84 Marathi Sahitya Sammelan (Literature Meet)

    Attended Marathi Sahitya Sammelan yesterday (27-12-2010) to meet and talk with people who create lots of content in Marathi Language in Thane. Following are the observations.

1) There is lots of content/books available in Marathi language, This covers almost  all the topics.  As compare to Last years Pune Sahitya Sammelan, In thane very few software/web development stall was available.

2) Digitization of these books is necessary activity, but due to cost of digitization
most of the books are still not digitized. I think OCR will be very helpful in this case.

3) Mostly people used InDesign on Windows for books, and they are still using 8-bit (non Unicode) fonts for it.

4) There was presentation about Unicode on Sunday and i missed it :(, While talking with some people i understood it covered most of the topic like how to enable Marathi on Windows, Linux. Enabling windows on Marathi shown with practical but Linux was not shown. Good thing is now users are aware of word Unicode but i think there is some misconceptions about it, people covers so many things under the name of Unicode ;)

5) I got one handout, it was about how to enable Marathi on windows and Ubuntu 9.10. for Ubuntu 9.10 it was about Installing Marathi Language support and selecting keyboard from Keyboard Preferences Tab (XIM)
In Fedora 14, Now there is no need to select even keyboard layout as well for your language, just select your language while log-in in GDM, ibus will auto detect your layout for your language, and by default it will enable all.

No one aware about this, i updated them about this and hopefully in there next release they will update notes about fedora as well.

6) I had a chat with Marathi Abhyas Kendra on recent development in Fedora i.e Updated in Lohit, Keyboards, Enhanced Inscript. One good point was they are Planning to host competition for Marathi font deigning i really appreciated that and agreed to give full support for same. Even today we do not have much active community around font development hopefully with such event people will be aware of font development process and start contributing.

Attended some talks on Marathi Libraries problems and possible improvements. One speaker (sorry forgotten name :() said agree that each person cant by iPAD/digital book reader but might be we can keep 5-10 ipad in each library and let people use them in library. this will be also a good start. He mentioned about Amazon.com that they not only sell soft copies but also courier the hard copies of book on demand as well.

The best thing i heard was he said don't give anything free to users, if we give it free user's does not value it well, always charge at least some/very little fee for same.

Attended one traditional dance event as well.

With respect to fedora
We are doing so much development for end-users/community, but sad to say very few are aware about it. Users are living in there own world. We should really start to do some event for people, who are developing contents in regional language, let them aware about to latest development happening in language technology. Try to bring them back from Windows proprietary world to open source collaborative world of Linux Fedora. I will be very happy to see  and contribute to such events. I talked with some people on how we can reach these users and answer was to media/new papers/press conference are the best way to let them know what are the available stuffs.

Looks like lohit is first open source indic font to support locale feature

I was just checking is there any other open source indic fonts, supporting locl opentype feature, but i did not found any other.

In Lohit now we have locl feature, so we have added locale specific shapes for Nepali Language.

One can test this by Typing "क्र" in gedit or in firefox, open this file with firefox ro gedit in ne_NP locale and see same with any other locale as well.

One can easily observe shape difference. There are some difference in uses of Devanagari in each language, will be good if we get some document about this  difference we will happy to implement it in lohit.

problem not able to open office format 2007 in office 2003

    This problem can always happen, i.e. we sent document in one format and person cant able to use/open it. So i suggest all please use open format whose specification are open and any operating system developer can easily add support for it.

     We can always use .pdf format it is open and any person receive it, no need to by Windows Operating System or MS Office just to open it. If we use .pdf it can be open on Linux, Mac and in Windows as well and even most of the smart phone now has ability to open pdf.

    Alternatively use openoffice (OpenSource office suite) it is available for Windwos, Linux and Mac as well. It uses open format like .odt. Its storage specification are open and any application can easily add support to open it without paying anyone any royalty.  Unlike .doc is proprietary format its specification are not open so no office suite can offer to open it, and with hack to .doc they cant give proper support for .doc.

    Communication standards must be always open without dependencies on particular company's format, Think for a language we speak, if we need to pay royalty to some company for each word of language we speak then what will happen?  .doc is Microsoft proprietary format.

    Might be it will difficult for people to switch to openoffice, but atleast everyone can use feature provided in openoffice, i.e. export to pdf. So you can open your document, export it to pdf and then send it via mail.  (http://download.openoffice.org/)


"www is open standards that why we can open any html page with any internet browser or any application on any OS. Anyone can implement it as it is open standard"
"At least we can start with  using pdf for communication"

looks like history is repeating itself!!

looks like history is repeating again the same way Microsoft took most market share, since they were just providing Software and  most of the hardware use that and increased their market share and Apple was pushing there excellent software with Hardware. At the End Microsoft won.

