Hey Everyone:
This one isn't directly connected with Wikimedia projects but is, IMHO, one element of any Wikimedia project in India - Unicode.
I'm trying to bring together some ideas as to why Unicode is important, what the upsides and downsides are. My initial thoughts:
1. While there are many ways to achieve a legal framework for inter-operable content (CC, GFDL, PD or the Copyright Act Amendment for the PI) etc. there needs to be a technical framework for such interoperability as well. 2. Given that we publish in Indian languages, using Unicode fonts are the only way to achieve cross-platform interoperability and is a global standard. 3. Given India's push towards copyright reform for the print impaired, it is imperative that Unicode fonts be used in the creation of Indic content because it is otherwise a huge barrier to conversion to print-friendly formats. 4. Unicode, being an open global standard guarantees content accessibility in the future and ensures no proprietary font and vendor lock in. 5. The limitation is on the lack of high quality and varied typefaces that are both screen and print optimised open type Indic Unicode fonts. 6. Given the importance of linguistic diversity to India's cultural heritage, it is imperative that greater attention is paid to the development of such fonts under licenses that allow for free re-use and to fix issues in the fonts that might arise. 7. The Govt. should fund the open development of at least 5 such fonts for each the 21 Constitutionally recognised languages and make these available not just for free, but under free license to re-use and improve as well. 8. The GoI has recognised this and notified Unicode 5.1.0 as the de-facto standard for all eGovernance projects. This standard needs to be more widely adopted for all Government digital projects and any software or content procurement as well.
Would love to hear your thoughts.
Thank you.
Best,
Gautam ________ http://social.prathambooks.org/