Times of India, New Delhi, India, December 7, 2002

Imagine villagers walking up to a PCO, dialling a number and having 
their e-mail read out to them in their language; visually challenged 
people surfing the Internet, and having web-page content read out to 
them in their mother-tongue; users phoning up a directory assistance, 
speaking in any of the 18 official Indian languages, or having your 
child taught daily by his/her favourite soft-toy.

Vaachak, a revolutionary text to speech software, created by Prologix 
Software Solutions Pvt Ltd of Lucknow, is the first ever software to 
translate Indian text in 18 Indian languages and even Romanised Hindi to 
clear, quality speech.

Vibhu Agarwal, president of Prologix, is obviously excited with 
Microsoft India expected to incorporate Vaachak in its latest version of 
Internet Explorer.

“The software’s synthesiser translates some 18 official Indian languages 
into clear electronic utterances in the desired Indian language, using 
the Indian Standard Code for Information Interchange (ISCII). What the 
user hears is clear and pleasant speech in a male or female voice."

"So, from having your e-mail read out to you through a sort of an e-Dak 
Seva, to having web-page content read out, to making your presentations 
more spiffy, Vaachak opens up an amazing world of options,” said Vibhu.

“Vaachak has a key role to play in e-governance, too, by enabling the 
transmission of important information and creating an administrative 
link with the inner-most reaches of a state, through the huge telephone 
network across India.” There are about 38 million telephone connections 
in the country, but only about 2 million Internet connections.

The government has so far sought to take the information revolution to 
rural India through IT Kiosks. However, this has been based on the 
premise that villagers are literate, know English, and have the time and 
money to access the Internet at such kiosks.

[Indic-computing-users] Tamil word processing...

[FN <fr...@by...>]

Some feedback from the Tamil computing world! FN

---------- Forwarded message ----------

Vanakkam Aravindh!

Of course I have no second doubt about Padhami's quality.  I went to 
Higgonbothms one day, and saw it on display.  It is really 
cool.........and I am definitely going to buy it, but not at this 
moment.  I do not know about other tamil word processors, but 
definitely this is a cool one, no second doubt.

Previously I was able to see a download version in your site, but the 
downloadable file link is not there nowadays.

Anbudan,
krupa

--- In tam...@ya..., "aravindh@c..." 
<aravindh@c...> wrote:
> Anbulla Kirupa!
> 
> In my openion Padhmai is the best choice.Try with a free trial 
version for
> 15 days.The cost is not much.
> 
> Think it over and write back to me if u need any trial version of
> padhami(free)
> 
> Anbudan
> Aravindan
> 
> 
> 
> Original Message:
> -----------------
> From: S. Krupa Shankar shankarkrupa@y...
> Date: Wed, 05 Feb 2003 17:44:39 -0000
> To: tam...@ya...
> Subject: [tamil-programers] Tamil word processing!
> 
> 
> Vanakkam!
> 
> Is there any tamil software that checks sandhi pizhai (of course 
not 
> any of those padhami, kamban, etc., rather something free)...
> 
> If not, could anyone of you tell me about a link to a good tamizh 
> site that teaches the Sandhi part (otru migudhal) of tamizh grammar?
> 
> Nandri.
> 
> Anbudan,
> krupa
> 
> 
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> tam...@eg...
> 
>  
> 
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to 
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> mail2web - Check your email from the web at
> http://mail2web.com/ .


To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
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Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ 

Re: [Indic-computing-users] Query on translation work

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

--- FN <fr...@by...> wrote:
> Could anyone help my friend Nitya Jacob in finding suitable translation
> facilities? What is the state of machine translation work being
> undertaken
> by IIIT-Hyderabad, if one recalls right? FN

There are few attempts of machine translation work in India.

Visit the following link for more details.
  http://www.tdil.mit.gov.in/mat/ach-mat.htm

- Keyur


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[Indic-computing-users] Query on translation work

[FN <fr...@by...>]

Could anyone help my friend Nitya Jacob in finding suitable translation
facilities? What is the state of machine translation work being undertaken
by IIIT-Hyderabad, if one recalls right? FN
PS: Nitya must apologise for the hurried end to the phone call. I was at
the police station paying a fine for wrong parking... ;-)