Now same way Goggle is providing only Android OS and all the Manufacturer using this OS (Sony, Samsung, HTC, Dell) so their market share is increasing very fast, On the Other Hand iPhone and Nokia pushing client for OS with Hardware. I think it is hard time to think them for their strategy for more market penetration or competing with Android.

Android shares are increasing

Fedora 14 boot from USB/Pen drive is great one to move windows user to Fedora for at least 10 to 20 minutes minimum

    USB Pen Drives are cheaper now days 1/2 GB cost something around 200/300 rupees, and every computer users now at least have one with them. So this feature has a good number of potential users.

     In past i have met many windows users, they like Fedora lot and even want to try it. But the main problem they are facing is how they can do it on there existing windows system. And options were dual bit (risk of data loss and need to install on existing harddisk), Virtualization ( but it does not give food speed) so both has some problem. Even if i wanna do this for them is very time consuming and that why even though i am interested not got a much time to do this for them.

    But now its excellent time i can just burn live ISO to there pen-drive and then they can use and even demonstrate excellent Fedora to other. The best thing even after burning ISO to pendrive we can still use it as a storage for other required file, it will not affect its booting stuff.

    Here i would like to suggest fedora users, always keep Fedora-Live iso on your machine, and whenever any windows user get interested in Fedora do give him his own Fedora OS with him he can play.

    One improvement is possible here to make one fedora live iso with openoffice (libreoffice) as well, yes agree it has limitation since one cant burn it on CD due to size limitation, but it has scope for use on PenDrive since size now days 1GB and more so one can easily use that. I am making this point since if we wanna stick new user some more time in Fedora live OS then he need officesuite as well for playing.

worked on Meera font today!! (waiting harfbuzz very eagarly)

finally resolved (at least with my testing) Meera Fonts bug https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=616324

ohh, what a day!!
was trying to resolve this problem
initially thought it will be easier one, just will increase kern for U+0d4d characters, and whenever it will followed by U+200C in will just make it kern to minus.
mine test cases are
1) ക്  (U0d15 U0d4d) should leave proper space, when it will be last character of word (presently chandrakala/virama is getting cut)
2) ക്‌ക (U0d15 U0d4d U200c U0d15) when virama/chadrakala will be followed by 200c it should use present kern to get form in word

so tried first dist feature first,
1) increased kern of U+0d4d and
2) added pair positioning for "U+0d4d  ZWNJ" with dist flag kerning
was working well when i was debugging in fonts but failed when was testing with pango :(

next try was
then added ligature and was trying to bring that ligature when someone type
Cons + 0d4d + 200C
but again it failed in pango :(
tested same in Open Office and it was working there fine, with some more trial understood that pango is not considering 200c for contextual comparison
so writing rule i.e when U+0d4c is preceded by ZWNJ will not work in pango

next try
since it was need to increase kern of virama only when it will be last character of word,
and luckily while trying contextual feature found {Everything Else} group, so used this one
and it worked perfectly in pango :)
but again problem, it was not working in oowriter

so added both 2nd and third solution in font for making it work with oowriter and gnome
link for
1) scratch build is available on http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/taskinfo?taskID=2353995
2) modified source file is @ http://pravins.fedorapeople.org/Meera.sfd
3) binary file for testing @ http://pravins.fedorapeople.org/Meera.ttf
4) patch: http://pravins.fedorapeople.org/bug-616324.patch   

dont know how dream of harfbuzz will come true, and will make font engineers life easy

New Released Liberation Fonts!!

Just done 1.06.0 release of Liberation Fonts.

Highlights are:
1) New family added to Liberation-Narrow Fonts (Thanks to Herbert Duerr for contributions)

2) Some changes from releasing side

Now releasing source tar ball as well, so if someone want to build from source can use this tar ball.

If someone want to direct use ttf file, he can download Binary(ttf) tarball, and use it directly.

Added TODO list as well for next release :)

1) resolving bug related with hinting
    - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=606217
    - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=591556
2) shape improvement
    - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=591559
    - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=487581
3) Ascent Descent Values Improvement
    - using absolute values instead of relative values in OS/2 table
4) RFE: Add Greek Polytonic support to Liberation fonts
    - need some volunteer to add these shapes
    - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=473842

 really reproducing these hinting bugs is big task for me

Will build it for fedora tomorrow

Added New Indian Rupee symbol — INR to Lohit Devanagari

Friday saw the news on new symbol for INR, i felt really happy since the prevoious one U+20A8 ₨ was based on latin shortname for Rupees, and never it was looking like symbol. Just capital R and small S combination.

That's why it was really less in use, and many people were not aware of this. While checking in locale i found this one only used in en_IN locale. Other locale were using locale initial for rupees. i.e in Marathi and Hindi रु. was used for currency symbol. Same for Other language in there own script.

Standardization is really favourite topic of mine and really with this one we can standardize INR symbol.


