suresh p said on Thu, Mar 04, 2004 at 12:06:07AM +0100,:
First, should not this be taken to the TeX user group?
for 'koottaksharam's(conjunts) in the "rachana" fonts aren't used
at all.
In typing, no, there were not used; and the reason was simplification of script. This move had almost killed the Malayalam script. OTOH, in handwritten script, yes, the koottaaksharams were, and still are used. Release of the rachana fonts will pave way for unification of the handwritten and typewritten/type set script.
of Malayalam-tex 1.6).You could have used the "indica" preprocessor included with Sinhala_tex.2.1.1 which is licensed under GPL.
While somebody is at it, can you add UTF-8 support, so that we can use unicode files directly in TeX?? And I guess that a single program (mm or indica or robusta -- or whatever* ;) ) will handle preprocessing for all Indic languages.
I have also made some modifications to the metafont files of the Malayalam-tex to add some veriety to the fonts.But I am unable to distribute the same because of the abovementioned clause.Now I have started to create some metafonts which provides different shapes by changing some parameters.
Ok. I am not familiar with TeX. So I may sound idiotic if I ask why metafont files are related to license of the pre-processor. You certainly can contribute to improving support for Unicoded Rachana in TeX.
We should collectively make an attempt to make the Malayalam-tex released under GPL.
Certainly a welcome Idea.
But the TeX people seem to prefer the LPPL, which too is a free license ...
(*) Indica and Robusta are two varities of raw Coffee beans - but then I do not about coffee either.