Status: RO

Hello Hachim,

Hachim Haddouti <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>First of all I would like to introduce myself. My name is Hachim
>Haddouti, I am working in FORWISS (Bavaria Research Center For
>Knowledge-Based Systems) at Technische Universitaet Muenchen, Germany.
>My research areas include: DBMS, Multilingual IR, Digital Libraries and
>Web.

Welcome, and many thanks for your feedback!  I notice you sent your
message to [log in to unmask], the command-line
address for subscribing and unsubscribing, so it did not reach everyone
at [log in to unmask] (see my .signature below).

On Wed, 24 Jun 1998, Hachim Haddouti wrote:
> Tom, let me please the following correction to the position paper:
> 
> >     http://www.inria.fr/metadata/dublin_core_elements.
> 
> error 404!! The URL is wrong.

I meant that as a hypothetical URI of an RDF schema -- even if there
were a file at that address, it would not yet be formatted this way.
But I see your point.  Perhaps we should use the URL of a version that
already exists.

> I will try to convince some Arabic-speaking researcher to arabize DC
> and introduce it in the Arabic market.

That would be great!  If they finish a version soon, perhaps they could
participate in the "first step" registry.  We want to use MHTML for
displaying Thai, Japanese, Chinese, and Greek on any Java-enabled browser
(see http://mhtml.ulis.ac.jp/).  The developers of MHTML keep adding
languages all the time, but of course Arabic has additional complexities
(right to left).  Are you aware of any such applications for displaying
Arabic on regular Web browsers without having to load extra fonts?
Or maybe you know someone who could add Arabic capability to MHTML?

> But I would like to know the feedback of who have translated and
> implemented the
> DC in other languages in order to know the consumed time and the 
> resources.

What I hear is that it takes very little time to make that initial
translation -- a matter of hours.  It takes longer to discuss that
translation with colleagues and arrive at wordings that everyone likes.
What starts taking alot of time is the periodic revision as the English
version itself evolves.  Of course, if the maintainers of a version
start discussing local extensions, then that local version takes on
a life of its own and it becomes a major task.  We figure that some
organizations will want to venture down this path and others will not.
Just putting up a version in a certain language should initially take
almost no resources -- just a file or two on a Web server, and perhaps
some applets and a gateway if font support is needed.

Creators of other versions may want to comment?

Tom

_______________________________________________________________________________
Dr. Thomas Baker                                      [log in to unmask]
                                                      [log in to unmask]
AIT   - Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand
ERCIM - European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics

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