Israeli Government Suspends Microsoft Contracts

MartinB writes "According to The Register, in a double blow to Redmond, the Israeli government has both suspended all government contracts with Microsoft until at least the end of 2004, and Israeli Antitrust Authority director general Dror Strum has ruled that Microsoft is subject to US court limitations. At issue in part is Microsoft's refusal to support Hebrew in Mac versions of Office."

Comments

Tunnels

[SoSueMe]

Hope there are no tunnels at the Microsoft compound that could be used for smuggling.

Re:Tunnels

[linzeal]

Well the microsoft staff better watch out the next time they have an outdoor bbq that it does not start looking like a refuge camp or Israeli may have to "defend itself".

Foolish on both sides

[Farmer Jimbo]

Foolish of Israel to so publicly pick a fight with MS.

Foolish of Microsoft to resist such an upgrade to their own software.

Re:Foolish on both sides

[cranos]

Please explain how it is foolish for Israel to "pick a fight with MS"?

Re:Foolish on both sides

[twistedcubic]

You speak as if Microsoft is a government or country, and could wage war against Israel. Wow.

Re:Foolish on both sides

[Davak]

I agree that Microsoft is bad etc, etc... however...

It's sad when a country uses its laws to try to force a company to do certain things.

If you don't give us Hebrew, we'll declare you a monopoly! Well, that's bullshit. Laws are laws... either Microsoft is a monopoly by their laws or not. It should have nothing to do with microsoft's decision not to have certain software packages in Hebrew.

This really makes you wonder how Isreal looks at things...

Davak

Re:Foolish on both sides

[Shipud]

Monopolies are legal in Israel. But, if a company/corporation is declared as a monopoly, it is subject to harsher regulations, as power abuse has much harsher market consequences. Microsoft is a monopoly. The anti-trust laws are invoked due to an abuse of monopoly power, not by being a monopoly per-se

Re:Foolish on both sides

[SlamMan]

What, you mean "work in our national language or we'll not let you have our business?"

Re:Foolish on both sides

[Frostalicious]

Well, that's bullshit. Laws are laws... either Microsoft is a monopoly by their laws or not.

Well according to the article, a monopoly in Israel is...."any company with 50 per cent market share. Tying is illegal, as is unreasonably refusing a service. violations are considered criminal felonies".

Do I need to convince you that Microsoft has 50% market share on the desktop? I hope not. So they are a monopoly, and thus have additional obligations under Israeli law, like not "unreasonably refusing a service". Therefore the country CAN "use its laws to try to force a company to do certain things". It can force them to provide the service.

I'm not sure on the details of this, but by the article, it seems that Bill Gates is now a criminal in Israel.

Re:Foolish on both sides

[Trogre]

Microsoft already were declared a monopoly in their country of origin.

AFAIUI, Israel has been unimpressed with MS for some time. The fact that their software doesn't support Hebrew merely brought it to the Antitrust Authoritys attention, causing them to cry "Enough!"

The last straw, if you like.

There's plenty of other examples in industry of some two-bit outfit employing unethical (and often illegal) tactics to maintain their position in the marketplace.

The difference is that most of them are smart enough not to attract attention to themselves. So nobody really cares.

Had a Coke lately? Are those Nike shoes you're wearing?

Re:Foolish on both sides

[DoraLives]

Microsoft is a monopoly

Not for long if they keep this kind of crap up. They seem to be progressing quite well in the business of shooting themselves in the foot. First it was the occasional shot with the six-shooter. Then they went to a gatling gun. Now it's looking like they want to join the Nuclear Club.

Kinda makes you wonder: If a wedding party in Serbia can down a small plane with stray shots, what might a behemoth like MS be able to do?

Re:Foolish on both sides

[canajin56]

Especially since Israel just announced an end to its policy of not assassinating people on American soil ;)

Re:Foolish on both sides

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

If you don't give us Hebrew, we'll declare you a monopoly!
It was already declared a monopoly. There were no new laws written. It's just that since they refused to do MacOS X Office with proper BiDI (read: Hebrew) support, the citizens actually, *shudder*, had the government enforce the laws.

Re:Foolish on both sides

[DotNetGuru]

Microsoft is a monopoly.

Uhh, let's see. They're talking about how Mac OS X does what they want (bidi) and apparently enough people use it to complain that Office doesn't support this on OS X. They are also contemplating a switch to OpenOffice.

Remind me, what product is it that Microsoft holds monopoly power for again? From this it certainly doesn't sound like it's operating systems or office productivity software.

Re:Foolish on both sides

[peacefinder]

It's sad when a country uses its laws to try to force a company to do certain things.

Like dealing honestly with shareholders? Using sound building materials and engineering practices? Promoting worker safety?

All of these are areas of government law trying to force companies to do things that they would sometimes prefer to avoid. I don't find my particular examples to be sad at all; on the contrary, I am generally grateful for them.

Not to say all such laws are good, of course. Many are not. But your statement of outrage is overly broad, and thus not especially effective. It's not the government power of regulation that is the problem; it's particular uses of it that may be foolish.

If you don't give us Hebrew, we'll declare you a monopoly! Well, that's bullshit. Laws are laws... either Microsoft is a monopoly by their laws or not. It should have nothing to do with microsoft's decision not to have certain software packages in Hebrew.

Presumably they have other reasons to think of Microsoft as a monopoly. Were it not for the Hebrew support issue, I suspect, they may not have had the political will to carry through with the antitrust action, even in the face of a flagrant violation. But given that the preservation of their culture and language is pretty much the reason for the modern state's existance in the first place, it's no surprise that they're willing to use whatever means is at hand to browbeat a company into supporting Hebrew.

If Microsoft doesn't like it, they can fight it in Israeli court. If that's not worth it to Microsoft, they can choose to take their toys and go home. It's not like the revenue loss would kill them.

That's the breaks when you go up against a sovereign nation that is as comfortable with the application of force and as fierce in matters of self-defense as Israel.

This really makes you wonder how Isreal looks at things...

This is the least of the issues that might make a person wonder about how Israel's government looks at things. C'mon, they bombed Syria a few days ago. This bit with Microsoft is trivial. If you want to wonder about Israel, try on a real issue for size: wonder why they're still expanding the settlements.

Re:Foolish on both sides

[glenebob]

I think we all know why MS is refusing to provide Hebrew support. Do you think they'd refuse if there was actual competition? Doubtful. Sounds a little like monopoly abuse to me. I would say Isreal is more justified in it's position than MS is in theirs.

Re:Foolish on both sides

[BgJonson79]

>>I'm not sure on the details of this, but by the article, it seems that Bill Gates is now a criminal in Israel.

So, when do they send the Mossad after him?

Re:Foolish on both sides

[repetty]

"If you don't give us Hebrew, we'll declare you a monopoly! Well, that's bullshit. Laws are laws..."

