[Fsf-india] ASTI

[Tapan S. Parikh]

fwded from http://www.freestandards.org/news.php?id=26

Free Standards Group freestandards.org


Press Release: Free Standards Group and Tokyo University of Foreign
Study Launch Major Project
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

FREE STANDARDS GROUP AND TOKYO UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN STUDY LAUNCH
MAJOR PROJECT

Asian Scripts Technology & Infrastructure (ASTI) will enable advanced
localization capabilities for almost half the world?s population

OAKLAND, CA -- March 28, 2002 The Free Standards Group's Linux
Internationalization Initiative (Li18nux) today announced the launch
of the Asian Scripts Technology & Infrastructure (ASTI) project. ASTI,
a joint project with the Research Institute for Languages and Cultures
of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Study (ILCAA) and the
Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and
Technology (MEXT) will enable greater support and advanced
functionality for Indic and Asian written languages.

ASTI will enable greater range of Asian and Indic scripts support in
open source platforms and applications. One of the first tasks this
year will be to create better support for Hindi, the fifth most common
language in the world, enabling Web browser capabilities, Devernagari
script and flexible input methods. ASTI plans to expand beyond Hindi
in early 2003.

"Common localization standards and capabilities for the more than
6,500 languages spoken worldwide has remained an issue for computer
developers and users worldwide," Hideki Hiura, co-chair of the Li18nux
project said. "Li18nux and ASTI address these issues, bringing
advanced localization capabilities for Linux-based software."

ASTI is supported by the Center of Excellence (COE) program of
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT)
of Japan, in cooperation with the Grammatological Informatics Based on
Corpora of Asian Scripts (GICAS).

"This initiative will have broad implications in global enterprise,
government, education and emerging markets," said Scott McNeil,
executive director of the Free Standards Group. "Through
standardization and enhanced capabilities of multi-language support,
Linux will broaden its user base, bringing the advantages of open
source software to millions of people worldwide."

ASTI will provide tools and abilities that will be compliant to Linux
Internationalization Initiative (Li18nux) standards, bringing true
portability of language to Linux. Li18nux 1.0, which was released
earlier this year, provides a standard for common localization issues
such as time, currency, language, etc.

"This is an epoch-making leap in multilingual computing," said
Professor Kazuhiko Machida, ASTI project leader for ILCAA. "ASTI will
bring us to the next stage of complex text language processing."

About the Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and
Africa (ICLAA) ILCAA is a world leading research institute for South
Asian and South-East Asian study for language and culture, powering
language and cultural application study into the information
technology via its Information Research Center. Information on ICLAA
is available at http://www.aa.tufs.ac.jp/index_e.html.

About GICAS The study led by Pari Bhaskararao, professor, ILCAA,
nominated as a part of COE porogram of MEXT. Information on GICAS is
available at www.gicas.jp/gicastest.html.

About the Free Standards Group Supported by industry leaders, the Free
Standards Group is an independent, vendor-neutral, non-profit
organization dedicated to accelerating the use and acceptance of open
source technologies through the development, application and promotion
of standards. Headquartered in Oakland, Calif., the Free Standards
Group fulfills a critical need in the open source development
community to have common behavioral specifications, tools and APIs,
making development across Linux distributions easier. More information
on the Free Standards Group is available at www.freestandards.org.

About the Linux Internationalization Initiative (Li18nux) Li18nux is
an internationalization guide for platform and applications
developers, allowing Linux and Linux-based programs to reach greater
localization capabilities and obtain global reach. Li18nux was created
to answer the critical need to have a common foundation for language
globalization and includes vital tools needed by Linux distributions
and applications in their globalization efforts. Information on
Li18nux is available through the Free Standards Group web site,
www.freestandards.org.