Patent Pending on Sheba arabic Gnome based distribution

[Daniel Veillard <Daniel Veillard w3 org>]

 Just found on linux today:

http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2000-07-15-027-06-NW-CY-SW

check the screen shot to see the panel and Gedit with arabic support
http://www.linuxvision.com/desktop.gif

-------------------------
Linuxvision.com has announced the first release of
"SHEBA" The Complete Arabic Support for Linux. 

Sheba's features: 
  .  Supports most Gtk+ and GNOME applications for Arabic input and output. 
[...]
-------------------------

   there is a download link, the first thing is taht they ask for
registration, second there is a "Patent Pending - July, 2000" notice
third it seems to be free as in free beer but not free software, seems
like an activation or download key is required :-(((

  So what the heck are they doing ?
I am very concerned about possible attempt to lock up the work on
porting Gnome to Arabic. Did they provided patches back ? Does someone
knows what they are doing, especially about the patent, since I can't
read the arabic story at:
 http://linux4arab.com/cgi-bin/newspro/viewnews.cgi?newsid963242003,47760,

  I feel quite concerned,

Daniel

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