1. Open-Source Approaches to Unicode Enablement Panel Discussion

2. C14, C15: Panel on Open-Source Approaches to Unicode Enablement 16th International Unicode ConferenceAmsterdam, the Netherlands, March 2000 Agenda n Panel Introductions n Library Descriptions and Demos n What is Open Source? n What is the Open Source experience? n Q and A

3. C14, C15: Panel on Open-Source Approaches to Unicode Enablement 16th International Unicode ConferenceAmsterdam, the Netherlands, March 2000 Todays Panel n Arnt Gulbrandsen n Bob Verbrugge n Frank Tang n Helena Shih n Mark Leisher n Steven Loomis n Steven Watt n Tex Texin n Yves Arrouye

4. C14, C15: Panel on Open-Source Approaches to Unicode Enablement 16th International Unicode ConferenceAmsterdam, the Netherlands, March 2000

5. C14, C15: Panel on Open-Source Approaches to Unicode Enablement 16th International Unicode ConferenceAmsterdam, the Netherlands, March 2000

6. C14, C15: Panel on Open-Source Approaches to Unicode Enablement 16th International Unicode ConferenceAmsterdam, the Netherlands, March 2000 Library Descriptions and Demos n Troll: QT Free Edition n CRL: Assorted Unicode Support n Mozilla: International Library of Mozilla n IBM: International Components for Unicode

7. Trolls Qt Free Edition Arnt Gulbrandsen Troll Tech

8. CRLs Unicode Support Mark Leisher Computing Research Laboratory New Mexico State University

9. C14, C15: Panel on Open-Source Approaches to Unicode Enablement 16th International Unicode ConferenceAmsterdam, the Netherlands, March 2000 CRLs Unicode Support n Goal: Provide example resources usable on Unix. nFonts. nEncoding mapping tables. nUnicode character information. nAlgorithms. nOther resources. nResource availability.

10. C14, C15: Panel on Open-Source Approaches to Unicode Enablement 16th International Unicode ConferenceAmsterdam, the Netherlands, March 2000 CRLs Unicode Support n Fonts. Three bitmap fonts in BDF format were developed and made available. nArabic nDevanagari nClearly U

11. C14, C15: Panel on Open-Source Approaches to Unicode Enablement 16th International Unicode ConferenceAmsterdam, the Netherlands, March 2000 CRLs Unicode Support n Encoding mapping tables. The Unicode Consortium provides mapping tables for converting many of the more common character sets to Unicode. The CSets archive provides supplementary mapping tables for character sets and encodings that are not supplied by the Unicode Consortium.

12. C14, C15: Panel on Open-Source Approaches to Unicode Enablement 16th International Unicode ConferenceAmsterdam, the Netherlands, March 2000 CRLs Unicode Support n Unicode character information. To facilitate development of Unicode-capable software, a simple character information and partial bi-directional reordering API and library was developed early on before standardization efforts really gained momentum. This is the UCData package and the Pretty Good Bidi Algorithm.

13. C14, C15: Panel on Open-Source Approaches to Unicode Enablement 16th International Unicode ConferenceAmsterdam, the Netherlands, March 2000 CRLs Unicode Support n Algorithms. To further encourage independent development of Unicode capable software, a few basic text search algorithms were converted to use Unicode text. These include: nA Boyer-Moore string search routine. nA glob matching routine called Wildmat. nAn almost minimal DFA regular expression routine.

14. C14, C15: Panel on Open-Source Approaches to Unicode Enablement 16th International Unicode ConferenceAmsterdam, the Netherlands, March 2000 CRLs Unicode Support n Other resources. Some of the other resources made available by CRL are: Code to test wchar_t type support in C/C++ compilers. nKeyboard arrangements for various languages that have been collected over the years. n Resource Availability. All of the resources mentioned are freeware and can be found at http://crl.nmsu.edu/~mleisher/.

