Re: OpenOffice 2.0/ StarOffice 8.0

[Waleed Hosny <Waleed dot Hosny at Sun dot COM>]

Unfortunately I do agree with you Mohamed, and this becoming a cultural 
issue for us to wait for others to do work for us.
Features like spell checkers need investment in R&D from an Arabic 
linguistic point of view because such technology needs to be fast, 
modular and capable to integrate not only with Office products but also 
with mail clients , web mail clients etc...

Sun can help with enhancing the product but R&D if even funded by Sun 
will be very hard to be donated to OSS because of the copy right license 
which usually restrict such action (I mean if Sun decided to purchase an 
Arabic spell checker it will be very hard to integrate it with 
OpenOffice because of the license restrictions).

So it is our role to start such a project, Is there any NGO/Gov agent 
that may be interested to invest in R&D?
Such projects usually come from a research lab / university, Is there 
any university in Saudi, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, U.A.E, etc.. that have 
carried such a project and have a tangible outcome that can be used as a 
foundation for OSS- Arabic spell checker??

Regards,
Waleed

Adil Allawi wrote:

> Hello Mohammed,
>
> All I can say is one needs to be patient. It has taken Sun this long to get OpenOffice properly competitive with MS Office in the European markets and in China let alone Arabic. And look how long it took Mozilla to come up with a useable web browser. Now OpenOffice has some killer features I think the interest in Europe will create more interest for Arabic.
>
> Also, the fact that Waleed Hosny himself chooses to ask here is a sign that all your efforts are being recognised from above.
>
> As for the cultural issue - my father was interviewed on MBC during Gitex. The interviewer told him that last year 2 million dollars was spent by Arab companies on R&D. In economic terms that is nothing. No wonder things progress so slowly.
>
> Regards
>
> Adil
>
> At 21:11 +0200 4/11/05, Mohammed Sameer wrote:
>  
>
> > On Fri, Nov 04, 2005 at 05:44:23PM +0200, Ammar Ali wrote:
> >    
> >
> > > One critical missing feature is Arabic spell-check and grammar check. I
> > > know these are not exactly perfect in MS Office, but they exist and many
> > > people depend on them to a certain extent. Many have sited these missing
> > > feature as reasons not to make the switch to OO2.0.
> > >
> > >      
> > I don't really understand how we are thiking.
> > We have an incomplete Arabic spell checker, No one volunteered to help.
> > No one is welling to take over the project.
> >
> > We don't do our homework and we start asking other people to do it for us!!!!!
> >
> > I don't really understand how our culture is formed.
> >
> > I don't really feel OK because We didn't introduce the Arabic support in
> > Gtk, Qt, Mozilla, OpenOffice, All what we are doing is begging people, Submitting bugs,
> > Shouting all the time yet no one volunteered to fix the any broken thing.
> >
> > I might be one of those people but realising this fact I simply STFU or try to do
> > whatever I can.
> >    
>
>  
>
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>
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--
<http://www.sun.com> 	* Waleed Hosny *
*Sun Microsystems, Inc.*
Dubai Internet City
Dubai 50769 Unites Arab Emirates
Phone +971-4-366 2413 /x12413
Mobile +971 50 5519957
Fax +971 4 3662626
Email Waleed dot Hosny at Sun dot COM