"Jonathan Rosenne" <[email protected]> > Why does one require implementation laws to define a code point in > Unicode for a new currency symbol? And what does it have to do with > ISCII or keyboard layouts or usage or non-usage by people within India > or abroad?
The national law (or an explicit licencing published by the goverment) would NOT be about the code point assignement in Unicode (this encoding space is not owned by the Indian government) or its encoding in ISCII, but only about the usage of the adopted glyph : - to open it for use by the general public, - or to make it mandatory for some usages (transactions, official fiscal forms, payment checks, price display in India), - or to liberalize its use in the rest of the world (giving an explicit licencing for some usages, but possibly explicitly stating that it should not legally refer to any other currency without prior authorization by the Indian government or its body that still owns the copyright on it). Yes, there's concern about the copyright of the symbol, which also applies to derived works (including the representative glyph currently proposed for encoding and for display in the Unicode charts and the ISO 10646 charts, where the representative glyph explicitly allow graphic style variations without breaking its visual identity). If this does not concern, you, then, there's no more any valid reason to block the encoding of the Windows logo, or of the Apple logo in the UCS (given that they are present in common character sets). Because for now this new glyph for the Indian Rupee is still an unlicenced proprietary logo (even if it's owned by a government here), and the same policy that blocks the Wavy Flying Windows logo or the Apple logo should apply here too. Anyway, I have no doubt that the intent of the Indian government is to open this use by the general public (notably because it seems that it does not seem to want it being used on its banknotes and coins, at least not immediately). All we have then is for now some opinions by govermental bodies and press releases, this is definitely not the same thing as an open licencing for other uses. Philippe
