FSUG-Bangalore:Nudi Issues

From FSUG-Bangalore

One if the biggest impediments to FOSS adoption by Karnataka government is that Nudi [1] does not work on Linux. Before we go to the government to ensure that we get a government approved Input Method and fonts which work on Linux, we first need to list down the issues with the existing solution (Nudi). Hence we need to give the government a note on Inter-operability concerns of Nudi.

Please find below a draft note on these concerns.This is just a listing of concerns. Please edit for technical errors and also completeness.

Nudi is a computer program and font-encoding standard1 used for managing and displaying the Kannada script.The Karnataka government owns and makes Nudi available free. It was developed by the Kannada Ganaka Parishat, a non-profit organisation. It is a font-encoding based standard (i.e., it uses ASCII values to store glyphs). However, Nudi editor provides saving in Unicode and Nudi engine provides inputting data in Unicode provided the system provides support to Unicode and system has an opentype font.

However, there are certain aspects of Nudi which are non-standard and are not open. This lack of standardization and openness, causes some practical problems in the usage of Nudi. Following are the issues with Nudi -

1)It is ASCII based instead of Unicode based Unicode is a globally accepted character encoding standard. ASCII is a character encoding which is being phased out because it can store only limited number of characters and it makes multi-lingual support extremely difficult.Nudi's editor has a feature "Save As Unicode". But the file saved as Unicode can not be opend again by Nudi. In other words, Nudi's editor can not edit a Unicode document. Nudi's Software Development Kit (SDK) also does not support Unicode. For Example: Type some text in Kannada using Nudi 4. Save it as Unicode. Then open the same file again in Nudi 4. It shows it as junk. Nudi cannot display a Kannada Unicode text file created by XP or Linux. That means Nudi's Unicode support is of no use. The fact that Nudi is ASCII based and not Unicode based causes the following practical problems - If Nudi was unicode based, all one needed to use nudi on any platform, would have been its fonts. This is because most browsers and operating systems now support Unicode. But since Nudi is ASCII based, to use Nudi on any system, it the full software needs to be installed, and also since its ASCII based, Nudi designed for one platform might not work for the other.

2)Code for Nudi is not released under GPL While Nudi is distributed as freeware, its code is closed – it is not distributed as free and open source software. If it was released under GPL and made free and open, it will help people work on the same and improve it. Presently no one can access the code to make any changes. This causes the following problems- Nudi does not work on Open Office(on windows) and GNU/linux systems. It is not difficult to fix this problem, but this problem cannot be fixed by anyone other than the copyright holder since the code has not been released as FOSS. There are many government departments ready to move to Open Office, but they cannot do so because Ndi doesnt work on it.

3)Fonts Nudi does not provide opentype font which is required for rendering Kannada Unicode text. This causes the following problems- Makes unicode support difficult 4)Nudi is a font -encoding based standard In font-encoding there is a direct mapping between the character codes and the images(glyphs) they need to display.

This causes the following problems- Reduced flexibility (can you please fill in any other issues?)

5.Nudi does not provide any conversion utility to convert the data created using the other existing Kannada software. Nudi does not provide any tool to convert the data written in Baraha or SCIM to Nudi.

This causes the following problems- No other software other than Nudi can be used Monopolises the software that can be used to type in Kannada

What needs to be done to make standardise Kannada computing?

The following need to be done -

Make Nudi Unicode based

Release Nudi under GPL

Develop Unicode based Kannada fonts

A utility which can convert data written in earlier versions on Nudi to a newer version

Nudi needs to change such that supports Kannada out of box (has no issues to get Kannada rendered properly, or to type in it), on any platform.

<EDIT by Joy Monteiro, joy dot merwin at gmail>

In my understanding, Nudi provides both an editor and a set of fonts to go along with this. The move to make Nudi Unicode compliant seems unnecessary, since there are really many open source Unicode editors out there. The Nudi system can bundle one of these, after making it look and feel like the present Nudi editor so that previous users do not have a problem with using it. What is of more importance, IMHO, is the need for good fonts which encompass the whole range of kannada glyphs. If Kagapa has the resources, it must focus on producing high quality fonts for various styles of kannada text. I was trying to typeset some text using Kedage and Mallige and XeTeX, which is a Unicode compliant version of LaTeX, and had problems trying to imitate the vedic fonts that Nudi provides. Kedage and Mallige seem too minimalist, and and rest out there don't seem any better. Ironically, the best results I got were with the MS Tunga font!

Summarizing, Nudi should look to focus on producing excellent fonts which are geared toward readability and typesetting of books. This will be a greater contribution to Kannada than just releasing Nudi as GPL'ed code. Also, I would like to see some work towards a good Open Type font, as opposed to a True Type font. The former seems more suitable for typesetters as opposed to the latter. http://www.dq.winsila.com/miscellaneous/postscript-vs-truetype-vs-opentype-know-the-difference.html

<EDIT by Sridhar, mas@mylug.org> As I understand, scim works pretty well under linux to type in Kannada. So, should we worry whether Nudi works or not under linux? If by "working under linux" one means the keymapping, it is available under scim as kn-kgp.mim (the latest debian and derived distros have that file m17n-contrib).

The issue with unicode, as on date, is the improper rendering. Yes, fonts are also quite unusable. One has to just look at the Kannada webpages on the net and see the spacings et al. :-(

FOSS enthusiasts (programmers) should first address this issue of font rendering. If and when this is achieved, I see no need for nudi to be released under GPL.

In addition to this, looking through some of the unicode documentation, I have not come across a way to typeset the vedic notations, etc. I would like to hear about those issues as well.

Just my thoughts.