FOSS Localization/Further Reading

Raymond, 2001
Raymond, Eric S., The Cathedral & the Bazaar, O'Reilly, 2001.

Named after the classic article that has motivated the Open Source movement, this book presents the article along with other opinions of the same author. The article analyzes how the GNU/Linux kernel has been developed with such dramatic speed as compared to proprietary projects, despite being a "hobby" project done by thousands of contributors around the world. It is interesting to note how a project of that size is managed and how this phenomenon occurs. Some principles are extracted for use in general software projects, exemplified by the fetchmail project done by the author. The term "Open Source" was then coined as a proposed replacement to the "Free Software" term used by former campaigns led by the GNU project, as it was less ambiguous and more friendly to businesses.

The article is available at http://catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/.

DiBona, Ockman & Stone, 1999
DiBona, C., Ockman, S. and Stone M., eds., Open Sources - Voices from the Open Source Revolution, O'Reilly, 1999.

This includes articles by leaders of the FOSS movements: Brian Behlendrof (Apache), Kirk McKusick (Berkeley Unix), Tim O'Reilly (O'Reilly & Associates), Bruce Perens (Debian, Open Source Initiative), Tom Paquin and Jim Hamerly (mozilla.org, Netscape), Eric Raymond (Open Source Initiative), Richard Stallman (GNU, Free Software Foundation, Emacs), Michael Tiemann (Cygnus Solutions), Linus Torvalds (Linux), Paul Vixie (Bind), Larry Wall (Perl). The strategy and success of FOSS is documented in these articles.

Williams, 2002
Williams, S., Free as in Freedom - Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software, O'Reilly, 2002.

This is the story of Richard Stallman, the founder of the GNU project, and the birth of the Free Software movement. It examines Stallman's unique personality and how it has been both a driving force in terms of the movement's overall success.

Unicode
The Unicode Consortium, The Unicode Standard, Version 4.0.1, defined by: The Unicode Standard, Version 4.0, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 2003. As amended by Unicode 4.0.1. (http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode4.0.1/).

This explains the Unicode standard, including descriptions of planes, code charts and implementation guidelines.

ISO10646
ISO/IEC 10646:2003, Information Technology - Universal multi-octet character set - UCS, 2003; available from http://std.dkuug.dk/JTC1/SC2/WG2/.

The ISO/IEC 10646 UCS standard is explained, with code chart and conformance specifications.

Kuhn
Kuhn, M., UTF-8 and Unicode FAQ for Unix/Linux; available from http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/unicode.html.

A comprehensive one-stop information resource on how to use Unicode/UTF-8 on POSIX systems as well as the current status of support.

Graham, 2000
Graham, T., Unicode - Primer, IDG Books Worldwide, 2000.

ISO14652
ISO/IEC TR 14652:2002(E), Information Technology - Specification method for cultural conventions, 2002.

The specification for creating locale definitions on which GNU C library is based.

ISO14651
ISO/IEC DIS 14651, International string ordering and comparison - Method for comparing character strings and description of the common template tailorable ordering, 2000.

This is a basic template for UCS string collation, from which LC_COLLATE category in locale definitions can be modified to fit local cultures.

Adobe & Microsoft
Adobe, Microsoft, OpenType Specification v.1.4.; available from http://partners.adobe.com/asn/developer/opentype/main.html and http://www.microsoft.com/typography/otspec/default.htm.

Adobe
Adobe, Adobe Solutions Network - Type Technology, available from http://partners.adobe.com/asn/tech/type/index.jsp.

Specifications and conventions for font technology related to Adobe Postscript®. A must for standardconformant font creations.

Microsoft
Microsoft, Microsoft Typography - Specifications; available from http://www.microsoft.com/typography/specs/default.htm.

Specifications for OpenType and TrueType font technologies. Also included are specifications for fonts of specific scripts and languages as required by Microsoft Uniscribe, the Unicode script processor.

William
William, G., FontForge - An Outline Font Editor; available from http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/overview.html.

A tutorial for FontForge. One can learn from it even when using other font editors.

Gettys & Scheifler, 1996
Gettys, J. and Scheifler, R.W., Xlib - C Language X Interface, X Consortium Standard, X Version 11 Release 6.4, 1996.

The reference for X11R6.4 architecture that you can consult when implementing at X Window level.

Nye, 1995
Nye, A., ed., Programmer's Supplement for Release 6 of the X Window System, O'Reilly, 1995.

A guide to the features introduced in X Window Version 11 Release 6 (X11R6). The internationalization chapter may be the most interesting for readers.

Packard, 2002
Packard, K., Font Configuration and Customization for Open Source Systems. GUADEC 2002, Seville, 2002; available from http://keithp.com/~keithp/talks/guadec2002/.

Documents the background of the FontConfig library during the initial phases.

Palmer, 2003
Palmer, D., An Unreliable Guide to XKB Configuration, 2003; available from http://www.charvolant.org/~doug/xkb/.

A document on XKB written by a hacker frustrated by the lack of documentation.

Pascal
Pascal, I., How to Configure XKB; available from http://www.tsu.ru/~pascal/en/xkb.

A complete reference for XKB configuration.

Hiura, 1999
Hiura, H., Internet/Intranet Input Method Architecture. ( http://www.openi18n.org/subgroups/im/IIIMF/whitepaper/whitepaper.html ).

A white paper describing the concepts of IIIM, the next generation cross-platform input method architecture which should soon replace XIM.

Tuoc, Lok & Taylor, 1995
Tuoc L V., Lok J.S.H. and Taylor D.J., Internationalization: Developing Software for Global Markets, John Wiley & Sons, 1995.

Sprung, 2000
Sprung, R., ed., Translating Into Success: Case Studies in Translation, Localization, and Internationalization, John Benjamins, 2000.

Lunde, 1999
Lunde, K., CJKV Information Processing, O'Reilly,1999; available from http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/cjkvinfo.

Ott, 1999
Ott, C., Global Solutions for Multilingual Applications, Wiley, 1999.