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 ----------------------------------------------- ================================================================To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]