OpenOffice & Bidi/Arabic

[Nadim Shaikli <shaikli at yahoo dot com>]

I'm not sure if this email is reaching the right audience; I do believe
that those that are being CC'ed have had input regarding this subject
matter in the past (sorry to pick on ya :-)

I'm writing on behalf of a number of Arab unix/linux users that are rather
eager to get their hands on an Arabic supporting OpenOffice (with proper
support, etc).  We had heard that Mati was able to create a patch to
incorporate Bidi into OpenOffice-1.0 (Bidi is crucial Arabic and Hebrew
support) along with the necessary "shaping" code (needed for Arabic), yet
the patch wasn't accepted due to some "copyright misunderstanding" which
we're unsure if that ever got resolved.  So,

 1. Has the Bidi patch been Incorporated into OpenOffice ?  If not,
    will and could this issue be definitively put to rest (ie. if the
    misunderstanding is deemed more than what it seems, so be it - we
    certainly don't want to dwell on the past and/or open any wounds)

 2. If the patch will not be accepted, any news on what is happening
    with regard to adding Bidi and Arabic support (shaping) ?  Who's
    in charge of this effort and how best to get engaged and access
    status and progress (URLs) ?

If I've contacted the wrong people/list, please advise and supply
appropriate URLs and/or email addresses (or better yet forward this
email :-)

Regards,

 - Nadim


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