On Saturday 18 May 2002 02:21, Nadav Har'El wrote:
> On Fri, May 17, 2002, Moshe Zadka wrote about "Re: official hebrew in 
Linux-IL mailing lists?":
> > On Fri, 17 May 2002, "Nadav Har'El" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > If he knew of this thread, Eli'ezer Ben-Yehuda (are you a relative of
> > > his? :)) would be turning in his grave :(
> >
> > Yes. Because Eli'ezer didn't whine. He went out there and wrote patches.
>
> MosheZ, it sounds like you're playing the devil's advocate here.
> It sounds like you don't claim you don't want this list to be in Hebrew,
> but rather that you don't want Hebrew to be used on Linux, EVER.
>
> Please don't pretend you don't understand why some people would prefer to
> write Hebrew messages here. Have you never seen people that know basic
> English but find it hard to express themselves well in that language? I
> know many university students that even find it difficult to read long
> English letters, and have English articles translated for them; These
> people are not stupid or illiterate - they just know Hebrew much better
> than their basic English.
>
> Also, please don't pretend that while the iso8859 (8 bit) encodings are
> still alive it is possible to use Hebrew without any configuration - after
> all, how is your mail client, xterm or console going to know that the 8bit
> email you're reading is in Hebrew and not in Swedish?
>
> Also, please don't pretend that's it's impossible, or even very hard to
> set up your system to read and write Hebrew. It shouldn't be harder than
> setting up your (say) modem. In a perfect world, you'd even have a set of
> RPMs (or DEBs or whatever) that installing them would give you
> out-of-the-box Hebrew support (that's what I hoped ivrix.org.il will
> achieve, but so far this hasn't happened).

this might be a good place to tell you guys about something we are starting 
these days.

we call it LinBrew, and the target is a native Hebrew distro. 
we planned on telling people about LinBrew in a few weeks, when we actually 
have something to show for, but maybe we should check for some feedbacks on 
such a project at this early stage.
the project website : http://linbrew.sourceforge.net
the forums : 
http://whatsup.org.il/modules.php?op=modload&name=Forum&file=index&viewcat=6

please visit those links and let us know what you think. this is also a good 
place to join and contribute, for everyone interested.

tal.



