Re: Open Issues & Todos

[Munzir Taha <munzirtaha at newhorizons dot com dot sa>]

On Sunday 04 January 2004 12:26, Nadim Shaikli wrote:
> --- Munzir Taha <munzirtaha at newhorizons dot com dot sa> wrote:
> > Secretely, I took the responsipility/ownership of this task and think I
> > managed to find a very nice solution.
> >
> > This task is:
> >  - Content Management System (CMS) Arabization
> >    + CMS's like phpnuke/postnuke/xoops/etc use CP-1256 and NOT UTF-8
> >    + Need to instruct module owners to NOT use CP-1256 and use UTF-8
> > instead - This is very important as more and more people opt to use CMS -
> > UTF-8 should be the default option at a min
> >      - Current implementations don't even allow one to use UTF-8 Arabic
> >    + Need to stress the importance of UTF-8 esp. for open source projects
> >    --> Involved:
> >        = NONE
> >    --> Status/Plan:
> >        = Someone needs to look into this and report back (take ownership)
> >
> > The answer is Drupal. (http://www.drupal.org/)
>
> Munzir, there was no "right" answer to this task.  We need, as is noted,
> to educate those developers to use UTF-8 encodings and make that the
> default.  You might love drupal while others might not, the net is filled
> with Arabic phpnuke/postnuke/xoops/etc sites and they are all CP-1256
> (including linux4arab and other so-called opensource advocates primarily
> due to short-comings in the packages).  In short, an educational campaign
> and a mass mailing to the package developers and contributors is needed
> to "force" them to revert to UTF-8 as a default.

I agree we need to educate them about using UTF-8. Till then, I would not find 
any execuse for any open source site which use 1256 encoding without telling 
us why drupal, webGUI, ... is not up to the task.

-- 
Munzir Taha
PGP Key available:
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Telecommunications and Electronics Engineer
Linux Registered User #279362 at http://counter.li.org
Mandrake Club member
Maintainer of Mandrake Arabization Project Status (MAPS)
http://www.arabeyes.org/download/documents/distros/mdkarabicsupport-en/
CIW Designer, ICDL, MOUS
New Horizons CLC
Riyadh, SA