> Anyway, we need information on 2 things -
> 1. Who are the people in the country working on translation software and 
> Indian language fonts that is either affordable or cheap? OneWorld is 
> willing to put some money behind open source/OGL work so that it becomes 
> available to the community provided there are people doing this. We are 
> looking at a few languages, maybe 6, to begin with. Pls send me alist of 
> people or organisations you think are credible and worth approaching.
> 
> 2. Using the fonts they develop or something else that is immediately 
> availble, we will be translating material from Itrainonline and other 
> sources that is of use of Indian organisations. This will feature on the 
> OW support centre, at the moment empty.
> 
> Given this, we need to know about translators immediately!
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Nitya Jacob
> Regional coordinator
> OneWorld South Asia
> 1st floor
> C1/22 Safdarjung Development Area
> New Delhi - 110016
> India.
> t: +91-11-26612008, 26532430
> f: extn 30
> http://www.oneworld.net/southasia
-- 
 _____             _           _      _
|  ___| __ ___  __| | ___ _ __(_) ___| | __  Freelance Journo, Goa India
| |_ | '__/ _ \/ _` |/ _ \ '__| |/ __| |/ /  http://linuxinindia.pitas.com
|  _|| | |  __/ (_| |  __/ |  | | (__|   <   http://www.bytesforall.org
|_|  |_|  \___|\__,_|\___|_|  |_|\___|_|\_\  http://opennews.indianissues.org
--
Frederick Noronha * Freelance Journalist * Goa * India 832.409490 / 409783
Writing with a difference... on what makes *the* difference

[Indic-computing-users] [bytesforall_readers] Microsoft in Uttaranchal (fwd)

[FN <fr...@by...>]

Just fyi...

---------- Forwarded message ----------

First Microsoft's IT lab in Hindi launched in  Uttaranchal (6th Feb.,03)

Dehradun: Veteran  congress leader and  CM  Shri ND Tewari of  this
newly born state "Uttaranchal" has taken a lead  from other CM's by
cashing the Bill Gates visit  last year, when Tewariji  got the privilege
to meet this richest man  of the globe on breakfast meeting in Delhi.

As promised by Gates to CM to have their presence in the state soon, 6th
February,03 became an important day for the IT community of  the state
when Microsoft launched two important projects  here.

CM inaugurated  the first Hindi Lab of the country and project Shiksha
was also  launched here on Thursday, both the projects  are a JV of
Uttaranchal Govt. and Microsoft.

The MOU regarding establishing  the first IT Hindi lab in Doon Valley
was signed  between CM and  Group Manager of Microsoft Shri Shailnder
Kumar.

Hope, this  will  bring a IT savvy  image for Mr. CM as well as  this 
Himalayan state.


By Anil Jaggi
Dehradun


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Re: [Indic-computing-users] why_OTF : Can txt file be in txt format

[Vijay P. S. A. <vi...@ek...>]