You come off sounding naive. That's politics.

Re:Foolish on both sides

[BrokenHalo]

Hmmm. Doesn't Microsoft own something like 50% of Apple stock? Correct me if I'm wrong - it was some time ago that I read about that buy-up, and I haven't heard anything about them dumping that stock.

Re:Foolish on both sides

[appleLaserWriter]

It's sad when a country uses its laws to try to force a company to do certain things.

What do you want a country to do with its laws, compose poetry?

Re:Foolish on both sides

[jocknerd]

They purchased 10% or so of the stock in 1996 in an agreement with Apple. It was mainly to show the gov't that Microsoft had competition by keeping Apple in business. Apple has since paid them back their investment and is totally free of Microsoft.

Re:Foolish on both sides

[DaveAtFraud]

Foolish of Israel to so publicly pick a fight with MS.

I don't know. Maybe the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) can teach the folks in Redmond a thing or two about who they pick a fight with. Just ask some of the Arab countries around Israel whether they want to be on the receiving end of the IDF. The picture of the IDF taking apart Microsoftland with a few well placed tank rounds may be irrational but it sure is pleasant to imagine.

Re:Foolish on both sides

[0x0d0a]

I was unaware that Apple had repurchased their stock. However, the shares were always nonvoting, FWIW.

Re:Foolish on both sides

[luisdom]

So they are a monopoly, and thus have additional obligations under Israeli law, like not "unreasonably refusing a service".

That's something that many many people forgets. And it is one of the basis of capitalism as an efficient system: the society has to protect itself from monopolies because they are bad for the economic system: you loose the benefits competition. Even if it is a deserved monopoly. By that I mean that it was achieved by legal/moral means. Which is not the case.

Re:Foolish on both sides

[azimir]

I'm not sure on the details of this, but by the article, it seems that Bill Gates is now a criminal in Israel.

Shall we purchase him a nice, first class, one way ticket for his arraignment?

Re:Foolish on both sides

[jo42]

> Karma: Pornorific! (Mostly due to favorable comparisons to Ron Jeremy).

Short. Fat. Hairy. Ugly.

Re:Foolish on both sides

[Thing 1]

This really makes you wonder how Isreal looks at things...

Slightly OT, but I have a good friend who is from Israel. He supports government-sponsored torture, saying "Well if we break a few fingers and end up saving the lives of 40 children, was it worth it? We know the guy has the info, and if we don't torture him our innocent citizens die."

Tough to argue with that; they have to deal with much harder issues than we Americans generally have to (very few nightclubs explode here, unless Great White is playing). I stil haven't quite come over to his side, though -- what if you have the wrong guy? Then you're maiming someone for no good reason.

More than just convenience

[the man with the pla]

I am an Isreali citizen living in the United States. It's true that I as a professional do almost all of my work in English. But I am writing to say that being able to use my native hebrew means an awful lot to me and my family. It's not a matter of convenience, it touches on our religous and cultural beliefs. I am very glad to see the government take this action.

Re:More than just convenience

[DeltaSigma]

Absolutely uncalled for.

Re:More than just convenience

[twistedcubic]

No disrespect, but you can get OpenOffice for free, which supports Hebrew, as people are saying. So if Microsoft gets cut off, your options are still the same-- use OpenOffice or another word processor that supports Hebrew. You should make the transition today, and tell everyone you know! :)

Re:More than just convenience

[Anonymous Coward]

I suppose now Abe Foxman and the ADL will be playing violins and calling Microsoft "anti-Semitic" for not supporting Hebrew

Re:More than just convenience

[DeltaSigma]

I ditched television al-together. Fox News' "We report, you decide" hypocrisy was a large part of that.

Re:More than just convenience

[linzeal]

I have 0 sympathies with people that use a closed source product and than demand the company to support a feature for it after the fact. At least with any open source product you can pay someone to add whatever feature you want to it or do it yourself.

Re:More than just convenience

[BlueGecko]

On the one hand, I'm glad that packages such as OpenOffice are available, but you have got to realize that, if you really need to exchange a large number of Office documents, there is no real alternative except Office. I wish that weren't true, I try to minimize how much Office I use by using alternative products, and I wish OpenOffice the best of luck in the world and look forward to when I can use it in place of Office. However, for the moment, there are times--many of them--when I absolutely have no choice except to use Office, and the simple matter is that Microsoft has steadfastly refused not only to support Hebrew, but also Arabic, Hindi, Chinese, Japanese--really, any non-Latin language--in the Macintosh version of Word. That is wholly and entirely unacceptable, and I think that the Israeli government probably has a perfect valid point. Their reaction is perhaps a tad bit overkill, but I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment.

Disclaimer: I am a US citizen whose native languages are American English and Southern and I am happy that way. :)

Re:More than just convenience

[Anonymous Coward]

I am an Isreali citizen living in the United States.

Ahh. I think he repeats himself.

Re:More than just convenience

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you might consider using Microsoft Office for Windows. Or you might consider paying money for one of the products like the Hellel Word processor on the Mac that actually support hebrew.

Re:More than just convenience

[repetty]

"No disrespect, but you can get OpenOffice for free, which supports Hebrew, as people are saying. So if Microsoft gets cut off, your options are still the same-- use OpenOffice or another word processor that supports Hebrew. You should make the transition today, and tell everyone you know! :)"

Bad recommendation. As of today, you are asking this guy and all his Mac-using friends to DL and install Apple's X11 package and then DL and install OpenOffice.org's suite (which is a significant upgrade behind the x86 versions).

Have you done this yourself? Do you understand what you are recommending that this guy, his family, and friends do?

Do you think his daughter or father even know what X11 is?

--Richard

Re:More than just convenience

[macemoneta]

It's an interesting perspective. Playing devil's advocate, if the two packages are incompatible at some level, why is the problem on the OpenOffice side?

It's not like MS Office is compatible with everyone except OpenOffice. And there is that whole convicted monopolist thing going against Microsoft, too.

As Microsoft is the current market leader, shouldn't they be endeavoring to improve compatability with other software their customers use? MS Office doesn't run on every platform, so compatibility is a requirement, even if Microsoft considers Linux a competitor.

If Microsoft makes a business decision, as they have, not to support Hebrew then they have taken themselves out of the sales competition in that market. Six million potential customers is a big chunk to give up.

Of course, now those OpenOffice users will be requiring interoperability from their vendors...

Re:More than just convenience

[stor]

MMM, yes, its "the other side" that's wrong.

While you guys keep killing each other over a bit of frickin dirt, most of the civilised world shakes it's head and wishes you would stop.

And don't point out "but Israel did *this*" or "the Arabs did *this*"... that's exactly my point: you're "Fighting fire with fire" will never stop so long as you keep providing fuel.

