Messages in this thread | | | Date | Tue, 18 Jul 2000 09:02:00 -0400 (EDT) | From | "Mike A. Harris" <> | Subject | Re: Japanese (or other language) postings |
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On Tue, 18 Jul 2000, Andrew van der Stock wrote:
>Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 21:05:00 +1000 >From: Andrew van der Stock <ajv@greebo.net> >To: linux-kernel@vger.rutgers.edu >Subject: Japanese (or other language) postings > >If you canâïœ read the following, your mailer (MUA) is >broken. End of story.
I can read that. It looks like random shit though. ;o)
>ã¯ã¿ã·ã¯Andrewãã¹ã
Hmm.. Looks like you've got some line noise there. PINE works fine with it though.
>With the original poster effectively saying that Linux (and I >mean the kernel, not just a distro) will not be >internationalized due to one or two spammers is wrong.
Huh? I don't remember seeing such a posting... I don't see why the kernel itself needs to be internationalized at all though. Not error messages and internal stuff. Filesystems, and stuff that hits userland, like NLS, etc.. sure, no problem. That is needed IMHO. Not boot messages and such though. Otherwise a lot of error reports would be quoting 50 foreign languages and Linus would have to learn a lot more languages. One language to support is enough.
>International helpers (and generally they are volunteers) have >posted here before, and we should never cut ourselves off from >70% of the world who do not speak English.
If they speak even broken English, they should post in English, especially if they want to reach the widest audience. It has nothing to do with language superiority, it has to do with communication at the highest common denominator. Many people speak one language ONLY. Should they be forced to read postings in 50 other languages as well? Create other lists for that like "linux-kernel-jp", "linux-kernel-de", etc.. just to name a few. If every mailing list allowed posting in all languages you'd end up with chaos.
>ASCII's time is coming to a close, and confusing two issues
Says who? ASCII is the standard code computers use to communicate with on most levels where text is involved. On the majority of systems anyways. This isn't going to change any time soon IMHO, although there are certainly other codes in use.
>(spam vs ignoring all .jp/double byte mails) is simply wrong
I ignore what I cannot read. I am not going to install an SGML parser, tex parser, HTML parser, UNICODE parser, Kanji parser -> English translator, and 50 other format converters to all of my email software just for the benefit of reading someone elses postings. I read english, and I join English mailing lists, etc.. If someone can't follow the rules, I'm not obligated to read their mail or respond, and I'm free to filter it so it isn't ever seen. SPAM especially.
>(and skirting damn close to racism).
Not IMHO. Anyone of any race, color, creed, country is free to post messages here, or to me personally, anytime. I've got nothing at all against anyone of any race/color, etc.. I do however have a problem with people sending messages in foreign charsets that is unreadable by 99.99999999% of all posters. ESPECIALLY if it is SPAM. I don't care what race they are. If an English person posts shit in SGML, I'd be just as ticked off. SAME THING.
>I'm not going into which MUA is best as I've decided what works >for me and you'll be a partisan of another choice, and there >should always be that choice.
Well that I agree with. EVERYONE is entitled to their own software choice, regardless of what anyone else may think.
>The real issue is that many MUA's are simply and unspeakably >difficult wrt HTML (which is how double byte people must >communicate with any chance of it being read somewhere else)
Certainly. Email is ASCII text. HTML is at best a file attachment in another format. An HTML email, is really only an email with no body of text, and a HTML file attachment. An email reader that doesn't grok HTML, is one that only follows email standards. One that parses the file attachments and knows about HTML is a bonus plan for the person receiving HTML. Expecting everyone to use a reader that can grok every possible file attachment type is just rediculous when ALL MAIL READER SOFTWARE CAN READ ASCII TEXT.
>and how they handle languages in general. Spam is a different >issue, and one that must be addressed but separately to >languages.
Agreed.
>This is an English language forum, and substationally that >should not change,
Hmm... I got from your above comments that you thought any language should be ok.... guess I read you wrong... Either that or you're contradicting yourself.. Sorry if I've misunderstood you in any way.
