Re: [OOo-Hebrew] [YBA] RFI for Hebrew OOo SOW 2008

Hi Natan,
All of the bug fixes that TkOS puts in the TkOS OOo are submitted to IZ. 
Some of the fixes that we make are justifiably considered dirty or 
dangerous by the Hamburg group and so do not get into the official OOo. We 
take our obligation to make all of our work available to the public 
seriously.

Your request to simplify the development by settingup some sort of 
framework is not realistic or doable. Doing OOo programming is a full-time 
job. This isn't someting that you can do in your spare time unless you are 
exceptionally gifted or have six months of spare time and very high 
motivation.

It is probably realistic to set up a translation framework that would 
allow group participation. We could request budget for this. I think that 
this is a good idea. We tried to do this on 2007 but ran out of budget.

There is a fundamental problem with integrating hspell into OpenOffice - 
the GPL licensing (and the lack of cross-platform support). That is the 
reason that we have not integrated it so far. We need it to be GNU Lesser 
General Public License or dual licensed.

   - yba


On Sun, 6 Jan 2008, Natan Nestel wrote:

> Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 17:06:46 +0200
> From: Natan Nestel <[email protected]>
> To: Nadav Har'El <[email protected]>
> Cc: Jonathan Ben Avraham <[email protected]>, [email protected]
> Subject: Re: [OOo-Hebrew] [YBA] RFI for Hebrew OOo SOW 2008
> 
> I have a MAC and I don't know how to use the Hebrew.
> What is the best way to learn?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Natan
>
> On Jan 6, 2008 4:50 PM, Nadav Har'El <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> On Sun, Jan 06, 2008, Jonathan Ben Avraham wrote about "[OOo-Hebrew] [YBA]
>> RFI for Hebrew OOo SOW 2008":
>>> Your suggestions should be as specific as possible and realistic in an
>>> engineering sense. For example:
>>
>> In addition to being specific and realistic, doesn't it need to somehow be
>> an issue specific to Israel?
>>
>>> Please post your suggestions to this list for discussion. If the
>>> discussions get out of hand we will take them off-list.
>>
>> My first wish, which is very specific and at least somewhat realistic is:
>>
>>  get all the existing Hebrew bugfixes into the official OpenOffice.
>>
>> I guess this mostly requires talking and nagging (with the OpenOffice
>> developer) and relatively little new programming.
>>
>> Another thing I wish for  isn't very specific, but maybe it will spark
>> a discussion which will be more specific. What I would love to see done
>> is some sort of setups or frameworks which will facilitate more Israelis,
>> not just your team, to participate in OpenOffice development. For example,
>> translation can be done (even if not as well as you did) by a team of
>> volunteers, and bug fixing and adding features can also be done by
>> volunteers
>> from the general public.  But I think that what's stopping this is the
>> shear
>> complexity of the OpenOffice project.
>>
>> For example, I saw that you recently commented on Rene's bug report that
>> the
>> OpenOffice's builtin Hspell (not the hunspell dictionary of Hspell) needs
>> to be
>> updated. Dan and I have clearly shown our interest in making Hebrew spell-
>> checking a reality for OpenOffice, and we are the ones who created the
>> hunspell
>> format Hebrew dictionary for OpenOffice, but we simply have no idea how to
>> write a spell-checker for OpenOffice, which is why Alan had to do it. If
>> there was a way in which this complexity could be simplified, and we had a
>> way to focus on the Hspell code and not on compiling millions of lines of
>> code for OpenOffice, maybe we could have done (and can do in the future)
>> this
>> work and save you the time.
>>
>>> Tk Open Systems acts as a contractor to the MoF for the Hebrew OOo
>>> project. Both Boaz Dolev (MoF) and I have ideas about where to take the
>>> project in the coming year, but since you, the public, are providing the
>>> funding, you should have the final say. This is your opportunity.
>>
>> I think that OpenOffice in Hebrew has gone a long way in the last several
>> years. From a buggy and barely workable solution for Hebrew documents, it
>> has become a very useful word processor. I believe that for the Hebrew
>> support
>> not to "decay", at least some minimal level of work needs to be maintained
>> at fixing small bugs and preventing "decay". I think that such minimal
>> level
>> of work also needs to be funded.
>>
>> --
>> Nadav Har'El                        |       Sunday, Jan  6 2008, 28 Tevet
>> 5768
>> [email protected]
>> |-----------------------------------------
>> Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |The meek shall inherit the Earth, for
>> http://nadav.harel.org.il           |they are too timid to refuse it.
>>  --
>> Hebrew OpenOffice Mailing List [email protected]
>> To unsubscribe see: http://openoffice.org.il/mailman/listinfo/hebrew
>>
>

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