Subject: IVRIX

From: Jason Phillips <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Dec 2002 11:25:41 -0800 (PST)

Just Wandering,
Does anybody know if IVRIX will make it off the
ground?
Shalom Aleichem,
Jason

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From: "Nadav Har'El" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Dec 2002 18:45:54 +0200

> Does anybody know if IVRIX will make it off the

I think the proper venue for asking this question is the ivrix-discuss
mailing list...

But since you asked here, I'll try to give an answer here.

The short and ambigious answer is: yes and no.

The longer answer is:

If you expected (like I did originally) Ivrix to provide a CD or a set of
RPMs, with a distribution of Linux which is all ready for Hebrew
without needed any more tweaks, configurations, etc., you'll be disappointed.
I know I was. This has not happened; Even when people (like Tzafrir Cohen)
did create such CDs for one-time events, their work was never followed up or
kept current. Ivrix also did not become a functioning organization, its
"steering committee" never actually did anything, and it only held a couple
of meetings.

If you expected Ivrix to be a breading ground for large Hebrew projects, say
the writing of a new Hebrew word processor, or the Bidification of (say) QT,
you'll be disappointed too. The latter, by the way, was done by people in the
QT project, and similarly people in the Gnome project are working on Hebrew
support in their own stuff.

So is Ivrix any good at all? I argue that it has done some good. It has been
a mailing list where for the last 3 years many of the people serious about
Hebrew in Linux have hung around - a role that linux-il (for example) could
not fulfill because of its dozens of daily messages, 95% of which have
nothing to do with Hebrew, and a general attitude of disinterest in Hebrew
(this attitude is thankfully changing in the last year, by the way).
Several small projects were announced, discussed or argued in the
ivrix-discuss mailing lists, the latest of which is Dan Kenigsberg's and
my "hspell" project.

But since Ivrix was created, the Linux world has changed a lot. Major
projects (OpenOffice, KDE, Gnome, Vim, Emacs, Mozilla ...) and distributions
(Redhat, Mandrake, ...) have taken upon themselves the task of
internationalization of their projects. Recent distributions, like Redhat 8,
require very little tweaking to be able to read or write Hebrew on them.
I believe, therefore, that the goal of Ivrix should now be less about creating
a specialized Hebrew distribution, and more about filling the missing
pieces that foreigners will never be able to do. One such missing piece
was a Hebrew spell checker, which is why Dan and I have spent an incredible
amount of time on this project for the last two weeks, and release 0.2
next week will be of quality that is bound to surprise a few people, who
thought that writing a good spell-checker could take years or require
stealing someone else's word list. Another missing piece is the translation
of interfaces and documents - there have been many translation discussions
and arguments in ivrix-discuss during the last few years. Another project,
"Linbrew", is also working now on this aspect, but I don't know what has
become of them either.

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |       Sunday, Dec 29 2002, 25 Tevet 5763
[email-masked]             |-----------------------------------------
Phone: +972-53-245868, ICQ 13349191 |What's the greatest world-wide use of
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |cowhide? To hold cows together.

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From: "Nadav Har'El" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Dec 2002 18:56:50 +0200

> amount of time on this project for the last two weeks, and release 0.2

This was a Freudian sleep - this should be *two months*. I estimate we spent
over 300 man-hours on this project in those two months - maybe too much for
our own good ;)

If anyone doesn't yet know what I'm talking about, take a look at
http://www.ivrix.org.il/projects/spell-checker. Next week there'll be
a new release, with a much improved vocabulary.

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |       Sunday, Dec 29 2002, 25 Tevet 5763
[email-masked]             |-----------------------------------------
Phone: +972-53-245868, ICQ 13349191 |If God is watching us, the least we can
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |do is be entertaining.

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From: "Nadav Har'El" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Dec 2002 18:59:48 +0200

> This was a Freudian sleep - this should be *two months*. I estimate we spent

And this was yet another Freudian *slip*, referring to the fact that I
did not get enough sleep :)

(I think I'm going to take my foot out of my mouth now..)

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |       Sunday, Dec 29 2002, 25 Tevet 5763
[email-masked]             |-----------------------------------------
Phone: +972-53-245868, ICQ 13349191 |I used to be a lumberjack, but I just
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |couldn't hack it, so they gave me the axe.