Re: Japanese input (was RE: tlug: Japanese)

["Matthew J. Francis" <asbel@example.com>]

Hi,


On 08-Jun-98 Jonathan Byrne wrote:

>  -----Original Message-----
>  From: Stephen J. Turnbull <turnbull@example.com>
> 
> > The obvious name is "Japanese Input on Linux Terminals,"
> > because JILT is exactly what I would do to it, with quite high
> > probablility.

And if done right, you'd be able to do exactly that if you so wished.
I for one am certainly not wanting to force people to do anything - and
certainly not to force my own preferences for input onto them. In a
culture of Free software, such a thing is of course impossible anyway,
as the community have the ultimate freedom to vote with their feet; if an
idea is wrong, it will be shown to be wrong by the fact that nobody
supports or uses it.

Rather, I'd seek to do something about the current situation whereby it
is *difficult* to write and support true globalisation in software, both
in terms of multiple-language support and display, and of input. With
only a little glue in the right places, it could be made easier _to_
support such things than not to. This seems so right to me on so many
levels; from an aesthetic point of view. From a code-reuse point of view;
if one thing must do it, it should be a program. If everything should do
it, it should be abstracted to a library. Even, in a certain way, from a
viral point of view - anything that helps to spread The Source must be
good, and making things work better around the world definitely falls in
this category in my book.

And if people think it is the right thing, and adopt it, and use it, and
spread it; even after all that, if you *still* want to use good old
reliable (if non-extensible) KInput2: you'll be able to, with both old
programs and new, and neither I nor any other shall gainsay your right to
use what works best for you.


>  Why don't you join the campaign to world domination of
>  Japanese input instead? :-)  That way you could do loads to
>  make sure it worked exactly the way you wanted it to while
>  you dominated the world :-)

Anarchic democracy in action :). Perhaps the whole Open Source
development thing can be boiled down to 'One programmer, one vote', with
an open invitation for anyone to program.

I vote with my code. As the Mozilla banner exhorts: "Work, and there will
be flour. Sit there with crossed arms, and there will not be flour". When
and only when there is flour will we know if ours bakes better bread...

Baking party. All welcome.


Cheers,
-Matt.

"The results of this intrusion into your life will be used 'responsibly'
in ways you cannot even begin to imagine. Of course, the innocent have
nothing to fear from the rapidly expanding data industry."
 - Radiohead, Airbag/How Am I Driving?

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