>
>
>Today's Topics:
>
>   1. why_OTF : Can txt file be in txt format. (jitendra)
>
>Why Opentype?
>
>Background
>----------------
>
>Any language is written using a script. A script - writing system - is collection of graphical shapes/symbols evolved over time and usually represent a distinct sound/idea/thing. These basic shapes are also called letter/aplhabet/character. 'Character' is widely used one in computer terminology.  This graphical shape for characters in digital typography terms called a glyph. And Font is a collection of glyphs with similar style. Glyph data is either a bitmap of the shape or set of points drawing the outline of the glyph. 
>
>The collection of characters for a script is called the characterset. To use the script on computers, which does all processing in bits&bytes, each character is assigned a numeric code (called  code point or character code ) giving us a character encoding. The codes are usually 7bit, 8bit or 16bit and usually decided upon by countries where language is used majorly and accepted by standard bodies like ISO, Unicode or BIS(indian). For some characters in Devanagari:  क ख ग घ अ आ इ ई 
>
>Issues with TrueType
>----------------------------
>
>TrueType font stores font data in tables, one of which is the CMAP table (character to glyph mapping). For 8bit fonts this table is 8bit & therefore has a limit that it can only have maximum of 256 glyphs. Though of this 256 spaces only abt 190-200 is actually avialable for glyphs, as rest is occupied by control codes.
>
>This is a problem wrt Indic scripts as they have apart from basic character set (around 60-100 unique characters - ie consonants, vowels, vowel matras, punctuation/marks etc), they have large no of consonant vowel combinations, conjuncts (2 or more consonants combining), usually in 200-1000 or more. eg For devanagari we have
>
>35 consonants, 16 vowels so theoritically we would have
>35*35 + 35*16 = 1225 + 560 = 1785
>
>1785 glyphs cannot be put in a 8bit TTF font. This number can be reduced by studying roots of the script & making few compromises on conjuncts to be used. An obvious solution is break down the script elements in to glyph parts, which can be combined to give required shapes
>
>One simplification that is evident is that glyphs for consonant-vowel combinations are not needed & can be done with just using a basic set of consonants and vowel matras ( so 35+16+16 = 77 ). Most consonant conjuncts are half forms, so by just having half form.
>
> i)  Large glyph set needs to be reduced to 190-200
> ii) A mapping function for converting characters to glyphs is needed.
>     Here we will have 1-to-1, 1-to-many , many-to-1 mappings.
> iii) Appropriate rendering features to give proper positioning.
>
>With a 8bit TTF after making few compromises in no of conjuncts, glyphset can be brought to 190-200 range. But now glyphs are not accessed by character codes, but glyph codes or font encoding - so-so glyph given so-so code , which can vary from font to font. But complexity increases in step ii.
>
>Step (i) is domain of font designer, but (ii) & (iii) have to be done by application developer. He has to write a library or api interface to take care of (ii) & (iii). This library will be used where ever there is need for script processing & display. This library could be used universally in many applications, if the font encoding is fixed. So then many fonts would work with same library.
> But unfortunately the current situation is such that there is no standardized font encoding, with font vendors having different encodings & application developers adopding different approaches for script processing. 
>
>Step (i) could be avoided by having a 16bit table for character to glyph mapping. Then there is scope of having a large glyph set. This is what a Unicode font gives. It provides basic range for script and a private area in which one can put his own stuff. But still there is no standard access mechanism, which could simplify (ii) & (iii). Script processing logic & language details have still to be known by application developer & so also much of font stuff is to be hard coded into the application or the library as said above.
>
>Also if (i)-(iii) could be achieved in some way it doesnt relieve the burden of programmer of knowing language processing detail nor does it easy job of font designer or give him flexibilty to prove his creativity. Also there is an interdependence between font designer & programmer with Unicode fonts job of font designer can be made little easy but not enough to make him & programmer independent.
>
>All this can be made easy if we have 
>- Font access mechanism which is not dependent on font encoding but character encoding
>- Can provide for large glyph set
>- Some way to keep mapping information within the font.
>- Script processing available as a library with simple api to access such fonts & do text rendering.
>
>And this is all what OpenType format provides and more. OpenType is an extension to TrueType , and uses Unicode as standard for character encoding. It also provides additional tables for defining rich set of mappings between characters and glyphs. It also provides for a having a large glyph set and even glyph varaints. All the features provided by OpenType format can be made use by having a application independent, preferable system level library with a api interface usable by applications.
>
>For Indic script processing OpenType tables like GSUB (glyph substitution) and GPOS (glyph positioning) gives font designer to define his rules on what conjuncts or combinations could be made available. Application programmer is relieved of the burden of knowing all the linguistic part. Also OpenType sort of makes the concept of glyph standard or font encoding standard redundant, again giving font vendors freedom to follow their own glyph setsand not really affecting the application. To summarize OpenType provides lot of benifits to Indic computing and also renders redundant some issues faced in Indic computing.
>
>
>  
>

RE: [Indic-computing-users] why_OTF : Can txt file be in txt format.

[Andy W. <And...@bt...>]

Jitendra wrote:

> Nice to hear about the OTF meet in Banglore.
> The attachement (in announcement of OTF meet) of Karunakar's 
> 'why_otf.txt' was not legibel. Can the same be put up once 
> again. Jitendra
> 
Here you are (see below).

Andy



Why Opentype?

Background
----------------

Any language is written using a script. A script - writing system - is
collection of graphical shapes/symbols evolved over time and usually
represent a distinct sound/idea/thing. These basic shapes are also
called letter/aplhabet/character. 'Character' is widely used one in
computer terminology.  This graphical shape for characters in digital
typography terms called a glyph. And Font is a collection of glyphs with
similar style. Glyph data is either a bitmap of the shape or set of
points drawing the outline of the glyph. 

