RE: ttf and arabic

["Youssef Adnan" <Youssef dot Adnan at itworx dot com>]

You're absolutely correct about most of the stuff that you got in here.
Alas, when a system crash happens, most of the people would say... oh, I
have to reboot; not oh... I have to change my operating system simply
because they don't want to change. People get used to things... When I
talk about advertising for Linux, I think it's our role in the Arab
countries to do so. I've heard someone say: "Microsoft is a marketing
company that happened to sell software". 

I've had many talks with friends about Linux, but the real talk was when
it went to the public. I'll need to ask, how many of your friends still
sticks to Windows and you're trying to change his mind for years? :) How
many hours do you spend on trying to convince him and he still sticks
there until you almost give up and still have the conversation each time
you see him? How about giving an hour or two to someone who's ready to
listen...

As for the software war that I'm talking about, I'm afraid that it is an
issue here and everywhere. I've seen it happening many times before and
is really important that we put in mind that we're going to make generic
stuff. It's not for KDE and it's not for Gnome. It may have a UI for
this or that, but it's going to work for all. I like the ArabEyes
projects and I would like for them to go in the correct direction. 

When I used the "RE:ttf and arabic" heading, I did this because I got
reply to it suggesting Debian for a newbie asking for ttf support :) I
respect Debian and all the people who use it, but I don't think it's a
dist. for newbies; rather, it's for Linux professionals. 

Getting back to ArabEyes. Now with the introduction of Arabic on KDE. I
think that it's time to get to have some Arabic applications for it. I
suggest PrayerTimes as a start. We could produce something like the
Arabic add-ons and get it to be a contrib to KDE. What do you guys
think?

Thanks
-Youssef

-----Original Message-----
From: Isam Bayazidi [mailto:bayazidi at accessme dot com] 
Sent: Tuesday, December 25, 2001 11:32 PM
To: general at arabeyes dot org
Subject: Re: ttf and arabic

On Tuesday 25 December 2001 18:53,Youssef Adnan wrote:
> I recently installed XP and checked it out. God it is so user-friendly
> that I got frustrated. To tell you the truth, I disabled many of the
> wizards and some of the new features in it.
Well does overloading a system with wizards make a user-friendly system
? why 
do we have to take Microsoft's definition of a user friendly system ?
does 
assuming that the user is a jerk , and building wizards and features to 
prevent the user from shooting his self make a user friendlt system ? I
used 
Windows XP for less than an hour .. and I found it as you said, More
stable 
that previous systems, but it is more user-offending .. assuming that
the 
user is a jerk .. that is not a system that I would enjoy working on for
10 
hours aday ..
>
> Let's not target the common user now. They're relaxed with what they
> have. I was very happy to see Linux getting on more servers here in
> Egypt. I was extremely happy when I saw it gaining more grounds in
> Universities. And this is where we should stress: Universities and
> schools. Those are the decision makers of the near future. We've
already
> passed the point of whether to use Linux or not. Linux wasn't known to
> most of the people in the Arab world three or four years ago. Now it
is.
> You won't find one that doesn't know it. The point is: let's get the
> people who can advertise for it to increase. Those are easily located
in
> the nearest University. Let's hold sessions for those people. I'd like
> to give you one more hint: You will be surprised by the number of
Arabic
> speaking magazines that would like to get words about Linux from the
> experts. Get the address of a magazine and write them, check it out!
> When I did this in the past, I ended up with a series of five
articles.
> One of them described how to install SuSE Linux in 13 pages. You can
do
> this too guys. It took me less than five hours with a friend of mine
to
> get the article ready with screenshots.

Well, Advertizing and documentation is important, but not as important
as 
development and real work .. But making announcments about 'UP COMING'
things 
that are not even started to work on is to make your word not trust
worthy .. 
so I guess that it is better to work more, talk less .. at least until
you 
have something to talk about ..


> Next, we have to unify our efforts. I've had enough of the OS war,
> enough of the distributions war and even more, enough of the desktop
> war. In my opinion, I'll use whatever I like and you use whatever you
> like is the solution. We need to make a solution to the differences so
> that we speak the same language. This list and others are very active
as
> far as I'm concerned. We will always get the question: I'm a newbie.
> Which Linux distributions shall I use? This should have a common
answer.
> The list should support a number of distributions. How will we be able
> to support new comers? Remember that each of us can be expert at one
> distribution, but how far will we be able to help? So, according to
the
> number of experts at a distribution, the answer should be.

Well I guess that Arabeyes had never involved in any distribution war of
any 
kind .. Arabeyes had stayed clear of this issue, and it will stay that
way .. 


> As for the Gnome and KDE war, it's a very disappointing subject to
talk
> about. Yet, the outcome has proven to be a productive competition
> between the two projects which yields to the fact that it was actually
a
> good thing. What I fear is the misuse of this subject that could lead
to
> problems on the lists. I've seen many of those but I don't know how to
> solve such problems.

:-) .. Well I like the idea of having two desktop environment .. and I
am not 
willing to fight for any of them .. each got a philosophy .. each got an

approuch, each is in a different programing langauge, each depend on 
different libraries .. so they are not to compare to reach other, but to

compet .. and that will give a better outcome .. LETS NOT LIVE IN A
WORLD OF 
ONE VIEWPOINT AS THE MS PEOPLE DO :-)

> Linux doesn't need more power. It only needs advertising! We don't
need
> more power, we only need to unite!

I found your email interesting :-) but maybe misplaced .. it seems that
you 
didn't mean to talk about this issue to the Arabeyes .. but to other
Linux 
users .. well .. it is an interesting subject .. but due to the subject
'ttf 
and arabic' and place 'general list' I got a little confused about it 

later
-- 
Yours,
Isam Bayazidi
Amman - Jordan
=============================================
Think Linux + Think Arabic = Think www.arabeyes.org
=============================================


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