An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind. --Ghandi

Cheers
Stor

Re:More than just convenience

[repetty]

>> >>I am an Isreali citizen living in the United States.

>>Ahh. I think he repeats himself.

I'm from Texas. I don't get what you're saying.

--Richard

Re:More than just convenience

[Simonetta]

Please allow me to ask one simple question without being flamed. This is simply an information request, not flame bait.

Does OpenOffice run on Macintosh?

Are major open source programs developed for Macintosh or generally only for Linux and sometimes Windows?

Thank you,
Simonetta

Re:More than just convenience

[Enucite]

Yes, there is a version available for Mac OS X
http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/ooo-osx_download s.html

Re:More than just convenience

[Llywelyn]

TextEdit should offer full support for MS Word files in Panther and it currently supports hebrew, maybe that will work for you?

Re:More than just convenience

[Lord Kano]

It's not a matter of convenience, it touches on our religous and cultural beliefs.

I thought that your religious beliefs mandated that Hebrew be kept sacred by minimizing its mundane usage. Isn't that why Yiddish is so popular?

LK

Re:More than just convenience

[jfmiller]

this is more of a personal interest, but I think it's relitive to the topic at hand.

I'm learning hebrew in school, and I'm wondering what it takes to be able to type. Do you have a keyboard with the hebrew charicters on it or to you use a keyboard maping (aleph = a, bet = b, gimel=g) ? How (or do you) use vowle points? I guess the big question is could I resonably leard to type hebrew with my standard us keyboard?

JFMILLER

Re:More than just convenience

[jbolden]

> Do you think his daughter or father even know what X11 is?

No but probably about 1% of Microsoft users know what GDI and that doesn't stop them. The X11 install for apple is really easy you don't need to know what X11 is to do it.

Re:More than just convenience

[Mark Gordon]

1) Israel is intended as a Jewish state, not an Ashkenazic state. Knowledge of Yiddish was never as universal among Jews as was Hebrew. Sephardim and Mizrachim typically don't know Yiddish beyond cognate Hebrew and Aramaic loan words. Hence, Israel standardized on Hebrew. Granted, most of the early Zionists were in the habit of ignoring rabbinical opinion.

2) Not all text editing is mundane. Prayer books and the like are typically printed, and someone has to write such things. Furthermore, Hebrew never completely died out as a language of biblical scholarship.

3) Aramaic, Yiddish, Ladino: the major non-Hebrew vernacular languages used by Jews throughout history have traditionally been written from right to left and would necessitate the same bidirectional support that makes Hebrew so hard to support. It's only within the last hundred years or so that most Jews learned to read from left to right before learning to read from right to left.

4) Any rejection of Hebrew as a mundane language is post-biblical, and there doesn't seem to have been an especially strong rabbinical consensus on the matter, even if some rabbis held that opinion. Even independent of biblical scholarship, there was plenty of secular Hebrew literature in the middle ages, long after Hebrew ceased to be a vernacular, and long before modern Zionism revived vernacular Hebrew.

5) Yiddish was initially popular (at least among Askhenazim) because it was comprehensible (at least the spoken version) to the local gentile population. The vocabulary is mostly from Middle High German. Ladino is similarly derived from Spanish. Aramaic isn't an exclusively Jewish language at all, being originally a gentile vernacular (Syriac, an Aramaic dialect, still survives as a gentile vernacular in some villages), though it is used in some prayers, a few later parts of the Bible, and the Talmud, and it's still used in some rabbinical contexts. So non-Hebrew languages aren't necessarily embraced because they offer less sacred alternatives to Hebrew, nor are religious writings (even liturgy!) exclusively in Hebrew.

Re:More than just convenience

[js7a]

Why isn't OpenOffice working for you? OO-Writer reads and writes MS-Word documents, including advanced features like change tracking. I've been using it instead of Word for almost a year with no trouble. What's your problem with it?

Re:More than just convenience

[BlueGecko]

When I am the only one who will have to edit a document, I use Mellel, which is a superb word processor with excellent Hebrew and Arabic support, but when the goal is portability, Word becomes the only choice. There are and have been many word processors that can handle Hebrew on Mac OS X and other systems, but Word remains a stumbling block, because that's what most people use.

Re:More than just convenience

[sql*kitten]

So if Microsoft gets cut off, your options are still the same-- use OpenOffice or another word processor that supports Hebrew.

As Sun points out, there are differences between free and commercial office suites, namely the latter has the ability to incorporate non-free resources:

• Spellchecker and thesaurus
  
• Database component (Software AG Adabas D).
  
• Select fonts including Windows metrically equivalent fonts and Asian language fonts
  
• Select filters, including WordPerfect filters and Asian word processor filters
  
• Integration of additional templates and extensive clipart gallery
  

Sure you can get a free dictionary or thesaurus, but not one as comprehensive as you can buy, by a long shot. Same with fonts, import filters etc. These are things that matter to the typical Star Office/MS Office user.

Re:More than just convenience

[guybarr]

Do you have a keyboard with the hebrew charicters on it or to you use a keyboard maping ?

yes. standard in Israel, so if you know someone travelling to Israel just ask him to buy one or two for you. (Or perhaps check with the local jewish community )

How (or do you) use vowle points?

nikud (I forget the english word) isn't normally used by advanced hebrew speakers. But IIRC you can use it with lyx.

For hebrew support of different sw search the

for nikud support in lyx lookup the lyx site tips and tricks section.

I don't know the QT situation, though.

I guess the big question is could I resonably leard to type hebrew with my standard us keyboard?

You can do everything, but I would recomend getting a hebrew keyboard. Keyboards are cheap.

good luck.

Re:More than just convenience

[guybarr]

opps, sorry but preview doesn't work. it should be

For hebrew support of different sw search the IGLU site.

for nikus support lookup the lyx site tips and tricks section

Re:More than just convenience

[RoLi]

As of today, you are asking this guy and all his Mac-using friends to DL and install Apple's X11 package and then DL and install OpenOffice.org's suite (which is a significant upgrade behind the x86 versions).

Wrong, there is a packaged MacOSX version that includes and installs X11 right along with OpenOffice. No extra download required, no extra installation required.

Also MacOSX.3 aka Panther will include a X11 server, too.

Do you think his daughter or father even know what X11 is?

They don't have to.

Re:More than just convenience

[huckda]

Well they gotta learn sometime!

Re:More than just convenience

[eshefer]

a few points:

not all israeli's are jews (most are)
Not all jews are religious (most are not)
Not all religious jews are orthodox religious jews (most are not)
Not all orthodox religious jews are ultra orthodox ashkenazi jews (most are not)

Only the ultra orthodox ashkenazi jews (afaik) concider the hebrew language as a holy language that's only to be used for prayer.

