Re: [WMASTERS] Response to Kumar

[Bala Pillai <bala@tamil.net>]

At 10:14 PM 9/10/97 -0800, George Hart wrote:

>I agree with most of what Kumar has said.  I would, however, like to keep
>kS and sri, as they tend to be useful.
>
>Obviously, there is no ideal solution.  Everyone has a slightly different
>view.  I see the consensus as follows:
>
>1. Use an 8-bit set, like INaimathi.
>2. Keep the grantha characters.
>3. Do not keep the old-style ligatures (lai, etc.)
>4. Keep the final consonants (with the puLLi).
>
>Note that this is just about exactly what Muthu's font already has.  Why
>not just settle on it as a standard?  Anything we decide will go by the
>boards, anyway, when unicode becomes universally implemented.

That is a thought George. But it is so *politically loaded*  that I didn't
even give it a thought.

Now, just because it's a near-impossible political task to accomplish
doesn't mean we shouldn't consider it (and dismiss it if need be)
especially since the Inaimathi font encoding is an open one for use by
anybody. I believe it is the only 8 bit font encoding standard that is
unconditionally open.

I have a clear conflict of interest since we use it for the Tamil.Net
virtual community and therefore the large Tamil.Net archives (part of which
is at http://tamil.net/list  ). It'll make life easier for me - won't have
to do any conversion. 

But given the conflict of interest, it's best I abstain on this unless
specifically invited by the community for further thoughts.

anbudan../bala
bala@tamil.net

p.s. I hope we can bring out the standards politics out into the open as
well - might as well deal with it too.


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