2012/8/1 Simon Spiegel <si...@simifilm.ch>: > Some comments from a long time lurker here on this mailing list: I've been > following this discussion with great interest but unfortunately it follows > the same pattern of many similar discussions in the past. The question on how > things could be improved is soon split up into various, often very technical, > subdiscussions. Those are often very interesting, but IMO they avoid the main > point which should be dealt with. > > I don't intend to criticize anybody and maybe I'm stating the super obvious, > but all these discussions are moot unless some is actually willing and able > to come up and do some coding. > > The subject of polyglossia has been brought up. I guess we all agree that > polyglossia for LuaLaTeX would be a good thing. There also seems to be a > consensus that this is technically doable. But this has already been > discussed three years ago at least. AFAICS nothing much has happened so far. > Similar with microtype for XeTeX. Until I'm mistaken we still only have parts > of microtype implemented for XeTeX and only in a beta version of microtype. > Again I hear that this should be doable for XeTeX but nothing has happened so > far. > There was a problem with polyglossia because Françoise Charette left academia and no longer had time to maintain it. The current maintainer is Arthur Reutenauer. I hope that a few volunteers could help him. Microtypography is not just a matter of the microtype package, the internals must offer proper primitives. I do not know whether they are already available. It is not easy in some scripts, eg in Indic scripts due to glyph reordering.
> I may have missed some posts, but so far I've only seen Simon Cozens offering > to actually work on improving the situation. > > As I said, I don't want to criticize anybody for not coming up with working > solutions. No one can be blamed if these things don't get done. But I really > believe that we had enough of theoretical discussions in the past on how > things could be done. What we need is people doing it. I think this kind of > discussion should mainly be concerned with the question on how we can create > a situation where people actually can deliver solutions. Is it a question of > money? Would something like a kickstarter campaign help in finding people who > can come up with the needed code? Personally, I'd be more than willing to > pledge some code for this. Or is it a question of lack of knowledge (too few > people are actually competent enough). Or is it something else? > In the past TeX users groups financially supported several projects (Latin Modern, TeX Gyre, mplib). I believe that money can be found for future projects as well. It is necessary to find someone who will actually do the job. Maybe some PhD student can do it, I do not know... As I wrote (probably privately), I have test files that were used for testing Devanagari in GNU FreeFont. They could be useful if someone decides to implement Devanagari in luatex, I can help with testing but not with development. > Simon > > > -- > Simon Spiegel > Steinhaldenstr. 50 > 8002 Zürich > > Telephon: ++41 44 451 5334 > Mobophon: ++41 76 459 6039 > > > http://www.simifilm.ch > > "The first rule of Tautology Club is the first rule of Tautology Club." > > > > > > > > -------------------------------------------------- > Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: > http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex -- Zdeněk Wagner http://hroch486.icpf.cas.cz/wagner/ http://icebearsoft.euweb.cz -------------------------------------------------- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