Re:More than just convenience

[udif]

>not all israeli's are jews (most are)
>Not all jews are religious (most are not)
>Not all religious jews are orthodox religious jews (most are not)

First, In Israel, this is incorrect. There is a very little number of Reform and Conservative jews in Israel, defenitively less than 10% of all religious jews in Israel.

Second, its an open question whether "orthodox religious jews" are a sub-group of "religious jews", or that "religious orthodox jews" are a sub-group of "orthodox jews".

A large percentage of the jews in Israel, especially the non-Ashkenazi jews, consider themself "traditional jews", and consider themselves orthodox jews who are not religious. They may go to an Orthodox synagogue on Shabbat and religious holidays, some of them they keep Kosher dietary laws to some extent, some of them keep Shabbat to some extent, but generally they do not strictly obey the jewish laws as interpreted by the orthodox jews, yet they wouldn't even consider thinking about themselves as Reform or Conservative.

>Not all orthodox religious jews are ultra orthodox >ashkenazi jews (most are not)

Re:More than just convenience

[Umrick]

Actually, OO on OS X is pretty painless whether you know anything about X11 or not.

As a second point... Right now, on my Mac Ti Powerbook, I'm running OOffice 1.1.0 which not a major revision behind as you claim. The Mac site still says it's 1.0.3, but all the mirrors have both the rc3 1.1 candidate, and 1.1.0 final.

Re:More than just convenience

[Ed Avis]

You may be right that OpenOffice can't read all Office documents, but given that Word on the Mac doesn't support Hebrew at all and thus cannot read _any_ Hebrew Office documents, OpenOffice has the advantage.

Re:More than just convenience

[mpe]

On the one hand, I'm glad that packages such as OpenOffice are available, but you have got to realize that, if you really need to exchange a large number of Office documents, there is no real alternative except Office.

Except if MS Office dosn't support the language you wish to write the document in the first place :)

Re:More than just convenience

[CERonin]

While I agree wholeheartedly with your Open Office sentiment, the grim reality is that the 2 Hojillion Pound gorilla will $!#7 where it wants to.

I also agree that their stance vis-a-vis the Hebrew language is difficult to imagine. Has M$ grown so big that it can afford to overlook whole countries? I thought only the Pharma industry could do that. One can only hope that Israel will adopt Open Office and, as you say:

those OpenOffice users will be requiring interoperability from their vendors...

Oh, if only I could live to see that promised land!

Re:More than just convenience

[mpe]

Many companies promise features and functionality to their existing customers. It's called 'good business'. Many of these companies deliver, that's considered 'good business'. Some companies don't deliver...that's 'bad business'. The 'bad business' companies usually fail to get repeat business...that's the choice of the 'consumer' and exactly what we're seeing here.

This situation only really applies where there is a competitive market. When you have a monopoly the balance of power is toward the supplier.

Re:More than just convenience

[HiThere]

Actually, the Mac version of OpenOffice.org is significantly less developed than either the Linux or the MSWindles version. I keep hoping, but at the moment I feel I have more hope of getting my wife to start using Linux than to start using the Mac version of OpenOffice.

Re:More than just convenience

[randomencounter]

Odd, if you want to interoperate with me using MSOffice would be a definite detriment.
Of course, I'm not most people, I'm only me.

OpenOffice supports Hebrew

[jkauzlar]

I just checked and it seems to be true, though there may be some issues with it.

Re:OpenOffice supports Hebrew

[Guppy06]

Since the Mac version of MS Office is the one lacking Hebrew, this still leaves Israeli and/or Jewish Mac users up a creek.

Re:OpenOffice supports Hebrew

[agm]

OpenOffice runs on the Mac, last time I looked.

Re:OpenOffice supports Hebrew

[Kufat]

Open Office runs quite well under OS X. (With an X server such as OroborOSX.)

Re:OpenOffice supports Hebrew

[boskone]

what, both of them? Now I know that was a bit glib, but seriously, how can you require someone (MS) to not just write software for a competative platform, but also to require them to provide a specific language version for that specific product on a competing platform? this is like having your boss over your shoulder telling you what color of widget they want you to insert for a program that your coworker is supposed to be writing and will get most of the credit for. no, wait, that's not a great analogy, but it just seems like they are really pushing MS around.

My solution:
Switch to MS office for PC which supports hebrew according to their page.
OR
Keep using your chosen platform but use a different productivity app.
OR
Make user requests to have this feature added, but do you really think MS should be forced to include a money losing feature in their code? Aren't we all about freedom to code?

sorry for the rant, I know it comes off as pro-MS, but it's not meant to be. It's meant to be pro-freedom of choice.

Re:OpenOffice supports Hebrew

[Guppy06]

"how can you require someone (MS) to not just write software for a competative platform, but also to require them to provide a specific language version for that specific product on a competing platform?"

I don't know how they do it in Israel, but here in the states it's called the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.

"this is like having your boss over your shoulder telling you what color of widget they want you to insert for a program that your coworker is supposed to be writing and will get most of the credit for."

No, it's like your prison guard telling you what rocks you have to break today. Things like this happen when you've been convicted of a crime (repeatedly, even).

"but it just seems like they are really pushing MS around."

Let the punishment fit the crime.

Re:OpenOffice supports Hebrew

[Zachary Kessin]

Well Israel can also say "If you want us to buy your software, you must support Hebrew on the Mac and windows". If microsoft does not add hebrew support we take our shekels and go elsewhere. Very simple really. Anyone can make a choice like that, but when the goverment of a country with a buying power much larger than you or me does it they actually may pay attention.

Re:OpenOffice supports Hebrew

[HiThere]

The punishment fitting the crime would be the government stealing MS's code, and offering it to user as it's own, and for free. Since that's what MS has done to more than one company.

Fonts

[BWJones]

At issue in part is Microsoft's refusal to support Hebrew in Mac versions of Office.

This is particularly important because the font handling in OS X is beautiful with native support of Hebrew making implementation issues for Microsoft trivial.

Re:No Apple Support

[FooAtWFU]

No, as the article says, there are people out there would would cover the costs of adding support for Microsoft. They're just being anticompetitive and attempting to herd people into buying Win Doze.

Sure...

[Heidistein]

No hewbrew in MS-Office on Mac... So we "ban" Microsoft? Riiight! everyone would do this! (or at least should... :P)

Re:Sure...

[Heidistein]

anticompetitive is all in the name "Microsoft" eh? ;-)

Re:I like Jews

[SoSueMe]

...and we like j00Z too. oh, I get it... Nevermind.

the amazing kreskin predicts

[overbom]

that arabic, hebrew, and urdu will be supported in mac office 'real soon now'.

Re:the amazing kreskin predicts

[SemiBarbaricPrincess]

Arabic (and Korean) already are supported in MS Office:mac. Which kind of rules out the it's-got-not-roman-characters excuse for MS.

