Well, it's true that Google could be more incentive when licencing Androif to OEM manufacturers and mobile network vendors, so that they have to support internationalization, at least as downloadable and installable addon modules, because they are part of the standard version.
OEM manufacturers of smartphones and tablets should not be allowed to disable this support or block their installation, and users should not have to root their device and loose the manufacturer warranty and support at the same time for what should be an appoved extension (or upgrade for users of older versions of Android). I can understand that some older smartphones won't have enough internal storage (for the rendering engine, but fonts may still be found and installed on external SD storage) or CPU capabilities to support all Android versions and that manufacturers may also want to exhibit longer battery life. But if there's no technological barrier, this should remain a choice for users. And it would also help a lot the developers of Android apps to get a more uniform support of the platform. And even if OEM manufacturers, device resellers, and mobile networks still want to feature some preinstalled components, this should remain possible without modifying the core firmware. Users should know clearly, before buying the device, how it is upgradable and which levels of upgrades it supports., even if the device also includes proprietary components (that could be still protected using signed device drivers recognized by the standard firmware using a sort of Plug'n-Play system comparable to desktop OS'es. And even if some devices contain OEM application bundles, all apps in this bundle should be dis-enabled by the Application & Services config menu, or replacable by an downloaded version. This is also needed to allow correcting security issues (harneed by some malicious application, given that too many applications are requesting too many privileges without really explaining why they need it, even if this causes unexpected costs, for example when those apps, not only free apps, are repeatedly downloading ads and reporting user data to a remote server when the user does not even use the device and the screen is locked, using custom "services"...); theses issues are occuring in the many integrated components and libraries that are linked in the kernel or in the Java/DalvikVM engine or with specific integrated devices or in standard applications like the Android Internet browser and the configuration menu, or in the security manager built in the VM engine, or in the networking stacks. Most of these issues are found and updated daily on the Internet for Linux users, but Android firmwares are often late by years (or will never receive any update due to total absence of support by the manufacturer or reseller in less than 6 months after the end of sales) Time to reform the Android Market and the Android development kit and developers licencing rules ? 2011/11/5 Mahesh T. Pai <[email protected]>: > In continuation of my earlier post; and not to contradict what you > say. > > John Hudson said on Fri, Nov 04, 2011 at 04:11:03PM -0400,: > > > PUA isn't necessary, and a font technology that handles elements of > > complex script shaping by referencing PUAs isn't fundamentally any > > different from one that uses glyph names or another identifier and > > leaves the glyph unencoded. > > And if things were so simple, is Google such a dunderheaded > organisation to ignore 3 score issues, plenty of complaints in the > user community and more than 30% of Android's user base? > > That said, I do not think it is fear of OpenType IP that is keeping > Google from implementing Indic support in Android. > > But of course, I fail to understand several things. ;-D > > -- > Mahesh T. Pai || > Learn from the mistakes of others. > You won't live long enough to make all of them yourself. > >
