[Kde-i18n-fa] java farsi [was:Re: Farsi Language Screenshots]

[Aryan Ameri]

On Tuesday 01 July 2003 09:24, Abbas Izad wrote:
> >Thanks for your generous offer. However, these files are hosted on
> > KDE servers and not our servers, thus there should be no reason to
> > mirror them.
> >
> >Having said that, there are other things that we need some space for
> >them, we certainly will take advantage of that 20 MB of yours.
> >
> > > One other thing i think some of the brackets in some of the text
> > > is not complimented.
> > > I'm not sure if its a typo or a bug.
> >
> >I don't think I get what you mean here. But if you mean those
> >parentheses, then I have to say that yes, sadly things get mixed up
> >when parentheses are used. This is a bug, which as far as I know has
> >not been investigated thoroughly.
> >
> >
> >OT PS: This should into bna-linuxiran mailing list, however as I am
> > not sure wether you are a member or not, I thought I would risk
> > getting flamed, and ask it here.
> >
> >You once told me that Java does support Farsi, and that you were
> >involved in the team which was working on the internationalization
> > of java. However, I have searched all the documents on can find on
> > Sun's Java website (BTW did I tell you that Sun's website sucks ?)
> > and can't find anything usefull there. There are docs, covering
> > Japanese and chinese languages, but nothing about Arabic and Farsi.
> > And I haven't yet been able to type farsi in java applications in
> > Linux. are you aware of any docs/howto/guide which can help me in
> > this regard ?
>
> Sun java is restricted export to a list of countries including Iran,
> last time i checked!

Abbas these are completely different issues. 

First of all let me put a disclaimer here: IANAL, I might be wrong. If 
you seek professional legal advice, go seek a lawyer. 

Now into your argument. 

This doesn't have anything to do with Sun Java or with Java at all. The 
US congress has approved laws, which restircts exporting certain 
software to certain countries. Exporting any software that includes 
cryptography material to the list of "US Banned countries" is illegal. 
There are many examples of of cryptography software e.g SSH and PGP to 
name a few. Software which partialy contains cryptography software is 
also included in this list. All GNU/Linux distributions, Java, Mozilla, 
.. they all contains cryptography software. 

According to US  regulations on cryptogaphy software, exporting software 
which includes cryptography to "US Banned countries" is illegal. That 
list currently contains Iran. 

This means that no one from within the united states, can send someone 
in these countries, such software. If someone in the US sends me a CD 
which includes Java or PGP for example, that person (the sender) is 
voilating US law. 

However, since 2000 (I guess) restrictions on software download and 
particularly for software which doesn't have commercial interest (read: 
free software) has eased. This means that some in the US can put PGP on 
a web server, and allow everyone access to it, provided that they put a 
notice on the web page  warning that exportin such software to these 
countries is illegal. 

However if a person in Iran has access to internet, he can go and 
download PGP (for example) from a server located in the US. In this 
case, no one is vilolating any law, because the person in Iran is not 
subject to US law, and it is not the responsibility of the person in US 
to validate which country the downloader comes from. They should just 
provide that "warning message" and then, everything should be fine.

In a nutshell, this means that my cousin in US can not send a copy of 
Linux or any software containing cryptography software to me in Iran. 
however, he can put it on a public server, provide that warning 
message, and then I can download it, and we will both be fine. Strange, 
but true!

Having said all of these about these rules, this regulations on 
cryptography software has got nothing to do with internationalization 
of software.

internationalization is a technical issue. Although exporting Java (as 
an example) to iran is illegal, this doesn't mean that java developers 
can't put farsi support in Java. Because there are Farsi speakers in 
other parts of the world, other than Iran, and there are non-iranian 
farsi speakers. 

hence, putting farsi support in Java is is legal. In fact it has been 
done by Sun.

Cheers

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Aryan Ameri