Re:the amazing kreskin predicts

[YU Nicks NE Way]

Arabic is not supported in Mac Office. Korean is, as are the other East Asian languages.

Re:the amazing kreskin predicts

[zanderredux]

And Linux gkb support for Korean is... well, non-existent?

I hate the fact that I cannot switch to the Korean IME if I boot Linux with English as default. I have to shutdown X and reboot it to get access to the Korean keyboard. And it pisses me off because writing in English from the Korean keyboard will not suffice because I have to type in Portuguese and French as well.

OpenOffice

[Davak]

Ministry is said to be examining OpenOffice as an alternative.

And all the open sourcers rejoice!

Davak

What about Unicode?

[BanjoBob]

Both Windoze and the Mac support Unicode fonts so I would assume (maybe wrong on this one :) that the Unicode font sets would work in both worlds -- Mac Unicode on the Macs and Windoze unicode on Windoze and Linux Unicode on Linux ...

Office supports Unicode so, how is it that the Mac using Office can't run multi-national font sets and thus Hebrew, Cyrillic, Chinese, etc.

Re:What about Unicode?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hebrew is written in the opposite direction from English so it's more than just about the fonts, ok.

Re:What about Unicode?

[Valdrax]

IIRC, the problem with all of these languages is proper right-to-left text support.

Re:What about Unicode?

[Biff Stu]

Even though Unicode is supported in OS X, Word for OS X uses the old carbon libraries and has no support for Unicode. This has been driving me batty.

I do quite a bit of technical work and I need Greek fonts for mathematics, etc. Of course, I can still use Symbol, but there are problems sharing documints with Windows users. Many people on the Windows side don't have Symbol installed, and when I get a document made on a Windows box and uses Greek Unicode it doesn't translate correctly.

The big problem is that MS has no desire to generate a Cocoa version of Mac Office anytime soon. If they would include Unicode support, all of the cross platform font problems would go away. The sky would be bluer, grass would be greener, and life would be good.

Re:No Apple Support

[Delphiki]

Apple does support Hebrew. Microsoft does not support Hebrew in their Mac software.

Re:Not Microsoft's job

[Delphiki]

Well, if Microsoft is using their monopoly with Office to try and force people to stay on Windows, then they're arguably abusing the monopoly which everyone has long been aware that they've had.

Software internationalization - is Hebrew hard?

[joelparker]

How hard is it to add Hebrew to software?

I thought software internationalization
took some real time to set up initially,
then was easy for each additional language.

What are the technical issues involved?

Thanks, Joel

Re:Software internationalization - is Hebrew hard?

[Delphiki]

The main difficulty is that it's a right to left language instead of left to right like english. So editors, i.e. Word, need to be reprogrammed so that as you type the cursor moves to the left, instead of to the right.

Re:Software internationalization - is Hebrew hard?

[madsenj37]

Hebrew is right to left so it isnt as easy as you think. Its only easy for languages that are left to right as I understand it.

Re:Software internationalization - is Hebrew hard?

[jrumney]

Hebrew and Arabic are written right to left, except for numbers and snippets of other languages, which are written left to right within the right to left text. This requires Bi-Driectional (BIDI) text support, and is very hard to support correctly and efficiently for read-write programs where the user can just put their cursor anywhere and start typing. Most software either does BIDI correctly or does something resembling it efficiently, seldom both.

Re:Software internationalization - is Hebrew hard?

[laird]

You can either use the operating system's built in text layout widget, which supports all of this correctly with no work, but doesn't give you any control over what's going on, or you can code your own layout engine, giving you complete control, but you'd have to add support for everything yourself. Given the control you'd need for a real word processor, I am sure that MS coded their own layout engine, so it'd be an immense amount of work to add support for bi-directional languages, etc. If MS supports any right-to-left languages already (Arabic, etc.) it shouldn't be any work at all to add support for Hebrew.

Re:Software internationalization - is Hebrew hard?

[spitzak]

It's really hard if your program only supports English.

However if your program already supports multiple languages, including several others that are right-to-left, and the other version of the program for Windows already supports this language, it is very easy. This is the source of the complaint.

Never a problem

[tcd004]

on Jesus's palm pilot

tcd004

Deuteronimicus 13:37

[Chagatai]

"And yea, the Lord spake unto the Israelites saying unto them, 'Lo, go forth and build unto me a nation worthy of praise and power. Build thy nation upon the backbones of small bird that are black and white, that stay where the cold winds blow. And when thine enemy arrives in the night, thou shalt see him wearing portholes like unto windows, bearing wares which thou shalt not take, for I have set the aside to be a land free of gates and minions who roam everywhere in thy houses.' And the Israelites did so, smiting the foes who doth galavant in the street like large apes with too much wine, shouting that their ways are superior. And so it was good, for they did not bow down before the false idols of the Mik-roh-softi."

Amen.

First signs of a dying company

[grasshoppa]

Typically, customers revolting against your software is the first sign that things, as they say, "ain't right(tm)". Sometimes, these are the precursors to the death of a company. Unfortunately, MS is so large, the normal rules go right out the window.

But if they finally are dying ( which I doubt ), we're in for a hell of a nasty ride.

Not too ironically...

[mishehu]

That (at least at a glance) Open Office seems to have really stepped up the multi-language support... including Hebrew. Next we'll barricade Microsoft's Israel headquarters and make Bill Gates spend a romantic evening with Yasser Arafat...

Re:No Apple Support

[Davak]

Oh, you're right. Sorry. You are right!

Googling now it appears that Camino, Safari and Mozilla all support Hebrew...

Thanks for the clarification.

Davak

OO Star Office have Hebrew?

[synonymous]

Could be an easy problem solver there if Star or Open Office has it. Does it?

Re:OO Star Office have Hebrew?

[JamesP]

Now all we need is patent the method StarOffic euses so then M$ has to pay US!!!

Re:OO Star Office have Hebrew?

[SoSueMe]

Star (of David) Office?

Re:No Apple Support

[Shipud]

Actually, Apple does support Hebrew, system level, and there are several good non-MS bi and tri- (Hebrew, Arabic & English) font products on the Mac. Trouble is, non of them are MS-Word compatible. Or rather, they try to be, but MS-Redmond & Tel-Aviv keep changing the rules. The Hebrew/English MS-Word is horrible (I spent quite a bit of time on it). Imagine the compounding bugs that crop up due to the requirement of cursor direction reversal, and added fonts and you get the idea. The Mac & the 3rd party products are a bit cumbersome, but by far less buggy

Re:Yeah, Hebrew in Mac Office makes sense.

[bluekanoodle]

Except that Apple's market share is more like 3-5% and what percentage of that share requires hebrew support? I'm guessing its one very small number.