Now all developers are waiting to get Unique Code Point for this symbol. i.e Unicode Value. We have for all other currency symbols see http://unicode.org/charts/PDF/U20A0.pdf

I am strongly recommend to add this symbol also on same Unicode code page.

in excitement /me also added this characters in lohit devanagari fonts and committed to upstream svn :)

Since no Unicode values is assigned to this, there is no standard for typing or storing this character.

I just added so if any person want to give reference to this symbol can easily use lohit fonts and do so

I have added this character on U+E000, which is unicode private user area.

So anyone want to type and use this characters just enter U+E000 with any method you know or ask me here :)

This is private use area so we can use this for any general purpose, please note when we will get actual value we just need to replace U+E000 with the new unicode value, thats it

I saw some people http://blog.foradian.com/ added new INR symbol on ` location, but this is one kind of unicode spoofing.

Since in actual storage you are going to store ` (U+0060) and whenever you want to type ` character you will only get new INR symbol.


So this is wrong thing and i recommend to use some private user area location, so it will not conflict with existing Unicode Encoding Standard

Download Lohit Font with addition of new INR symbol at U+E000

for more information about Lohit project see  see https://fedorahosted.org/lohit/

Recent fixes to hi.remignton mim file

This is just update regarding the Typewriter Remington keyboard for Devanagari,
2-3 months back there was request on OT list regarding problems they are facing while using Remington keyboard, and they were shifting to windows just due to this.
http://mm.glug-bom.org/pipermail/linuxers/Week-of-Mon-20100329/069909.html

"Please tell me how to type "आप" using regington keyboard
Also, in window, I use to type  "shift h  + k + w +  [ + k  " for writing Bhookh भूख
But in Linux Fedora + IBUS + Remington, I HAVE to type
"shift h  + backspace + w +  [ + backspace "
This is giving us a lot of un-comfort and our whole organization is migrating on windows again just because of this problem."

when me and parag tested same got to know that this was happening since Remington keyboard mim file was written in one-to-one key mapping and there was no intelligence for handling these things. And one need to learn new things while migrating from typewriter to Computer typing.

Parag worked on it, and presently it is in good shape, and same is now available in upstream :)
just file a bug against fedora, so now it will be now available default to user from Fedora 13 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=591810

I think it will be good if people listen from such mailing list and report bugs to appropriate package, so person related with it can work and fix it quickly.

Updates on W3C conference, May 6-7

It was really good experience to attend w3c conference (http://w3cindia.in/conf-site/conference-index.htm) . Most of the people including Dr. Jeffrey Jaffe, CEO W3C were present at the conference, representative's from Google, IBM, Microsoft, Red Hat (me), Opera and many were there.

Hats of to Ms. Swaran Lata madam (Head TDIL Prog.,DIT & Country Manager, W3C India Office) the way she handled two day conference by listening everyone and assuring action from W3C India Office and from TDIL. There were presentations on research topic's.
The main research topics were

1) Web Accessibility for Disable (Dr. Mohan Dewan made a good point saying able vs disable. He said "disable" is not the good word it should be "differently able", Ms. Shilpi Kapoor made to attention on there are many people who need's improvement from accessibility perspective example given like many people have specs, also there are large number of people can't here properly in some extent. etc.)

2) Web For mobile is also one, and there is limitation on screen resolution when accessing web. Idea of having different web sites as per device is really bad. Also there was suggestion i.e. it will be good if there some kind of mechanism so that server will understand clients resolution/device type and deliver web site in that form to client.

3) WAV: Voice Access to Web Information for Masses , Dr. Om Deshmukh, IBM India. suggested there are lots of challenges in this area. and need some standardization.

I presented on need for standardization and issues related to Unicode in conference.
Standardization: Web should be render same,  no matter what browser of what Operating System. It need some standard guideline from language and script perspective.

And need for free and opensource basic components for 22 Official Indian  Languages, and TDIL or W3C should start a portal for same, it should be done in open source way. May be we can add basic components for M$ and Apple Mac as well there.

Since Inaugural Session took long time in first days as ministers were late due to some other activity. Technical Session got a very minimum time. I was expected 20 min. for my session but got only 12-13 min. So could not able to give demo. of UTRRS and Unicode Issues. But after presentation got some good comments from audience so i think my message got delivered well in small time.

Really chair person's had a hard time to finish all speaker's talk within a given specific time ;)

I think there will be now different meeting/discussion from W3C India office as per topic and interested people, as W3C involves in lot of different things.

from Left Me, Mr Klaus Birkenbihl (W3C Offices Head), Dr. Somnath Chandra (Scientist-D)
from Right Dr. Phil Archer (W3C Mobile Lead),   Dr. Jeffrey Jaffe (CEO W3C), Dr. Richard Ishida (W3C Internationalization Head), Ms. Swaran Lata madam