[Fsf-friends] Workshop on Font Encoding Converters

[Harshita]

Dear all,
        This is to inform you that there is a workshop on Font Encoding
Converters which is going to be held on 6th April, from 7pm to 10pm
in IIIT, Gachibowli, Hyderabad. This might be the late invitation,
but we will be glad if you attend the workshop and make it a successful
event. We are looking for your valuable suggestions.
        A brief introduction about the workshop is given below.

Harshita,
Swecha Telugu Localistation Team
Phone: 9440849626

P.S: Dinner and transportation shall be arranged by IIIT. Please contact
us for further details.


Introduction about the workshop:

Duration: 3 hours
Time: 7pm to 10pm
Date: 6th April, 2007
Location: International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad

For quite some time now, non-standard encodings introduced by
proprietary fonts developers have caused hurdles to information
processing both for end users and researches alike. Vast amounts of data
is locked up in these non-standard encodings. Lack of wide-spread usage
of fonts, applications and tools that are based on Unicode technologies
has lead to continued production of the content in these "font
encodings". Numerous efforts have been made in the past and continue to
be made to address this problem. Community based approaches like Padma
Firefox Extension have made great strides in solving this issue. Time
has come to standardise the converters. There are also many gaps to be
filled in before the converters can be put to use universally.

Agenda:
* Review the current status of various font encoding converters
* Discuss various techniques for reverse engineering font encodings
* Attempt to bring all efforts on font encoding converters under one
umbrella
* Understand requirements of various groups for font encoding
converters:
** What encodings are to be handled?
** Need a programming API?
** Need command line/GUI tools?
** What are the operating environments?
* Chalk out future activity
* Gather help from the involved teams in the following areas:
** Language expertise, reverse engineering and verification
** Programming, documentation and packaging