>
> Of course, that assumes that you're open to embracing the newer Hebrew-
> supporting software. If you insist on using an X11 installation from 1992
> (I think that was the last time the "heb8x13" font wasn't included in the
> default installation), insist on using "joe" (which doesn't have Hebrew
> support, according to you), insist on connecting to your Linux through the
> serial port and a English/Swedish VT100 terminal - well you're out of luck.
> But if you're really interested in reading or writing Hebrew, it isn't that
> terribly difficult to set it up.
>
> All the pieces of advice on how to use Hebrew on Linux have been floating
> around on the ivrix-discuss list (and also in this list). Tzafrir has a
> good FAQ about this subject. Note that 90% of the advice in there isn't
> necessary for a functioning Hebrew system - Tzafrir just likes to cover
> all the bases (which is good).
>
> > This is stupid. I don't have to install any program to read swedish,
> > do I? I realize it is harder to patch existing code, but if you want
> > to push an agenda, you should not insist everybody spend their precious
> > time to help you push it.
>
> Of course you need to install a program to read Swedish! If you don't use
> utf8 (I assume you don't), do you think that taking a 8-bit Swedish file
> and "cat"ing it would just show you the Swedish characters? (actually, I
> don't even know if Swedish has characters that are not in Latin1... I
> assume there are, otherwise your example is completely unfair)
>
> So you'd need to run "xterm -fn some-swedish-supporting-font", you'd need
> your editor to let you type those extra Swedish characters (assuming there
> are such), and so on... Maybe it's slightly easier than setting up Hebrew,
> but Hebrew's "right-to-left" writing is undeniably a bigger problem than
> Swedish's extra 2 characters (again, assuming there are some... If not,
> just replace "Swedish" by a more appropriate example).
>
> > > So reading Hebrew email is easy.
> >
> > As long as you want to configure your mailer on every system you
> > use.
>
> Every system you use? Do you seriously mean to suggest that your read your
> mail on many different systems, and each has a completely different
> OS and configuration? If that is the case, your mail synchronization
> troubles and plain-old configuration troubles are probably worse than your
> Hebrew troubles.
>
> > Ah, but I don't want to write a Hebrew message -- you want to have the
> > official list be Hebrew only, which means I'll have to in order to send
> > mail to linux-il.
>
> It wasn't me who wanted the list to be Hebrew-only. In fact I said I
> prefered the list to stay English! So please don't put words in my mouth.
>
> > > How difficult is that?
> >
> > Extremely. My brain is wired for one editor, using anything else
> > requires concious thought. I prefer to waste my brainpower on the
> > content, not on fighting with my editor.
>
> Very well then.
>
> But I find it very strange that as an Hebrew-speaking Israeli living in
> Israel you don't want to be able to at least be able to read (if not write)
> emails in Hebrew. I know that in several occasions (work, social occasions,
> etc.) I *had* to read and write Hebrew emails, and being able to do that on
> the Solaris server I use (nothing I mentioned is Linux-specific!) and my
> Linux machine came in very handy.
>
> > I DON'T WANT TO WRITE IN HEBREW. Is that hard to understand?
>
> No, but why is it so hard to understand that other people (myself NOT
> included, so don't blaim me) DO want to write in Hebrew? If you don't
> want to read what they write, then so be it.
>
> The only legitimate reason I can see to request people not to write in
> Hebrew when they prefer to do so is because some of this list's members do
> not understand Hebrew at all (be they foreigners, immigrants, Arabs,
> Iranians, or any other English-speaker that has always been welcome here).
> This is one of the reasons I prefer this list to stay officially English.
> Another reason is that it is simply more convenient for me to write in
> English (in reading, both languages are equally convenient for me).
>
> > > I occasionally write and read Hebrew emails, and it's not hard.
> >
> > For you.
>
> And so it will be for you, if you wanted (I know you a bit, you're not as
> stupid as you are pretending to be :)). If you don't want - well, than
> that's ok - nobody will force you to read these Hebrew messages. But next
> time your boss, girlfriend, friend, or who-knows-who sends you a personal
> email in Hebrew and your system isn't set up to read them or reply - you'll
> be sorry.
>
> > > I'd personally prefer to
> > > continue writing on the English list (but I don't mind reading both).
> >
> > And read crossposted threads twice? Oh, now, I forget, you'll just hack
> > your procmail. Well, wooptedoo, some of us have better things to do
> > then fiddle with our e-mail.
>
> Crossposted? Do you mean somebody will actually go ahead and translate
> messages? No, I don't think this would happen.
> People will not be allowed to post Hebrew messages to the English list and
> vice versa (how exactly to do that technically is something that should be
> considered).
>
> > > As a sidenote, one of the best ways to get people to work on Hebrew
> > > support is to "make" them need to use it, see how inconvenient it is
> > > and want to fix it.
> >
> > Oh, this is a great way to push your agenda. Yeah, force people to write
> > Hebrew support. Force newbies to learn how to install it. I don't think
> > you understand the point of free software -- you want it, *you* write it.
> > Not, you want it, you use politics to cause other people to write it.
> > I've got an idea for you -- crack linux all day. This will *make* those
> > pesky people do code audits of linux, right?
>
> Boy, are you crabby today ;)
>
> First of all Hebrew isn't "my agenda", it's simply a language I (and
> everyone around me) speak and I would find it convenient (but not
> necessary) to be able to use it on my computer too.
>
> Second, you apparently did not understand what I meant, because I
> completely agree with you on the free software issue. You don't write free
> software or patch existing free software unless you're personally
> interested in some new feature. But how do you get interested in some
> feature? It happens when some real-life concerns make you get interested in
> them.
> For example, when you need to write a 100 page thesis in Hebrew and the
> existing LaTeX Hebrew implementation is completely broken and fix it. Or
> when you need to read or write email to/from a friend who is not fluent in
> Hebrew, and suddenly realise that a simple utility to do bidi conversion
> on plain text is missing. Or when you want to know the Hebrew date and
> notice the program you used stopped working in the year 2000. These are
> things that actually happened to me.
> The more people programmers will start to run across the Hebrew annoyances,
> the better the chance that one of them will decide to do something about
> it. When a better organized and funded organization (such as QT, Pango,
> ISOC-IL or even IBM) runs across these problems, they are even more likely
> to do something about these issues - which is how we've seen the excellent
> Hebrew support solutions from IBM (Mozilla and OpenOffice), QT/KDE (today I
> read an Hebrew icq message in licq on Redhat 7.3, for the first time in my
> life), Pango/Gnome, and maybe others I left out.
>
> > > This is how/why I worked on my version of the LaTeX 2.09 Hebrew
> > > support, for example - the Technion forced me to write my MSc thesis in
> > > Hebrew (the rules have since changed, and people can write in English
> > > now).
> >
> > See? Easier to get the rules changed.
>
> Are you kidding?
> "the rules" is that (I'm estimating) 85% of the Israeli population is
> fluent in Hebrew, and (say) 30% of the Israeli population is fluent in (not
> just knows some basic) English. So you're never be able to escape needing
> to use Hebrew for some of your communications with other Israelis. And
> unless you want to have a second Windows computer to do these things (like
> write a letter to your bank, do your income tax forms, etc. etc.), you'd
> need to be able to do those things on your Linux.
>
> Even in the Technion, it was impossible to get that rule changed. The
> dean of graduate students was a Hebrew language fanatic, so he made a rule
> that all students (with exceptions made for people who don't know Hebrew)
> MUST write their thesis in Hebrew. There was noting I could do about this
> rule. This rule not only meant I had to fix latex 2.09 Hebrew support -
> it also meant I couldn't share my MSc thesis with other researchers abroad,
> and it meant I had to translate some material I had previously written
> in English into Hebrew. So this rule sucked - but it was a rule. A rule
> like which you're likely to encounter in the real world.
>
> > > Anyway, to make myself clear: I'll vote for an additional Hebrew list,
> > > but for keeping also the existing English list.
> >
> > Great. "Where do I send my question?" "Both, once in Hebrew, once
> > in English". Which one will you answer? both? crosspost the answer?
>
> Only time will tell. It is possible that the lists' population will split
> (e.g., experts on the English list, newbies on the Hebrew), but it is also
> possible that everybody will be on both lists, answering questions in the
> same language they were posed (this would have to be a rule, otherwise
> you'd need to translate the question!) - and only people who can't read one
> of the languages (for linguistic or software reasons) will miss out on some
> of the threads. It is also possible that the Hebrew list will be half-dead
> for a long period because nobody will want to use it. Only trying will
> tell.

-- 
-----------------------------------------------
[root@localhost /]# make love
make: stop : dont know how to make love
[root@localhost /]#ls
Amir Tal,
ICQ : 15748705
http://www.whatsup.org.il
-----------------------------------------------

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