Re: Patent Pending on Sheba arabic Gnome based distribution

[Ali Abdin <aliabdin aucegypt edu>]

* Owen Taylor (otaylor@redhat.com) wrote at 01:01 on 17/07/00:
> 
> Daniel Veillard <Daniel.Veillard@w3.org> writes:
> 
> >  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,

This is just an article speaking about the project and providing some
installation tips :) It is not affiliated with the company (think of it as a
Arabic LUG site)

> >   I feel quite concerned,
> 
> I'm not so concerned -
> 
>  - Even the US patent office won't let you patent "GNOME with Arabic"

I think it is more of a concern if they can, for example, get a 'Patent' in
various Arab countries. I am not sure if there is such a thing (luckily). But
since this 'Arabic GNOME' is targetted towards the Arab world/Middle East, it
would be interesting to examin IP and Copyright/Copyleft issues over there.

I just read on their page though that they are a US-based Arabization company
- so they may be applying for a patent in the US.

>  - They have some of their GTK+ and GNOME patches there, and while
>    they aren't complete by themeself (they use an external library),
>    it's pretty clear that if they want to patent those
>    techniques, they can have them.
>  
>    [ Just so there is no misunderstanding, I'm joking. ]

When they first released (they posted a week ago on the arabic-linux mailing
list), I specifically went to their site to make sure they provided patches to
GNOME/Gtk+, etc. - I even looked at one of the patches (it does not force you
to register to get the patches).

>     - The capabilities there are far less than what Pango
>       provides now, not to mention will provide in the future. 

I strongly agree - It seems like this is just a crude hack to get support for
Arabic fonts. It is probably not something anybody wants in Gtk+ or GNOME.
Pango is a much more modular and extensible approach. Owen mentions this in
his next point :)

>     - The patches are Arabic specific and would never have been folded back 
>       into GTK+, even if we didn't have the code already to do it
>       right.
> 
> It would probably be a good idea if one of our Arabic speakers looked
> at the article, and if necessary politely contacted the company to
> make sure that they were aware of their obligations under the GPL and
> LGPL.

I'd like to point out www.linux4arab.com has nothing to do with this.
linux4arab is just a 'community site' for Arabic-related stuff to Linux - so
they just have a story. The creators/sellers of this 'SHEBA' thing is
www.linuxvision.net

I can not see how they are violating or not obligating the GPL/LGPL? If
somebody can give me specific clauses I can contact them regarding that (via
email). As far as I know they make Gtk+/GNOME pathces available, but they sell
their product (not a violation as far as I know). So what is the violation? :)

Note: they also add 'other' packages to their 'distro' (such as 'acon' which
is an Arabic console application). What irks me about this though, is that
many people in the Arab community (who are still largely naive about Linux)
will just believe that this company 'created' these products (they seem to
pass it off as if its their creation).
 
> Basically, I'm happy to see someone out there warming the Arabic for
> GTK+ and GNOME waters. It will still 6-9 months before we have a
> standard version of GNOME with full Arabic support; when we do, I'm
> sure this company will switch over to using it.

I would be very happy to see Arabic support too, but not this way. This is too
proprietary and seems inappropriate. This is not the way I envisioned it at
least.

I'd much rather wait for 6-9 months than see a few patches to old
gnome-libs/Gtk+ versions in order to get Arabic fonts to render.

Regards,
Ali Abdin