15. International Library for Mozilla Frank Tang Netscape Communications Mozilla

16. International Components for Unicode (ICU) Helena Shih and Steven Loomis IBM Unicode Technology Center

17. C14, C15: Panel on Open-Source Approaches to Unicode Enablement 16th International Unicode ConferenceAmsterdam, the Netherlands, March 2000 Unicode support in the Industry n Lack of a complete set of features in most implementations. n Inconsistent across different environments. Win32 vs. POSIX, for example. n Poor portability. n Unable to share the resources with other products. n Almost no extensibility and customization. n Not a concern for most companies when a product is first designed.

18. C14, C15: Panel on Open-Source Approaches to Unicode Enablement 16th International Unicode ConferenceAmsterdam, the Netherlands, March 2000 AS/400 e-Server 720 Netfinity Server S/390 Server Apple G3 Macintosh Microsoft NT Workstation Sun Ultra 60 Workstation IBMs DB/2 Product World Wide Web ICUICUICUICU ICUICUICUICU

19. C14, C15: Panel on Open-Source Approaches to Unicode Enablement 16th International Unicode ConferenceAmsterdam, the Netherlands, March 2000 ICU Objectives n Quality Unicode & I18N support across platforms n Consistent results in both C/C++ and Java n Powerful, portable API available to the Open- Source development community n Important resources sharing mechanism n Outside feedback & contributions improve quality and feature set

20. C14, C15: Panel on Open-Source Approaches to Unicode Enablement 16th International Unicode ConferenceAmsterdam, the Netherlands, March 2000 ICU Features n Parallel to the i18n architecture in JDK n All components multi-thread safe n Full Unicode string manipulation n Complete locale support, e.g. > 145 locales n Fast and flexible character set conversion n Efficient data loading mechanism n Hierarchical resource bundles with Unicode data n Extensive calendar and timezone support n Date, time, currency, number and message formatting

21. C14, C15: Panel on Open-Source Approaches to Unicode Enablement 16th International Unicode ConferenceAmsterdam, the Netherlands, March 2000 ICU Features n Locale sensitive sorting (including Thai) n Locale sensitive text boundary detection n Customizable transliteration interface n Unicode text compression algorithm n Fast and compliant Unicode 3.0 Bidi algorithm n Unicode 3.0 normalization support n Most up-to-date Unicode 3.0 character properties

22. C14, C15: Panel on Open-Source Approaches to Unicode Enablement 16th International Unicode ConferenceAmsterdam, the Netherlands, March 2000 Platform Support n Reference Platforms: –AIX –OS/390 –AS/400 –RedHat Linux –Solaris –Windows 98, NT4.0 and Win2000 –HP-UX n Working Partners: Sun, IBM, NCR, Xerox, Netscape, Progress, RealNames, Versant, Compuware, GlobalSight, Hotmail, Lotus...

23. C14, C15: Panel on Open-Source Approaches to Unicode Enablement 16th International Unicode ConferenceAmsterdam, the Netherlands, March 2000 ICU Documentation n API Documentation –Updated from header files (like javadoc) –Available on external web siteAvailable n User Guide –Work in progress, feedback welcome –Initial draft availabledraft

24. C14, C15: Panel on Open-Source Approaches to Unicode Enablement 16th International Unicode ConferenceAmsterdam, the Netherlands, March 2000 ICU4J - ICU for Java n IBM developed extensive I18N library n I18N code added to Java JDK 1.1 n Java code ported to C++ -> ICU n ICU available on alphaWorks n Both ICU and Java classes continue development –Sometimes leapfrogging each other with features n ICU open source, moves to developerWorks n 2000 March: Java Code open source as ICU4J

25. C14, C15: Panel on Open-Source Approaches to Unicode Enablement 16th International Unicode ConferenceAmsterdam, the Netherlands, March 2000 ICU4J Features n Builds on Java 2 feature set n Feature summary: –Advanced text boundary detection –Calendars: Hebrew, Hijri/Islamic, Japanese Gengou, Thai Buddhist –Spelled-out numbers –Normalization –Transliteration –Standard Unicode compression

