At 4:37 PM -0700 8/20/97, Yung-Fong Tang wrote:
>
>Vincent DelGobbo wrote:
[snip]
>I looked at the page:
>
> <http://www.macos.apple.com/multilingual/languagekits.html>
>Language kits for the following 7 languages are available at an
>approximate cost of $900 total (+tax +shipping):
>
> Arabic & Persian Chinese Cyrillic Hebrew Indian Japanese Korean
>I am interested in supporting at least ISO-8859-1 through 9, and it looks
>like some needed language packs may not be available. What do I do about
>Greek? Do I really have to pay $900+ because I want to test my HTML for
>other languages? Why isn't the converted Cyberbit enough (at least for NS
>4.01)? I did not see any mention of Unicode anywhere on the page.
>Thanks,
>Vince sasvcd@unx.sas.com
> This is a GOOD QUESTION. I don't think Apple's Language Kit is TOO
>expensive since Apple have pay for the font, input method (Keyboard
>driver) , script bundle and QA for the localized applications.
It isn't a question of cost. Alis provides all that and more for less than
$100 in its multilingual Web browser for Windows, and Microsoft provides as
much for free downloading for users of Internet Explorer on NT. (It checks
which browser and OS you are using, so you can't get Hebrew and Arabic for
Win95.)
(Probably one of the reason Microsoft do not go into this business). But I
think Apple should really consider provide the following thing for FREE: 1.
Script Bundle 2. WorldScript, WorldScript I, WorldScript II (it sort of
free now since it is optional installation item in MacOS7.6) 3. Things
Simple and Work (Greek font, Central European font, Cyrillic font, etc.)
>If these thing are free at least user could purchase font and use them for
>a "View Only" solution on the web.
>If you have use Language Kit, you will appreciate what they did. I think
>it is worthy to pay them if you are using them for your word processor.
>But probably not worthy to use them to VIEW INFORMATION.
>Do not underestimate what they did for Bi-directional (Hebrew/Thai) and
>other Complex Script (Indic/Thai). I don't think PC or UNIX could compare
>with them.
>[This is my personal opinion]
I think both Apple and Microsoft show immense disregard for the user in
their handling of non-Latin writing systems. Both companies have made
plenty of money from their script software and fonts in the various
localized versions of their operating systems. IMNSHO they should stuff all
the language kits on the CD-ROM and be done with it, since they are both
aiming at single global OS versions using Unicode as its base character
set. However, the global OS model will not be realized until NT 5 and
Rhapsody.
They can still make plenty of money from international users by offering
further fonts for sale in each script. Offering the first font free would
be an immense aid to educational sites and student users, among others.
-- Edward Cherlin Help outlaw Spam Everything should be made Vice President http://www.cauce.org as simple as possible, NewbieNet, Inc. 3662 members and counting __but no simpler__. http://www.newbie.net/ 16 Jul 97 Attributed to Albert Einstein
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