The collection of characters for a script is called the characterset. To
use the script on computers, which does all processing in bits&bytes,
each character is assigned a numeric code (called  code point or
character code ) giving us a character encoding. The codes are usually
7bit, 8bit or 16bit and usually decided upon by countries where language
is used majorly and accepted by standard bodies like ISO, Unicode or
BIS(indian). For some characters in Devanagari:  ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

Issues with TrueType
----------------------------

TrueType font stores font data in tables, one of which is the CMAP table
(character to glyph mapping). For 8bit fonts this table is 8bit &
therefore has a limit that it can only have maximum of 256 glyphs.
Though of this 256 spaces only abt 190-200 is actually avialable for
glyphs, as rest is occupied by control codes.

This is a problem wrt Indic scripts as they have apart from basic
character set (around 60-100 unique characters - ie consonants, vowels,
vowel matras, punctuation/marks etc), they have large no of consonant
vowel combinations, conjuncts (2 or more consonants combining), usually
in 200-1000 or more. eg For devanagari we have

35 consonants, 16 vowels so theoritically we would have
35*35 + 35*16 = 1225 + 560 = 1785

1785 glyphs cannot be put in a 8bit TTF font. This number can be reduced
by studying roots of the script & making few compromises on conjuncts to
be used. An obvious solution is break down the script elements in to
glyph parts, which can be combined to give required shapes

One simplification that is evident is that glyphs for consonant-vowel
combinations are not needed & can be done with just using a basic set of
consonants and vowel matras ( so 35+16+16 = 77 ). Most consonant
conjuncts are half forms, so by just having half form.

 i)  Large glyph set needs to be reduced to 190-200
 ii) A mapping function for converting characters to glyphs is needed.
     Here we will have 1-to-1, 1-to-many , many-to-1 mappings.
 iii) Appropriate rendering features to give proper positioning.

With a 8bit TTF after making few compromises in no of conjuncts,
glyphset can be brought to 190-200 range. But now glyphs are not
accessed by character codes, but glyph codes or font encoding - so-so
glyph given so-so code , which can vary from font to font. But
complexity increases in step ii.

Step (i) is domain of font designer, but (ii) & (iii) have to be done by
application developer. He has to write a library or api interface to
take care of (ii) & (iii). This library will be used where ever there is
need for script processing & display. This library could be used
universally in many applications, if the font encoding is fixed. So then
many fonts would work with same library.
 But unfortunately the current situation is such that there is no
standardized font encoding, with font vendors having different encodings
& application developers adopding different approaches for script
processing. 

Step (i) could be avoided by having a 16bit table for character to glyph
mapping. Then there is scope of having a large glyph set. This is what a
Unicode font gives. It provides basic range for script and a private
area in which one can put his own stuff. But still there is no standard
access mechanism, which could simplify (ii) & (iii). Script processing
logic & language details have still to be known by application developer
& so also much of font stuff is to be hard coded into the application or
the library as said above.

Also if (i)-(iii) could be achieved in some way it doesnt relieve the
burden of programmer of knowing language processing detail nor does it
easy job of font designer or give him flexibilty to prove his
creativity. Also there is an interdependence between font designer &
programmer with Unicode fonts job of font designer can be made little
easy but not enough to make him & programmer independent.

All this can be made easy if we have 
- Font access mechanism which is not dependent on font encoding but
character encoding
- Can provide for large glyph set
- Some way to keep mapping information within the font.
- Script processing available as a library with simple api to access
such fonts & do text rendering.

And this is all what OpenType format provides and more. OpenType is an
extension to TrueType , and uses Unicode as standard for character
encoding. It also provides additional tables for defining rich set of
mappings between characters and glyphs. It also provides for a having a
large glyph set and even glyph varaints. All the features provided by
OpenType format can be made use by having a application independent,
preferable system level library with a api interface usable by
applications.

For Indic script processing OpenType tables like GSUB (glyph
substitution) and GPOS (glyph positioning) gives font designer to define
his rules on what conjuncts or combinations could be made available.
Application programmer is relieved of the burden of knowing all the
linguistic part. Also OpenType sort of makes the concept of glyph
standard or font encoding standard redundant, again giving font vendors
freedom to follow their own glyph setsand not really affecting the
application. To summarize OpenType provides lot of benifits to Indic
computing and also renders redundant some issues faced in Indic
computing.

[Indic-computing-users] why_OTF : Can txt file be in txt format.

[jitendra <jit...@vs...>]

Nice to hear about the OTF meet in Banglore.
The attachement (in announcement of OTF meet) of Karunakar's
'why_otf.txt' was not legibel.
Can the same be put up once again.
Jitendra