The real reason

[Anonymous Coward]

They were pretty happy that MS products didn't work on the sabbath. What really got them mad was that they didn't work any other day either.

Re:The real reason

[phrogeeb]

I'm truly disgusted by some of the things people have said on this board. (See Alpha Nerd - "STFU STUPID JEW" and other various supporters of anti-semitism).

But that was some funny shit. =)

Re:The real reason

[mpe]

They were pretty happy that MS products didn't work on the sabbath.

It would actually be quite complex to get a computer program to stop working on the sabbath. Since it would need to know the exact time of sunset.

Corroboration would be nice.

[FreeLinux]

This story showed up on The Register a couple of days ago and then Newsforge cited The Reg article after that. But, as yet I have not seen anyone else report it or corroborate the story. It would be really great if some "News" site were to investigate the validity of this story.

Re:Corroboration would be nice.

[l2718]

Ha'aretz (the best Israeli newpaper) carried this story yesterday:

"Treasury suspends Microsoft renewal".

Not Quite

[ovanklot]

The Israeli govenment said it temporarily suspended contracts with Microsoft because they cost too much and the economic conditions are not grand. Examining Open Source as an alternative has been going on for quite some time.
As far as the spokesmen for the different government offices go, it's going to be a short while before Israel renews the contracts.

Thank you Israel

[El]

... for fighting for Urdu and Arabic language support in Microsoft Office! I wonder if native Arabic speakers appreciate this...

Re:Thank you Israel

[rocketfairy]

Wait, Arabs and Pakistanis are supposed to appreciate Microsoft? Just because they write rtl doesn't make them stupid, dude.

Re:Thank you Israel

[Zachary Kessin]

Well I don't know that Israel thinks much about Urdu, but Arabic is an offical language of the state of Israel, at least in Jerusalem road signs are in Hebrew, Arabic and English. Also it should be noted a lot of Israeli Jews (Including our president!) were born in countries that speak Arabic or Farsi. And they may have a need to write these languages from time to time. Also we do have a large arab minority who are citizens of Israel and may wish to be able to use a computer.

Re:I guess when you have suicide bombers . . .

[Sh0t]

I see plenty of coverage about Palestinians dying from Israeli attacks.

Please PLEASE don't go there with that "The news media only shows israeli's pain!" type rhetoric.

Everbody tries to say the media only shows the opposing side. I see both sides, especially if it's scandal. If I can see it, how come you(and your ilk) cannot?

So please drop that crap.

Re:or...

[Blondie-Wan]

m$ hates god

Of course. MS sees God as competition. ;)

hmmm...

[Tumbleweed]

Ya think Ballmer will be flying to Israel in First Class, or Business Class? Or maybe they bought an old SR-71 to get out to these upstart countries _Real Soon Now_? :)

Re:I guess when you have suicide bombers . . .

[big-giant-head]

Sh*t head liberals believe in freedom of expression, but only for those people that express the same thoughts as they do.......

Re:No Apple Support

[Keeper]

Out of curiosity, which version of MacOS did Apple add hebrew support, and what was the last version of MacOS available when MS released the Mac version of Word?

Re:I guess when you have suicide bombers . . .

[Saint Stephen]

That would be a reasonable analogy, if it weren't for the fact that you were the aggressor in this conflict, continually stealing their land, destroying their homes, killing their people.

Way back before you were born, Egypt and everybody tried to wipe Isreal off the map, they stood up, and kicked ass, and ever since then it's been a pride issue on both sides. AFAICT you have the arabs on one side who won't be happy till Isreal is flat gone, and Jews who at worst are pretty damn callous -- but that's called the right of survival.

The hugest irony to me is that both have right-to-left script, both have similar glyph structures, hell both *LOOK* kind of the same. You can tell Jews and Arabs share common genetic history. It reminds me of those two races in the Dark Crystal.

All the college students bitching about the Jews really need to watch out. Western Europeans have a dangerous pogrom tradition that goes back 1000 years. It's a serious case of glass houses.

Re:The jews are just mad

[nate nice]

Steve Ballmer is a Jew.

Re:Not Microsoft's job

[kfg]

Microsoft and Israel made prior agreement that Microsoft's status in Israel would be determined by the outcome of the US case.

Since they were found to be a monopoly in the US and guilty of illegal abuse of that power, then yes, they are, by definition, a monopoly in Israel.

Making a product that only supports the native language in their own operating system but not doing so in versions of the same product for other operating systems is an abuse of monopoly powers under Israeli law.

It's a pretty clear cut issue.

OpenOffice has no such problems becasue a) they have not been found to be a monopoly b) had engaged in no specific agreement with the Israeli government as such and c) treat all versions for different operating systems equally.

If Microsoft wishes to do business in Israel all they have to do is provide equal language support in their products. Please note that they've already taken the time and spent the money to make the translations.

If they're too cheap, or too malicious as a monopoly, to comply, well, they can just take their business elsewhere.

Just like every other business.

KFG

Re:Yeah, Hebrew in Mac Office makes sense.

[Blondie-Wan]

And yet amazingly, Apple itself supports Hebrew, as do numerous third-party developers of Mac software that aren't Microsoft (and have a small fraction of its resources). If they can all support Hebrew, why can't the larger, more resource-laden MS???

Re:Yeah, Hebrew in Mac Office makes sense.

[AstroDrabb]

That is not the point. The point is that the version of MS Office for MS Windows DOES support right to left. MS Does not want the Mac version to have this feature to force users to use MS Windows over Mac if they want right to left Hebrew in MS Office. So again, it is a monopoly doing what they do best.

No compile Loc?

[soft_guy]

Under MacOS X, you can *sometimes* do a no-compile Localization, even if you are not the original developer.

I *know* that Office for Mac isn't exactly a well-behaved "normal" Mac app - heck, it isn't even a normal *Carbon* app. I did work at Microsoft as a Mac developer, so I am somewhat familar with the architecture of Office.

My suggestion is that they could look at the possibility of doing a no compile loc themselves, if they have Arabic support (very ironic!).

Both Arabic and Hebrew are hard to support because both require bidirectional (BiDi) text support. Meaning that text is layed out both left to right and right to left.

If your supporting international, French, Spanish are the easiest because you're still dealing with Roman character sets and one direction of layout. You just have to make sure you read the strings in from a resource someplace. Next hardest is Cyrilic languages like Greek or Russian. Next hardest is languages like Japanese where you need to have double byte characters or Unicode. The hardest is Arabic and Hebrew because of BiDi. People may often choose to do an Arabic version and not Hebrew because the market for Arabic is larger.

However, if you've put in BiDi support already and you're already internationalized, getting Hebrew to work shouldn't be insanely hard and could possibly be done by a third party, though there would probably be some bugs they couldn't fix (although they could report these back the MacBU and maybe work something out.)

