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Re: Netscape goes GPL.
Hi Linuxers; I am very angry (Ira, it is not you, but another one
who loves to spread incorrect facts which make me looking funny;
Your comments, are more serious, although I have much to say about
them).
Before answering, get my alert about Compaq to buy Digital.
I asked you not to laugh at me; It is sad to say, but it seems that
I was correct in everything I said. According to many sources (e.g.
http://www.openscape.org/ ), Netscape will not (and can not) free
many critical parts of its communicator. Among these parts: Java(!),
the mail client, the editor, the news reader, SSL (even not the 40
bit encryption), NeoAccess, etc. In addition, some parts must be
re-developed because of dependencies on 3rd parties commercial stuff
(e.g. XmLGrid). I asked someone from Netscape what they are going to
do in order to overcome these problems, and he answered that they
will provide an open API to connect external plug-ins (e.g. Sun's
Java Activator) to be plugged into Communicator, so the missing
features will be compensated by external plug-ins...
As I noted, nobody in Netscape knows how it will be completed till
March 31. And Ira, regarding to the bad history of Netscape in
promises and scedules, I was not confused with Microsoft. Microsoft
has a bad history in promises. But Netscape broke even Microsoft's
records in this area... I still remember the 9 delays of version
3.0 :-( It caused me huge damage :-((
Besides, Microsoft prefers to promise *years*, not dates (e.g.
Windows 95, Office 97, etc.). It is easier to stand in these
schedules.
> Netscape's JVM was written by JavaSoft? that's news to me. I thought it
> wan an in-house development.
Not only that it is not an in-house development, but even worse:
Netscape bought a limited license from both (!) JavaSoft AND
Symantec. Stuff of both is included in the browser, and nobody is
going to let Netscape publish its sources.
> Ayway, Java is supposed to be an open
> standard, why should the JVM sources be restricted? JDK is givven away
> too.
JDK is another story, and regarding to JVM, you may argue with Sun,
not with me. Anyway, it is like demading Microsoft to publish the
sources of Windows 95, and Sun is not "frayer".
> RSA is included in PGP and other free source products.
And he (I forgot his name) sat in jail for that. I agree that the
American law is funny, but don't argue with me; Argue with the
American DOJ.
> > foundation is there". Well, the foundation is not there anymore.
> > It is very sad, and I knew all the staff (I enjoyed a week with
> > them).
>
> I did not mean "The Foundation", but the technical codebase required to do
> it. The one that one does not have to port anything made by M$ in any kind
> of way. The one that allowed you to do it without first signing an NDA or
Pardon? Do you know how many NDAs I already signed because of this
"codebase"? Only last week I signed 3 NDA regarding to Motif (each
in 2 copies).
> making an investment that you could avoid (in buying a source license for
> example).
Pardon? Do you know how much money I already invested in this
"codebase"? Only last week I invested additional $5000 in Motif
sources (and these numbers are before taxes).
And it is not because the Open Group (previously known as OSF) are
thieves. Try to get sources from Microsoft. Even for thousand times
the price. And any other company too. Thousands of dollars for
sources is a real cheap price (although it is not easy for me).
> Anyway, until UNICODE or something like it takes over completely, there
> will be problems all the time. The only UNIX package that handles more
> than one language in the same docmuent reasonably well is LaTeX and its
> relatives. I know NO package under M$ that does something even remotely
> like it.
??????????? LaTex ?????
There are hundreds of good Hebrew applications, and you take as
example the worst? Don't you know any other Hebrew application?
And Unicode is not going to solve problems, but to make them worse
than ever. I know Unicode better than anybody else in this list, and
I am one of the people who make revisions in it. The purpose of
Unicode is not to solve problems, but to make a shared platform for
all the languages for the *very* long term. Anyway, the migration to
Unicode will be harder than everything you faced. You are going to
miss the ISO and the 8-bit problems.
> Seriously, it is not *that* hard to have a table of fonts in the browser
> under UNIX, and to have the default font reloaded according to the MIME
> Charset given in the URL header. If we will have the source for N then
> that will be one of the first priorities.
What????
First of all, the "problem" of fonts is so simple that you don't need
any source to solve it.
But moreover: The fonts are about 1%-2% of the problem of Hebrew. It is
not an issue at all. You need right to left geometry. You need keyboard
mapping. You need push mode. You need indications (e.g. parameters) in
order to know the default direction of each field. You must modify and
hack headers. You need additional buttons and dialog boxes. And all of
these details are nothing relatively to the main problem: Support for
logical (a.k.a. implicit) order/directionality. Without this feature,
you don't have anything to do. And even the sites which use visual
Hebrew, still use logical for many purposes (e.g. titles, buttons,
input fields, lists, etc.).
> If you think that M$ has got the localization problem cleared then you are
> probably not so badly hit by this problem. International companies have
> very much the same problem, and in Europe things are worst.
I wish we have the "worst" problems of Europe. Unfortunately, the
Hebrew problems are much worse. I know it too well. I was involved
in about hundred of localization projects in Israel. All the UNIX
vendors in Israel purchased my solution, and dozens of software houses
use them. The difference between us, is that despite my rich
experience, I check the facts before posting to the list. Some of the
responses to my message, contained so many incorrect facts. One of
them, even didn't contain ONE CORRECT FACT. People, please check the
facts before flaming. (And I still consist on the claim that nobody
in Israel even competes Microsoft in the Hebrew localization area; If
you prefer LaTex Hebrew, use it. But don't share us).
> FYI the December Issue of 'PC Magazine' contains a CD with the 2 browsers
> (IE and NC) in full version, for M$ and MAC (never used it so I'm not
> very sure about MAC support etc). Just in case it is one of the
> last ones...
And if you read my previous message, instead of responding
immediately (without checking the facts), you could read exactly the
same story there...
> > 7. During this discussion, someone compared Hebrew support for X to
> > Titanic project. As almost all of you know, I already did it, in
> > addition to dozens of other projects I did. It works perfectly,
>
> yes, Eli, we know. this IS, however a linux list and I have yet to see
> this thing run on linux.
Since I spend all of my time to answer claims that were not checked
before posting to the list, I don't have time to complete it.
Instead of sleeping at nights, I must spend my time, and still
don't have time for Linux. So Chevre, please, next time check the
facts before posting to "Tfuzat-NATO". And maybe we will have nice
Hebrew support for Linux...
Some resources about Netscape's step:
* http://www.openscape.org/news.html
* snews://secnews.netscape.com/netscape.dev.client-source-code.general
(this newsgroup is really cool)
* http://www.redhat.com/news/news-details.phtml?id=57
(RedHat blesses Netscape for its step; BTW: RedHat now bundles
Communicator in its distribution!)
--
Eli Marmor
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