Open-Source Approaches to Unicode Enablement

Open-Source Approaches to Unicode Enablement. Panel Discussion. Agenda. Panel Introductions Library Descriptions and Demos What is Open Source? What is the Open Source experience? Q and A. Frank Tang Helena Shih Ulrich Drepper Tex Texin. Netscape ICU glibc Moderator. Today’s Panel.

Open-Source Approaches to Unicode EnablementPanel DiscussionAgenda

Panel Introductions

Library Descriptions and Demos

What is Open Source?

What is the Open Source experience?

Q and A

San Jose, California, September 2000Frank TangHelena ShihUlrich DrepperTex TexinNetscapeICUglibcModeratorToday’s PanelSan Jose, California, September 2000Library Descriptions and Demos

GNU libc

http://sourceware.cygnus.com/glibc

Mozilla: International Library of Mozilla

http://www.mozilla.org/projects/intl

IBM: International Components for Unicode

http://oss.software.ibm.com/icuSan Jose, California, September 2000International Library for MozillaFrank TangNetscape CommunicationsMozillaGNU LibcUlrich DrepperGNU, RedHatGNU libc

Library supporting multibyte and wide characters

localedef tool allows definition of locales for any charsets, including UTF8, UCS2

using charset requires just a description and a conversion module

Wide character is UCS-4, native byte order

San Jose, California, September 2000GNU libc conversion functions

iconv() implementation is unique

Conversions are transitive

A to C = A to B to C

In most cases, UCS-4 is used as common denominator

San Jose, California, September 2000Licensing & Development Process

RedHat is completely open source.

Code is licensed as LGPL, assigned to Free Software Foundation (FSF)

This is the same method as GNU

Small teams of developers with a “dictatorial decision maker”.

Comments accepted, taken into account

Extensive peer reviewing

San Jose, California, September 2000International Components for Unicode (ICU)Helena ShihIBM Unicode Technology CenterUnicode support in the Industry

Lack of a complete set of features in most implementations.

Inconsistent across different environments. Win32 vs. POSIX, for example.

Poor portability.

Unable to share the resources with other products.

Almost no extensibility and customization.

Not a concern for most companies when a product is first designed.

San Jose, California, September 2000Netfinity ServerICUApple G3 MacintoshICUIBM’s DB/2 ProductAS/400 e-Server 720Microsoft NT WorkstationWorld Wide WebSun Ultra 60 WorkstationS/390 Server San Jose, California, September 2000ICU Objectives

Single release for world-wide distribution

Quality Unicode & I18N support across platforms

Simplified development localization process

Consistent results in both C/C++ and Java

Powerful, portable API available to the Open-Source development community

Important resources sharing mechanism

San Jose, California, September 2000ICU Features

Parallel to the i18n architecture in JDK

All components multi-thread safe

Full Unicode string manipulation

Complete locale support, e.g. > 145 locales

Fast and flexible character set conversion

Efficient data loading mechanism

San Jose, California, September 2000ICU Features

Hierarchical resource bundles with flexible data storage mechanism

Extensive calendar and timezone support

Date, time, currency, number and message formatting

Locale sensitive sorting (including Thai)

Locale sensitive text boundary detection

San Jose, California, September 2000ICU Features

Customizable transliteration interface

Unicode text compression algorithm

Fast and compliant Unicode 3.0 Bidi algorithm

Most up-to-date Unicode 3.0 support (including Normalization)

All APIs support UTF-16

Partnership insures balanced viewpoints and practical solutions

San Jose, California, September 2000ICU4J - ICU for Java

IBM developed extensive I18N library

I18N code added to Java JDK 1.1

Java code ported to C++ -> ICU

ICU available on alphaWorks

Both ICU and Java classes continue development

Sometimes “leapfrogging” each other with features

ICU open source, moves to developerWorks

2000 March: Java Code open source as “ICU4J”

San Jose, California, September 2000ICU4J Features

Builds on Java 2 feature set

Feature summary:

Advanced text boundary detection

Calendars: Hebrew, Hijri/Islamic, Japanese Gengou, Thai Buddhist

Spelled-out numbers

Normalization

Transliteration

Standard Unicode compression

San Jose, California, September 2000Demos

Locale Explorer

glibc

San Jose, California, September 2000Agenda

Panel Introductions

Library Descriptions and Demos

What is Open Source?

What is the Open Source experience?

Q and A

San Jose, California, September 2000ICU OpenSource Objectives

De facto industry standard for Unicode support

Pervasive globalization technologies

Mature globalization technologies for customers

Support for other important OpenSource products: Linux, Apache, Mozilla, XML etc.

San Jose, California, September 2000Open-Source Models

The Apache model

Web access for CVS repository

Technical committees

Developer community support

icu@oss.software.ibm.com etc. mailing lists

Commercial product partnership

RealNames, versant, GE ...

San Jose, California, September 2000Why contribute to Open Source?

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

San Jose, California, September 2000Why contribute to Open Source?

Provide portability and interoperability

Going to Unicode 3.0 is a sizable effort

Commercial libraries insufficient

Shared effort means our development focus is now aligned with our needs

Share expertise, Give something

Source access-Education, Self-reliance

San Jose, California, September 2000Why contribute to Open Source?

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?

San Jose, California, September 2000Why contribute to Open Source?

Concerns:

Management Perceptions

“If it’s 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

San Jose, California, September 2000Agenda

Panel Introductions

Library Descriptions and Demos

What is Open Source?

What is the Open Source experience?

Q and A

San Jose, California, September 2000