Or they could use heavy handed "the customer is always right" tactics. Either way...

Re:No compile Loc?

[dvdeug]

Next hardest is Cyrilic languages like Greek or Russian.

Greek is not a Cyrillic language - they use the Greek alphabet. I assume here you'd also place the other languages that can be handled with a single byte code page.

Next hardest is languages like Japanese where you need to have double byte characters or Unicode.

You don't exactly have the ability not to handle Unicode anymore, if only because there's daggers and quotes and dashes in Unicode needed for proper English writing. In a lot of ways, proper Chinese support is easier then proper English support, as characters are one width (unless you toss Roman characters in, which are usually half the normal width) and line wrapping that ignores words; no justification or word wrapping to worry about.

The hardest is Arabic and Hebrew because of BiDi.

I think Bidi processing is easier then the character shaping necessary for Hindi and other Indic languages.

Re:No compile Loc?

[YE]

Next hardest is Cyrilic languages like Greek or Russian

Ooops, you were a Mac developer at Microsoft? I hope their Windows developers know that Greek is NOT Cyrillic. It's Greek.

does OpenOffice support Hebrew and Arabic?

[porky_pig_jr]

I know KDE (and its related tools) support both Hebrew and Arabic, but does OpenOffice do it as well? If not, what are the alternatives?

Slightly off-topic: I've recently tried OpenOffice the latest version and was very impressed how well it converted PowerPoint presentation. I really *hate* when some scientific presentations use PPT format (and give no other alternatives). It doesn't happen that often, but unfortunately it *does* happen. I wish scientific community were a bit more aware of the 'open vs closed standards' issue.

Re:does OpenOffice support Hebrew and Arabic?

[wmspringer]

Fortunately, OO-PPT conversion seems to be pretty transparent; I actually originally downloaded OO primarily because I needed to be able to view Powerpoint slides, and since then I've been using it to view .ppt files created in Powerpoint (and create files to be run under powerpoint) with no trouble.

I used to hate it when files were only available in .ppt also, but lately I've come to appreciate that it's often easier to do things that way than any other. And thanx to OO we don't have to blow all that money on MSOffice :-)

Have you ever managed a software project?

[kylef]

Foolish of Microsoft to resist such an upgrade to their own software.

Feature management is a very, very simple concept. You look at what percent of your customers are demanding this or that feature, and what bugs are affecting X percentage of your customers, and make your decisions about how to allocate development resources from there.

With Apple having a sub 5% market share worldwide, MS Office being on perhaps half of those, and perhaps less than 1% of the worldwide Apples requesting Hebrew support, we're talking about a very small customer base here requesting this feature. Especially if there is a bug fix that is affecting 90% of your customers that hasn't been addressed yet.

If this article is true, the Israeli government seems to be strong-arming Microsoft to implement a feature that doesn't make economic sense. What's worse, according to the article, they are suspending MS contracts that have already been signed. I am no contract lawyer, but to me, that sounds very abusive and arbitrary, and would be illegal if anyone but the government were to attempt such an action...

Re:Have you ever managed a software project?

[Shipud]

...the CEO of Apple's Israeli representative Yeda offered to underwrite the localization work, pay 1million shekels, and assure a pre-order of 2,000 copies from Apple France - but Microsoft Israel declined.

So Yeda offered to take the job upon themsleves. MS does not have to pay anything to add Hebrew. Why does MS still refuse? Could it be they like their Windows platform better than Mac-OS?

Re:Have you ever managed a software project?

[Basehart]

If this article is true, the Israeli government seems to be strong-arming Microsoft to implement a feature that doesn't make economic sense.

Not adding Hebrew language support in a product available in Isreal is what isn't making strong economic sense I think.

I don't have the stats but I'm betting the percentage of Isrealis using a Mac versus Isrealis using a PC is appreciably higher than it is in Northwest USA!

Whatever, Microsoft fucked up again and now they're paying the price, which I've noticed them doing more and more these days.

Re:Have you ever managed a software project?

[mad.frog]

If this article is true, the Israeli government seems to be strong-arming Microsoft to implement a feature that doesn't make economic sense.

May not make economic sense for MSFT, but it surely makes economic sense for Israel. They need software that works in Hebrew, and MSFT isn't providing it.

Re:Have you ever managed a software project?

[kylef]

So Yeda offered to take the job upon themsleves. MS does not have to pay anything to add Hebrew. Why does MS still refuse? Could it be they like their Windows platform better than Mac-OS?

Could it be that they don't want to allow 3rd party developers to modify their code and release something with the Microsoft logo on it?

Let me turn around the situation for you: Do you think Apple would allow 3rd party developers to add some features to OS X that a foreign government was requesting, and release that product with full Apple support? I think not.

Re:Have you ever managed a software project?

[kylef]

Not adding Hebrew language support in a product available in Isreal is what isn't making strong economic sense I think.

Office Mac has always been available in Israel. Office Mac has never had support for Hebrew. People know this, and buy it anyway: it's their choice. At what point exactly did native language support for a country become a necessity to sell a product there?

Re:Have you ever managed a software project?

[superyooser]

With Apple having a sub 5% market share worldwide, MS Office being on perhaps half of those, and perhaps less than 1% of the worldwide Apples requesting Hebrew support, we're talking about a very small customer base here requesting this feature.

True, but the article pointed out that IE:mac and Outlook Express:mac support Zulu. (It didn't say specifically about Office.) How many Zulu Mac users do you think exist in the world? And Zulu Mac-heads who want MS applications? Most of Israel's economy is high tech. The population is extremely educated and wired (per capita compared to other countries). And umm let's put it this way: High tech companies aren't outsourcing jobs to the Congo. There is no Microsoft Zimbabwe (although they might have a branch in South Africa, but Zulu is one of many languages there).

Re:Have you ever managed a software project?

[thrillseeker]

At what point exactly did native language support for a country become a necessity to sell a product there?

At the point the government of the country said it was (it is their country, and not m$ft's...)

Re:Have you ever managed a software project?

[dvdeug]

True, but the article pointed out that IE:mac and Outlook Express:mac support Zulu.

Give a few bucks and I can get any Unix system you want completely working on Zulu. That's because supporting Zulu is easy; all even full support requires is a translation team and maybe a keyboard layout. However, Hebrew requires its own fonts, and bidirection code and spelling code that ignores optional vowels.

If you look at KDE, Xhosa and Venda, two languages of South Africa, are well supported, but Hindi, one of the world's six largest languages, isn't supported. It has little to do with politics; it's all about how easy they are to support.

Re:Have you ever managed a software project?

