RE: Persian decimal separator

From: Houman Pournasseh (houmanp@Exchange.Microsoft.com)
Date: Thu Nov 16 2000 - 20:05:10 EST


Seems like the discussion below between Roozbeh and Michael went over
its original scoop: finding the right behavior for Farsi currency
separator.
Implementing the right behavior for Farsi, regardless of legality of
usage of our products in Iran is our goal here at Microsoft and as a
native Farsi speaker, an important subject to myself.
Here is the official Microsoft answer on that regard:
- Considering that even official sources in Iran seem not to agree on
all the suggested modifications presented by Roozbeh originally (till
the proof of contrary)
- Considering that there have been no customer complains against the
current Farsi currency separator
- Considering, we, Farsi users, can not come to a common agreement
- Considering any change to the current behavior would only introduce
confusion and backward compatibility

we have decided to not make any changes at this point.
I will be working with Roozbeh off-line to get updated information and
will post an e-mail to this alias if we decide to change the current
implementation.

Regards,
Houman
Microsoft Corporation

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael (michka) Kaplan [mailto:michka@trigeminal.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2000 8:01 AM
To: Unicode List
Cc: Unicode List
Subject: Re: Persian decimal separator

> There is no legal Farsi 32-bit version of Windows available in Iran,
but
> there was once a 16-bit one available. BTW, it depends on how do you
> interpret legal. Iran is not in the international copyright agreement,
so
> doing a localized Windows is considered legal here. There are more
> localized versions of Windows than countable. I think a normal user
can
> name at least five outstanding (!) ones.

This might just be splitting hairs to some and I have no idea how
Microsoft
feels about this sort of thing, but if a country will not respect my
copyrights then I myself would not consider shipping my software there.
For
me it would just be a mutual respect issue. :-)

Perhaps this an overly harsh way to look at things.... but I am not one
of
these large companies that would be able to simultaneously do business
with
someone I was suing. I think I lack that "big company/big government"
perspective <very big grin>

> Also, exporting software from Iran is legal. You only need a
permission
> from the Ministry of Guidance and Islamic Culture that's not hard to
> obtain. Is this against any international agreement?

Not that I know of... I was thinking export from the US to Iran, though.

> > But Farsi support is present and one can only assume that one day
export
> > will be legal.... better to make sure things are right now instead
of
> > later. :-)
>
> I don't get your point. How are localized versions of Windows in
> Iran related to "prepetuating the evidence"? Perhaps I'm missing
something
> important...

I mean that when the product is imported into Iran, the importance of
correct NLS info (already obviously high) becomes much higher.

michka

a new book on internationalization in VB at
http://www.i18nWithVB.com/



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