From: Philippe Verdy (verdy_p@wanadoo.fr)
Date: Fri Jul 30 2010 - 10:16:44 CDT
"Jonathan Rosenne" <jr@qsm.co.il>
> Why does one require implementation laws to define a code point in
> Unicode for a new currency symbol? And what does it have to do with
> ISCII or keyboard layouts or usage or non-usage by people within India
> or abroad?
The national law (or an explicit licencing published by the goverment)
would NOT be about the code point assignement in Unicode (this
encoding space is not owned by the Indian government) or its encoding
in ISCII, but only about the usage of the adopted glyph :
- to open it for use by the general public,
- or to make it mandatory for some usages (transactions, official
fiscal forms, payment checks, price display in India),
- or to liberalize its use in the rest of the world (giving an
explicit licencing for some usages, but possibly explicitly stating
that it should not legally refer to any other currency without prior
authorization by the Indian government or its body that still owns the
copyright on it).
Yes, there's concern about the copyright of the symbol, which also
applies to derived works (including the representative glyph currently
proposed for encoding and for display in the Unicode charts and the
ISO 10646 charts, where the representative glyph explicitly allow
graphic style variations without breaking its visual identity).
If this does not concern, you, then, there's no more any valid reason
to block the encoding of the Windows logo, or of the Apple logo in the
UCS (given that they are present in common character sets). Because
for now this new glyph for the Indian Rupee is still an unlicenced
proprietary logo (even if it's owned by a government here), and the
same policy that blocks the Wavy Flying Windows logo or the Apple logo
should apply here too.
Anyway, I have no doubt that the intent of the Indian government is to
open this use by the general public (notably because it seems that it
does not seem to want it being used on its banknotes and coins, at
least not immediately). All we have then is for now some opinions by
govermental bodies and press releases, this is definitely not the same
thing as an open licencing for other uses.
Philippe
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