26. C14, C15: Panel on Open-Source Approaches to Unicode Enablement 16th International Unicode ConferenceAmsterdam, the Netherlands, March 2000 Reference Information n ICU Web Sites –http://oss.software.ibm.com/icu/http://oss.software.ibm.com/icu/ n developerWorks Unicode site –http://www.ibm.com/developer/unicode/http://www.ibm.com/developer/unicode/ n The Unicode Standard –http://www.unicode.org/http://www.unicode.org/ n developerWorks Java site –http://www.ibm.com/developer/java/http://www.ibm.com/developer/java/

27. C14, C15: Panel on Open-Source Approaches to Unicode Enablement 16th International Unicode ConferenceAmsterdam, the Netherlands, March 2000 Demos n Locale Explorer n xliterate-It! n Qt Demo

28. C14, C15: Panel on Open-Source Approaches to Unicode Enablement 16th International Unicode ConferenceAmsterdam, the Netherlands, March 2000 Agenda n Panel Introductions n Library Descriptions and Demos n What is Open Source? n What is the Open Source experience? n Q and A

29. C14, C15: Panel on Open-Source Approaches to Unicode Enablement 16th International Unicode ConferenceAmsterdam, the Netherlands, March 2000 ICU OpenSource Objectives n Promotes a cross-platform Unicode strategy n Produces a Unicode technology implementation n Supports important OpenSource products Linux, Apache, Mozilla, XML etc.

30. C14, C15: Panel on Open-Source Approaches to Unicode Enablement 16th International Unicode ConferenceAmsterdam, the Netherlands, March 2000 Open-Source Models n The Apache model –Web access for CVS repository –Technical committees n Developer community support –icu4c@us.ibm.com support account –news.alphaworks.ibm.com discussion newsgroup n Commercial product partnership –RealNames, versant, GE...

31. C14, C15: Panel on Open-Source Approaches to Unicode Enablement 16th International Unicode ConferenceAmsterdam, the Netherlands, March 2000 Open-Source Models n The Troll Tech model –Free and Professional Editions –Distinguish private, open source use from commercial, closed source use –All contributions accepted and used in both versions. –Source updated daily

32. C14, C15: Panel on Open-Source Approaches to Unicode Enablement 16th International Unicode ConferenceAmsterdam, the Netherlands, March 2000 Why contribute to Open Source? n Bob Verbrugge: –Requires robust I18n and portability –Implementing alone, cost is considerable –Sharing development is cost effective –Shared knowledge with experts –Ability to influence the end-result

33. C14, C15: Panel on Open-Source Approaches to Unicode Enablement 16th International Unicode ConferenceAmsterdam, the Netherlands, March 2000 Why contribute to Open Source? n Steve Watt: –Requires portability and interoperability –Upgrading existing library to Unicode version 3.0 is a sizable effort –Commercial libraries did not meet our needs –Shared effort means our development focus is now aligned with on our needs

34. C14, C15: Panel on Open-Source Approaches to Unicode Enablement 16th International Unicode ConferenceAmsterdam, the Netherlands, March 2000 Why contribute to Open Source? n Steve Watts concerns: –Giving away proprietary technology –Design by committee –Will release schedules fit product schedules? –Will library and product stay in synch? –Do all participants have common objectives?

35. C14, C15: Panel on Open-Source Approaches to Unicode Enablement 16th International Unicode ConferenceAmsterdam, the Netherlands, March 2000 Why contribute to Open Source? n Yves Arrouye: –Share expertise, give something –Benefits from features developed by others Normalization, optimized algorithms Character set conversions –Access to source code –Using multiple Open Source products

36. C14, C15: Panel on Open-Source Approaches to Unicode Enablement 16th International Unicode ConferenceAmsterdam, the Netherlands, March 2000 Why contribute to Open Source? n Yves Arrouyes concerns: –Management Perceptions If its free, it must be for play… –Entry requirements and qualifications to be able to affect direction or design –Patch integration, Release control and schedules –Build stability

37. C14, C15: Panel on Open-Source Approaches to Unicode Enablement 16th International Unicode ConferenceAmsterdam, the Netherlands, March 2000 n Panel Introductions n Library Descriptions and Demos n What is Open Source? n What is the Open Source experience? n Q and A Agenda