Re: OpenOffice 2.0/ StarOffice 8.0

[Ammar Ali <ammar at opensource dot ps>]

When I saw Mr Mohammed Sameer's, response to my post I was tempted to 
reply and say "Please reread my post, I did not complain or ask for a 
fix." I decided not to do so because I saw no real value in responding 
to such a post. But now that Mr. Waleed Hosny, the one who actually 
asked the questions, responded with a similar breath, I have to respond.

If you haven't noticed, my post was the first post ever to this list. I 
just joined the mailing list a few days ago and was as happy to find it 
as I was looking forward to contributing and sharing on it and to it. I 
still am.

I'm fully aware of the magnitude of effort required to solve a problem 
such as Arabic spell-check. Here's a excerpt from a letter I sent to a 
friend less than 3 days before Mr. Hosny sent his request for feedback 
and comments.

--- begin excerpt ---
Thanks for the forward. This is a huge problem. Also, this is a huge 
undertaking. It is quite a challenge to properly check Arabic for 
correct spelling, because it can not be done with out resorting to 
grammar. I'm convinced of this. In Latin-based and Indo-European 
languages spelling is not related to grammar (very few exceptions might 
exist). Even Hebrew does not have the many complications Arabic has 
(shaping and "harakat" are examples)

Something like this has to be dealt with on a pan-Arabic level to 
produce good results that apply to the language in all of its various 
forms/locales and even distortions in some cases. All Arabic countries 
must contribute with linguists and/or engineers for R&D  for this to 
happen. The other option is to declare Arabic a dead language (from an 
IT point of view) which is not an option really with over 300 million 
speakers still alive and kicking.

Who can tackle this??? I don't know. But if there was time for a few 
people to just "kick-off" a project that builds on what is available and 
start producing results, even if small, it will be easier to convince 
others to join in and jump on board, for their own benefit.
--- end excerpt ---

Also, I'm aware of the Duali project at Arabeyes, and I have been 
seriously looking at it as one of the projects I can contribute to. CUPS 
is the other one. I personally had no intention of sitting around and 
waiting for some one to fix this for me/us. I know better.

Two things really bothered me in your posts. One is the defensive and 
the some what rude attitude in Mr. Mohammed Sameer's post that hurts the 
willingness of other to participate (STFU, come on... there's really no 
need). Mr. Hosny asked for comments, he did not say STFU, or did he? The 
other is the response of Mr. Waleed Hosny. Really Mr. Hosny, you should 
have added a small note at the bottom that clearly stated that you 
expected "Wonderful", "Excellent", "Awesome", and "God Bless You" as 
responses to your four questions. I thought you were genuinely 
interested in honest feed back. And honestly, spell-checking is missing 
and needed. No where did I ask you or demand it be fixed by you or anyone.

I read my post again to see how I might have given the impression that I 
expect anyone else to fix this while we wait, and I couldn't find any. I 
believe that my message was courteous and friendly too. Maybe, 
gentlemen, you should add "easily offended", "defensive", and "jumping 
to conclusions" to your lists of cultural problems we suffer from.

Having said all that, I will do my best to help where I can. Maybe our 
situation in Palestine does not allow us to do as much as we would like, 
but some of us are truly dedicated and willing to do what they can, with 
what they have.... where we are!

Best Regards,
Ammar Ali;

Waleed Hosny wrote:

> 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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> > Developer at arabeyes dot org
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> >  
>
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