Re: relevance of "[PATCH] tty utf8 mode" in linux-kernel 2.6.4-rc1

[Tomohiro KUBOTA <debian@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

From: Markus Kuhn <Markus.Kuhn@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: relevance of "[PATCH] tty utf8 mode" in linux-kernel 2.6.4-rc1 
Date: Mon, 01 Mar 2004 19:00:59 +0000

> But remember that UTF-8 is not EUC, and it is not clear to me why UTF-8
> terminal emulators need to be compatible with EUC terminal emulators, if
> they do not even use the same character encoding. The notion of
> BACKSPACE removing one character is clearly the only practical one if
> you use a terminal emulator, for example, with proportional fonts.

But remember that EUC are not only encodings which support doublewidth
characters.  Properly internationalized softwares are designed to follow
LC_CTYPE locale.  If UTF-8 will be an exception for "0x08 moves one
column" policy, all softwares will need to have	exception handling
functions.

Also, please note that UTF-8 terminals are already implemented in
"0x08 moves one column" way and east Asian UTF-8 users depend on it.
We have to consider compatibility for these people.  You are too late
to modify the behavior of 0x08.

Also, cursor position at half position of doublewidth character is
anyway needed.  For example, when you need to write "|" at some location
of X axis from up to down.  If a doublewidth character is accidentally
written there, the vertical line will be broken (if cursor position
at half position is not allowed).


> extending the very simple traditional terminal semantics is, which came
> from that of first a mono-spaced typewriter and later a very
> memory-restricted video terminal, in an age where users expect not just
> double-width characters, but also combining characters and ligatures.

If you are thinking about far future, please think a completely different
system, instead of modifying an existing tty system.


> [Standard thin-end-of-the-wedge argument: If you want to have Kanji in
> the kernel, where would we stop? Why not put Syriac and Freetype into it
> soon afterwards, too, along with the full X server? Why have a kernel at
> all if we can compile all libraries and and applications into one big
> blob? :-]

Why do you think Kanji support is somewhat "fancyful" while the real
Linux kernel has been supporting Latin/Cyrillic/Arabic/Greek and UTF-8?
Is it because east Asian people are less important than European people?

Why Linux kernel became support more than ASCII characters?

I think it is needed for users to be able to manage to read the messages
(not only kernel messages but also major administrating commands such
as rpm and dpkg) on the console.  You know, these commands are gettextized
and have Japanese translations.

---
Tomohiro KUBOTA <kubota@xxxxxxxxxx>
http://www.debian.or.jp/~kubota/

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Linux-UTF8:   i18n of Linux on all levels
Archive:      http://mail.nl.linux.org/linux-utf8/