From: Arcane Jill (arcanejill@ramonsky.com)
Date: Wed Dec 03 2003 - 05:09:42 EST
Actually, a number of points have been made in the course of this
thread. Of course it is true that Apple's Last Resort font doesn't
display every character with an approximation of its shape, I
acknowledge that. I still think it's a lot better than nothing though.
But - to clarify my expectations of an operating system - I actually
DON'T care if it won't display Telugu correctly. I don't care if it
doesn't display Japanese properly. Or Russian. I am unlikely to /start/
caring about these things unless for some reason I should decide to
start learning those languages.
I also don't necessarily expect to find fancy versions of the Latin
script. These calligraphic (is that a word?) creations should quite
rightly be considered the creation of the artist, and subject to the
usual copyright laws.
But...
I /_DO_/ expect my own language, and also the symbols I encounter every
day in my culture, to be available in some form, on an OS bought in my
own country. I don't believe that anyone could rightly argue that, for
instance, musical symbols were "esoteric". They're a standard part of my
culture. And yet, I still can't put a treble clef in my document using
the standard Windows fonts, and nor can I put it on a web site and
believe that it will be viewed correctly by most western viewers. This
/_should_/ be as straightforward as putting these letters into this
email. Maybe fancy versions could be considered "added value", but a
simple, plain, unadorned musical symbol set? That should just /be/
there. These symbols have been used for /centuries/. Mostly they're just
blobs with tails. That they occur in the handwriting of Bach and
Beethoven implies to me that there shouldn't even be any copyright
problems (unless, as I say, you're talking about fancy versions). By
exactly the same reasoning, I expect all the math symbols to be there
too, including mathematical alphanumeric symbols. This is not a strange
or exotic requirement, it's just a part of living in this western
culture and wanting to use they symbols of my culture. All these
arguments about how I don't really need Telugu or whatever are probably
true, but, /come on guys/, there are symbols we /do /use, frequently, at
least on paper, that we can't use on the web. That has got to be wrong.
Jill
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