>but cutting off particular language speakers just to avoid spam >or faulty or substandard mailers smacks of avoiding the real >issue.
Cutting off a TLD, yes. Cutting off a content type encoding, no. I can't read Japanese, Hebrew, Hindi, or any other language. Filtering messages that say they are in those languages, is thus useful to me. What use is it if my mailer CAN display Kanji, if I can't freaking read Japanese????????? So WHY SHOULD I KEEP IT? Delete it and be called racist? Rediculous.
>What happens if a Hebrew, Hindi or Russian language spammer (or >more likely, the English-language spammers that I've nearly >universally had in the 11 years I've had e-mail) mails here on >a regular basis? The problem of spam is separate to I18N, and >should always be considered so.
Certainly. English SPAM doesn't include random characters that kill your mailer and erase your hard disk though. Kanji does.
Maybe I can come up with my own English encoding format. One that does not use ASCII at all. Perhaps I'll come up with my own syllabic encoding using lots of ^$%#*@(# characters. I'll make it so that it crashes Netscape and Internet Exploder. Woo hoo.
Then I'll post english messages encoded in #$(*%@#lish encoding to foreign mailing lists that are in other languages - without finding out what language the list is in first. Hope nobody's mailer crashes.
How about we just all post our email in Adobe PDF format, or Postscript? That is a widely used standard, no?
>Otherwise, lkml will alienate international developers.
Judging by the current spread of developers, I don't see any hint of that ever occuring. I can't pronounce half the peoples names on this list, and most of those are foreign. I'm damned glad that they are on this list though, and coding for Linux. I'm also happy they took the time to learn English.
Funny thing: People speaking non-english are often hesitant to post messages in English, fearing that their English is too bad and they will get ridiculed or feel embarassed. I've yet to see someone who's English was not understandable though.
My experience with conversing with people of whom just learned English recently is that they speak/write quite well in less than a year of starting.
Anyone posting to a mailing list should first of all learn what language the list is in, or if it is for open postings in any language. That is called netiquette. IMHO.
>As Linus speaks Finnish as his first language (which requires >different characters than ASCII* supports in any case) I >shouldn't think this being controversial. Hopefully, the >mono-linguists amongst us will pipe down and let Linux be truly >universal. HyvÀÀ pÀivÀÀ,
Linus is decent enough to post in English though. Most likely because he knows that will reach the widest audience, and is the language of "business" so to speak. If he posted in Finnish though, it would fit under the "I can do what I want because I started your damned operating system, and run the show here so there!" rule. ;o)
>Andrew van der Stock, ajv@greebo.net http://www.greebo.net >SAGE-AU President http://www.sage-au.org.au > >* ps remember that ASCII is 7 bits (remember VMS?). Characters >above 129 are defined by whoever defines the platform. Try ^ 127
>getting a Mac and a PC to agree where ë or ö appear in this >space without specifying a particular NLS or using Unicode.
Yep. If someone posts in English, even with a different charset, their posting is normally quite readable. Only odd characters, usually in names for example - show up funny. Only rarely does foreign language postings not show up right for me. I'm using a pretty stock English linux configuration too.
No problem. A oe character here, ae there, it is understandable. If it is #$@#$&*^@#%(@#&%(@&&@#%@#()$*@#)$ 0#($*)@#*)%*@#*%@#$*%_@#$(* though, it is NOT understandable.
The particular message that crashed my PINE, was in fact NOT following standards. There were illegal characters in the header lines. The only thing PINE did wrong was not filter illegal characters out. I wonder if the PINE devel team is aware of this... I'm sure someone will come up with a nasty exploit for it though...
Well, back to the grind...
TTYL
-- Mike A. Harris Linux advocate Computer Consultant GNU advocate Capslock Consulting Open Source advocate
... Our continuing mission: To seek out knowledge of C, to explore strange UNIX commands, and to boldly code where no one has man page 4.
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