Michael Everson wrote as follows. >At 18:29 +0000 2002-11-06, William Overington wrote: > >>Thank you for the design brief. > >Oh, my stars.
If anyone wants to make a graphic involving stars using Microsoft paint, he or she might like to have a look at the following. http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/pai30000.htm These graphics were produced using 1456 object code programs. http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/14563100.htm http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/14560000.htm > >>Here is my design. > >Better hurry and copyright it. > Actually, since you mention copyright, my understanding is that, under United Kingdom law, that copyright existed in the design from the moment that I put it into permanent form. As there are various international treaties and conventions about copyright, then I think that there is copyright in my design through most of the world. Copyright is a very interesting aspect of the law. Copyright does not depend upon any assessment of artistic or literary merit at all. Copyright is a very important and valuable intellectual property right and my understanding is that copyright licensing earns the United Kingdom economy a great amount of money every year. Providing evidence to support a claim of copyright is another matter. However, I think that the fact that my design is archived in the mailing list archive of the Unicode Corporation is high quality evidence in relation to copyright. >>The design consists of a single contour in as large a square box as is >>possible for the particular font. >> >>In my prototype I used a box 2048 font units by 2048 font units. In this >>case, the value of n is 1024. >> >>The contour has seven points, the first point and the last point being at >>the same place. >> >>Point 1 is at (0,0) and is on the curve. >>Point 2 is at (0,2n) and is off the curve. >>Point 3 is at (2n,2n) and is on the curve. >>Point 4 is at (2n,n) and is on the curve. >>Point 5 is at (n,n) and is on the curve. >>Point 6 is at (n,0) and is on the curve. >>Point 7 is at (0,0) and is on the curve. > >What curve? Your specification here produces a rectangular figure. Thank you for trying it out. The shape is a one piece solid within the area of a square, though the square is not drawn. The design idea came from wanting to have an arc which goes against the normal arc of design of a graphical user interface of the input screen of a computer program. I started with a two arc design, from point 1 to point 3 as at present, with another arc going back from point 3 to point 1 influenced by an off curve point in the bottom right corner of the square. This was rather like the hysteresis curve of a magnet. Yet it was too symmetrical. The third example was what is the present design. The second example had a curve from the present point 4 to the present point 6 influenced by an off curve point at the present point 5. Yet it looked too symmetrical. I wanted a design which would be awkward-looking in the display, so as to draw the eye to it. I used the Softy shareware program. There is one curve and four straight lines in the contour. The curve is a quadratic Bézier curve from point 1 to point 3, note please how point 2 is off the curve. That is, point 2 influences the direction of the curve from point 1 to point 3. The curve starts off from point 1 instantaneously heading for point 2, but quickly turns away from that direction so that it can make the smooth transition in direction which is necessary so that the curve appears to arrive at point 3 instantaneously as if it had come from the direction of point 2. >>I hope that you like the design. > >But it fails to express ".notdef" in any meaningful way. I think I understand what you mean. Yet the meaning of symbols is often part of the culture in which they exist. So, as time goes by, perhaps this symbol will become to have the meaning of being a .notdef symbol (in the sense of one of the various possible .notdef symbols in widespread use) perhaps being known as the .notdef symbol which features in that famous thread in the archives of the Unicode Consortium's mailing list. Perhaps a whole thread on symbols and their meaning is on the point of starting in this mailing list. For example, U+2603 has two meanings, one the picture meaning, one the other meaning stated in the text of the U2600.pdf document. Do U+2622 and U+2623 convey their now well-known meanings in any different manner to the way in which my design conveys the .notdef concept? How does U+2658 express the meaning of which directions are permissible to move? How is it that U+2678 brings thoughts of models of locomotives and U+2677 does not? So, maybe it is not a matter of my design failing to express ".notdef" in any meaningful way, perhaps it is a matter that my design, an abstract shape, does express ".notdef" in a meaningful way because now lots of people know that that is the intended meaning. Expressing meaning is a very interesting matter. Some readers might perhaps be interested in the following. The first file is, in fact, not a song but a text file supporting the song and introducing the encoding system. http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/song2003.htm http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/song1003.htm William Overington 7 November 2002
