I really don't get it.. why doesn't sw or nl or ru or br people care about other people from other countries to read their mailing list? this is linux IL notice the capital letters in the end of the mailing list name. If someone from other country would write e-mail in english most chances s/he would be answered in english. there are many more people who can't read english well enough. don't you think about them? if someone want to talk about linux around the world there are ww linux mailing lists.
I think we shouldn't use hebrew e-mails cause of 2 reasons 1)*nix/linux are not ready for supporting hebrew 2)hebrew is not ready for supporting *nix/linux Ely Levy System group Hebrew University Jerusalem Israel On Sat, 18 May 2002, Nadav Har'El wrote: > On Fri, May 17, 2002, Moshe Zadka wrote about "Re: official hebrew in Linux-IL >mailing lists?": > > On Fri, 17 May 2002, "Nadav Har'El" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > I'd personally prefer to > > > continue writing on the Englishlist (but I don't mind reading both). > > > > And read crossposted threads twice? Oh, now, I forget, you'll just hack > > your procmail. Well, wooptedoo, some of us have better things to do > > then fiddle with our e-mail. > > Crossposted? Do you mean somebody will actually go ahead and translate > messages? No, I don't think this would happen. > People will not be allowed to post Hebrew messages to the English list and > vice versa (how exactly to do that technically is something that should be > considered). > > > > As a sidenote, one of the best ways to get people to work on Hebrew support > > > is to "make" them need to use it, see how inconvenient it is and want to fix > > > it. > > > > Oh, this is a great way to push your agenda. Yeah, force people to write > >Hebrew support. Force newbies to learn how to install it. I don't think > > you understand the point of free software -- you want it, *you* write it. > > Not, you want it, you use politics to cause other people to write it. > > I've got an idea for you -- crack linux all day. This will *make* those > > pesky people do code audits of linux, right? > > Boy, are you crabby today ;) > > First of all Hebrew isn't "my agenda", it's simply a language I (and everyone > around me) speak and I would find it convenient (but not necessary) to be > able to use it on my computer too. > > Second, you apparently did not understand what I meant, because I completely > agree with you on the free software issue. You don't write free software or > patch existing free software unless you're personally interested in some > new feature. But how do you get interested in some feature? It happens when > some real-life concerns make you get interested in them. > For example, when you need to write a 100 page thesis in Hebrew and the > existing LaTeX Hebrew implementation is completely broken and fix it. Or > when you need to read or write email to/from a friend who is not fluent in > Hebrew, and suddenly realise that a simple utility to do bidi conversion > on plain text is missing. Or when you want to know the Hebrew date and > notice the program you used stopped working in the year 2000. These are > things that actually happened to me. > The more people programmers will start to run across the Hebrew annoyances, > the better the chance that one of them will decide to do something about it. > When a better organized and funded organization (such as QT, Pango, ISOC-IL > or even IBM) runs across these problems, they are even more likely to do > something about these issues - which is how we've seen the excellent Hebrew > support solutions from IBM (Mozilla and OpenOffice), QT/KDE (today I read > an Hebrew icq message in licq on Redhat 7.3, for the first time in my life), > Pango/Gnome, and maybe others I left out. > > > > This is how/why I worked on my versionof the LaTeX 2.09 Hebrew support, > > > for example - the Technion forced me to write my MSc thesis in Hebrew (the > > > rules have since changed, and people can write in English now). > > > > See? Easier to get the rules changed. > > Are you kidding? > "the rules" is that (I'm estimating) 85% of the Israeli population is > fluent in Hebrew, and (say) 30% of the Israeli population is fluent in (not > just knows some basic) English. So you're never be able to escape needing > to use Hebrew for some of your communications with other Israelis. And > unless you want to have a second Windows computer to do these things (like > write a letter to your bank, do your income tax forms, etc. etc.), you'd > need to be able to do those things on your Linux. > > Even in the Technion, it was impossible to get that rule changed. The > dean of graduate students was a Hebrew language fanatic, so he made a rule > that all students (with exceptions made for people who don't know Hebrew) > MUST write their thesis in Hebrew. There was noting I could do about this > rule. This rule not only meant I had to fix latex 2.09 Hebrew support - > it also meant I couldn't share my MSc thesis with other researchers abroad, > and it meant I had to translate some material I had previously written > in English into Hebrew. So this rule sucked - but it was a rule. A rule > like which you're likely to encounter in the real world. > > > > Anyway, to make myself clear: I'll vote for an additional Hebrew list, > > > but for keeping also the existing English list. > > > > Great. "Where do I send my question?" "Both, once in Hebrew, once > > in English". Which one will you answer? both? crosspost the answer? > > Only time will tell. It is possible that the lists' population will split > (e.g., experts on the English list,newbies on the Hebrew), but it is also > possible that everybody will be on both lists, answering questions in the > same language they were posed (this would have to be a rule, otherwise you'd > need to translate the question!) - and only people who can't read one of the > languages (for linguistic or software reasons) will miss out on some of > the threads. It is also possible that the Hebrew list will be half-dead > for a long period because nobody will want to use it. Only trying will tell. > > -- > Nadav Har'El | Saturday, May 18 2002, 7 Sivan 5762 > [EMAIL PROTECTED] |----------------------------------------- > Phone: +972-53-245868, ICQ 13349191 |Communism is the equal distribution of > http://nadav.harel.org.il |poverty. > > ================================================================= > To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with > the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command > echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
