Quran - fonts/encodings/issues

[Nadim Shaikli <shaikli at yahoo dot com>]

Salam all,

I'm very sorry to join this discussion late - but its been over
my head and I just took the necessary time to finally read the various
posts and there seems to me to be 3 topics all intertwined together
which are most likely confusing others out there like me.  Let me simplify
matters, if I may, and try to come to a conclusion/consensus/stance on
each of the subjects at hand,

1. Diwan (via Mr. Adil Allawi) has a proposal which notes to unicode.org
   the need to add some characters (and possible changes) that are
   required in order to present The Holy Quran properly.

     http://www.unicode.org/iuc/iuc17/a346.html
     http://lists.arabeyes.org/archives/developer/2003/April/pdf00000.pdf

2. Mr. Munzir Taha has, reasonable and commendably (way to go :-), asked
   Diwan to either donate or release some of their work to the Open Source
   community.

     http://lists.arabeyes.org/archives/developer/2003/April/msg00036.html

3. Mr. Mete Kural has suggested a different means on how Quranic fonts
   need to be addressed all together and is looking for volunteers to
   start a project or investigate further.

     http://lists.arabeyes.org/archives/developer/2003/April/msg00002.html
     http://lists.arabeyes.org/archives/developer/2003/April/msg00038.html

Did I miss anything else :-) ?

I __highly__ suggest that those 3 topics be addressed separately
(ie. in separate emails and threads) so as not to confuse things
further.

My questions (again please use separate emails for answers to start
separate threads if my outline above is correct),

a. Regarding #1 above, what is being asked from Arabeyes - what do
   we need to do to get this adopted (btw: is there a succinct document
   that spells out all the requested changes/additions ?  A shear change
   list if you will ?)
   + Mr. Allawi, could you please address this ?

c. Regarding #2, Mr. Allawi notes,

   > I would be very pleased to cooperate with the open source
   > community in any way possible. But you must bear in mind
   > that Diwan is a relatively small company and it has to
   > protect its main assets to stay in business - of which
   > the Quran project is one
   >
   > As I have said, the OpenType font format is insufficient
   > to deal with the requirements of Quran and also the Unicode
   > specification does not help either - Diwan used its own text
   > engine to handle the formatting correctly.  A Quran font on
   > its own would not provide a proper solution- so simply licensing
   > a font from Diwan would not really be the way to go. I do not
   > know how we can proceed on any form of cooperation but I am open
   > to any suggestions you may have.'

   Mr. Allawi, could we do the following - could we discuss in greater
   detail Diwan's proposal to unicode to see if we have further questions
   and suggestions and then "gang-up" on unicode to make the changes ?
   In return, Diwan releases their fonts (as it is today and as it will
   get altered post unicode adoption).  The value of your application
   is not in the fonts and as such Diwan retains the lion's heart of
   any product proceeds (it would be nice to Open-Source your products
   as well, but I think that conversation is a non-starter :-)

c. Mr. Kural, I'm not sure of the connotations of what you are pointing
   to.  You note in one of your posts,

   > I believe that there should be a set of standards [and encodings]''

   yet isn't unicode doing just that ?  What am I missing ?  I am further
   confused since I thought you were suggesting a mere better quality font
   with the thread noted below,

     http://lists.arabeyes.org/archives/developer/2003/April/msg00002.html

PS1: Again please answer each point in its own separate mail.
PS2: Mr. Allawi, please subscribe to the 'developer' list on arabeyes
     until all these issues are ironed out.

       http://lists.arabeyes.org/mailman/listinfo

PS3: I like Diwan's logo _alot_ :-)

Do please CC the 'developer' list, of course, in all your replies.

Salam.

 - Nadim



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