Hi Wayne, It's interesting to me reading how much you complain about iiim. Just some comments from my side:
- I have seen some Yong's comments on SCIM is in maintenance mode -> no new features and that the world has moved to next generation input methods projects. From this perspective is maybe iiim less "dead" that scim, because Sun is still actively working on iiim. - As for Chinese is SCIM most probably better choice, not sure the same is valid for the rest of the world. I can speak as for European languages and thanks to iiim team we have made quite good progress having a lot of keyboard layouts there and this number is still increasing. IIIM is the proven and platform independent framework, working well on remote environments, which is very important for SunRay users. Looking at SCIM it has similar feature to emulate European and latin-based keyboard layouts but not many of them exists and not saying much that we need to provide also "SUN" standard for keyboard layouts which complies with our HW keyboards. From this perspective we definitely need to go with iiim at least for now. There are also other projects like virtual keyboards or keyboard layout creator which also count with iiim and its gui. _ I believe LiveCD is very important but if someone means seriously to use the system installing it to hard disk is probably what he/she is going to do. I hope switching to SCIM then is real option for such users. e.g. Windows is not having any liveCD at all and also don't know much people who refuse it just because of this. Limited space on LiveCD is an issue and might be problem to put two input methods frameworks there (maybe there is more space on globalCD version). On other side projects like distro constructor should allow to create customized distributions (once they are fully finished) so might be an option to fork LiveCD for Chinese having SCIM and more fonts and other stuff there .. - As from some feedback my understanding is SCIM is better platform for Chinese input. What I don't understand is why iiim is unusable for Chinese users or is a blocker to adopt any new Chinese user. It's here for a years and I haven't notice Solaris Chinese input is not usable or is such poor before. Can you be more specific what's wrong with iiim, if it's crashing often we should submit issue and work on it. Kind Regards, Petr H. On 09/27/08 00:07, W. Wayne Liauh wrote: >> Hi Wayne, >> >> Could you pl update the wiki at >> ://wikis.sun.com/display/g11n/OpenSolaris+i18n-l10n+pr >> oject+ideas >> with this and possible other inputs you have about >> future G11N projects >> which can help to take OpenSolaris >> to the next level ? >> >> Given the schedule for 2008.11 and current Live CD >> space situation, we >> may have to consider your proposal >> (which will be discussed further to make a decision) >> of putting SCIM to >> Live CD for 2009.04 release. >> >> Regards, >> Suresh >> >> > > Hi suresh, > > Thanks for putting together such an ambitious and apparently comprehensive > plan. I agree with you that OpenSolaris has the right infrastructure to > become "simply the best global operating system" (quoting your own words). > Actually this is one of main reasons that I am spending so much time on it. > > Many many years ago I had a long conversation with General Alexis Lum, a > retired major general who serves as executive assistant to Senator Daniel > Inouye. Senator Inouye is the chairman of the Committee on Commerce, > Science, and Transportation in the US Senate. > > General Lum told me that when our troops are stationed overseas, they still > use the English version of Microsoft Windows. The costs to purchase > localized version of Windows and its associated software can be prohibitive > even for someone like myself--plus you need a separate machine to run a > different Windows locale. As a result, our troops and their families are > effectively cut off from the local community. He commented that it would be > very helpful to our troops and their families if someone can develop a > "global operating system". > > I don't think anyone is interested in hearing what happened after that. But > in short, I believe OpenSolaris is our last hope. Will it take us to where > many Linux distros can't? I think we have a good chance. Of course, many > will think that I am nuts. > > Regarding whether SCIM should replace IIIMF in the 2008.11 LiveCD, I think > this is a no-brainer. In the past, I had been very critical of the fact that > Sun's Beijing employees don't use OpenSolaris outside their jobs. However, > it never occurred to me that my criticism was very unfair b/c, as I just > happened to realize, even I don't use it when I do Chinese (I always booted > into SuSE). AFAIC, it is probably fair to conclude that no respectable > Chinese will use OpenSoalris if IIIMF is the only input option. > > Understandably, one can always use the GUI tool to install the SCIM packages. > But for the most majority (especially for new comers whom we are desperately > trying to attract), if an application is not in the LiveCD, then it's not > there. > > But we must also realize that the input method is not just for Chinese users. > I have no way of finding out how others feel about losing IIIMF. I don't > think we will ever find out the answer before the packaging deadline. > > I am thinking of another alternative, which is to package the zh locale in a > separate LiveCD. I know we all hate forking. But there is a special > rationale. Chinese characters are represented by glyphs, and a workable set > of Chinese font family typically comprises twenty to thirty thousand or even > more characters (& we are talking about tens of millions of bytes per each > font family). It will be very desirable--and appealing--to include a good > number of font families in the distro. But doing so will be very unfair to > non-Chinese speakers. > > I remember twenty or so years ago, Microsoft was able to induce a massive > migration of DOS users to Windows (3.0) using a very smart gimmick--a free > glitzy game called Solitaire. I was thinking perhaps we can pull a similar > trick by including a good collection of eye-popping (& open-sourced) Chinese > fonts. :-) > -- > This message posted from opensolaris.org > _______________________________________________ > indiana-discuss mailing list > [email protected] > http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/indiana-discuss > -- ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Petr Hruska - Software Engineer - Prague G11n Phone: +420 233 009 330 (x49330) email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sun Microsystems Czech, s.r.o. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ _______________________________________________ indiana-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/indiana-discuss