[tftp]

Actually, it is done frequently in software business, regardless of who asks for it. You can not do everything; you can not write TCP or Bluetooth or WAP stacks, you can not write your own routing implementation, you can not do many things. What you can do is your "core competency" - something that you do better than anyone else. You buy the rest, and include these 3rd party components into your product. Look at a splash screen of any software, and you will see how many 3rd party copyrights are mentioned there - because the vendor used their IP. And once you do that, you fully support the resulting product (though the components' vendors will support you, in turn.)

Re:Have you ever managed a software project?

[Erik Piper]

I can vouch for this. On the other hand, with a very large company the "core competency" can be very broad without making that competency shallower -- in other words, a company like Microsoft could (if it really wanted to) be an expert in operating systems (huge in itself) and office software, including all the nooks and crannies involved.

Whereas my employers have trouble even adding CD burning without 3rd-party libraries. :0)

Re:Have you ever managed a software project?

[ichimunki]

If you had read the article for comprehension, you would have noticed that this is not the Israeli government saying that Microsoft isn't allowed to sell software in Israel. This is the Israeli government saying they are not going to buy any MS software themselves. There is a big difference.

Further, this isn't a case where Microsoft isn't supporting Hebrew at all. This only affects the Mac version of Office. So one might make the argument that by not supporting Hebrew on Mac, Microsoft is attempting to "force" Israeli users to buy Microsoft Windows and native Office applications.

Personally I think any government in the habit of buying operating systems and software should be avoiding Microsoft anyway... so I can support this move from Israel (which is rare for me). Unfortunately it doesn't sound like they'll be looking to move to GNU/Linux solutions as a wholesale replacement. Which is too bad. This is a prime example of why Free Software exists: to offer users freedom. In cases like this, where the users are even willing to pay to have the changes made, the unilateral control of software by a single firm is harmful to the users well-being. And in this case, looking for basic office functionality... well, let's just say there are probably any number of acceptable solutions already available as Free Software.

Re:No Apple Support

[Delphiki]

On the first point, not sure. On the second, MS released a new version of Office for Mac this summer, so that would've definitely been during the OS X 10.2 lifetime.

Now thinking about it....

[darth_silliarse]

Bill Gates should be able to aquire a nuclear arsenal considering the amount of pirated material available in the ex-Eastern Bloc, just file a few lawsuits at the respective governments and et voila! an ICBM or ten, he could then relocate his Redmond base to Syria and we could have the first ever government vs corporation cold war! Think of the possibilities! Think of the outcome! der der der der der der der "Now on News at Ten, the Israeli Prime Minister has declared on state television that he will release a virus-patch that will render all Windows OS's inoperable until hebrew is installed as the default language der der der der der.... he also added that Steve Jobs and Linus Torvalds would be joining Mossad as counter agents".

This may or may not be a sarcastic post...

Off Topic Joke

[niko9]

There is an ambulance service here in NYC called Hatzhola EMS. They cater to the jewsih community, are mostly volunteer, and respond to calls from work or school, usually in whatever attire they happen to be in at the time.

One day I was working with an old timer, and he started to sing a tune as we watched one the Hatzhola guys race past us:

Oy vey!
Outta the way!
The Matzah box is on the way!
(mimicks siren)
Heeebreeew Hebreeeew!

He meant no harm buy it, he actually has a few friends in that particular service, but I almost pooped in my pants when I heard it.
--

Partly

[Llywelyn]

Well, you're mostly right.

Implementing internationalization for hebrew is trivial in Cocoa-based apps. It is significantly more difficult for Carbon based apps (which MS Office likely is). Microsoft also has a *serious* NIH syndrome when it comes to anything Apple-based and seems to prefer to implement their own versions of everything rather than use Apple's built-in libraries, so even if they could use Apple's internationalization (which I should add is absolutely gorgeous for Hebrew), I have a sneaking suspicion they would want to implement and use their own.

Re:Partly

[quacking duck]

Microsoft also has a *serious* NIH syndrome when it comes to anything Apple-based and seems to prefer to implement their own versions of everything rather than use Apple's built-in libraries

You'd better believe it! Anyone remember Office 6 for Mac? Ran slow as a turtle. Office 95 for Windows running under Virtual PC actually ran faster! Apparently MS built in a crappy Windows emulator for Office 6, just so they wouldn't have to use waste time replacing Office 95's DLL files).

Re:Partly

[MrLint]

Speaking of NIH, some MS apps dont work with Winshade X because they dont make system calls to draw windows. Of course it doesnt work on apps running as root either. I hope over time there will be less and less need to run apps as root (privlidge elvation)

Re:Partly

[Gilmoure]

Microsoft also has a *serious* NIH syndrome when it comes to anything Apple-based You mean like windowing GUIs and such? *cough-Apple source code-cough*

Re:Partly

[imagerodeo]

Yes, Office:Mac is Carbon. (Can't you tell? Cocoa apps are small, open fast, and have great fit and finish.)

I'm not sure how true this is today, but it used to be that office apps shared a lot of code between Mac and Windows. It makes sense - why write the app twice? I'm sure that there's lots of "edge code" these days, but I suspect that much of the core text composition is "core" - which includes the language and font support.

Re:Partly

[multipartmixed]

> Apparently MS built in a crappy Windows emulator for Office 6

That's also exactly what they did for Internet Explorer 4 and 5 for Solaris (and, presumably, HPUX).

I used to run Office 4.3/Word 6 (that's what you meant, right?) on a Sparc 5 with WABI. Worked great, was much faster than my 600 MHz PIII is now with Office 2000. I would switch back, but most of my business contacts use Word 97 or better.

MOD PARENT DOWN

[soft_guy]

The parent post is misleading. Apple does have Hebrew support in MacOS X and has been supporting Hebrew for many years. (And Arabic, too.)

Heck, they even demoed a Klingon version os MacOS X to really drive home how well they nailed international support in MacOS X.

The issue is Microsoft Office for Mac which is not an Apple product.

Re:No Apple Support

[questionlp]

Office for Mac v.X has been out for a while... OS X 10.0.x or 10.1 timeframe I'd say. Microsoft refreshed the line-up to include native Exchange support for Entourage and added the Professional edition to include Virtual PC.

Don't get too excited

[hendrix69]

The Israeli government is just holding out in order to get a better deal on MS products for the upcoming years. Too much of the government and the army's software is tied too MS for a transition to Linux to take place. Besides, no other platform, sadly, has as good a support of Hebrew as MS. Although it's getting better constantly - the latest OpenOffice, for example, is quite an improvement.
There's also the issue of MS's political power through the US government. Israel gets quite a bit of money from the US and large portions of it are conditioned on the buying of American products with this money. So I wouldn't bet on Israel doing the Munich thing. At least not for a while.

Re:Don't get too excited

[mericet]

That would have been my first reaction too, the lock -in is just too great for a full switch to be realistic, but Israel do have a superb legal system (and an at least reasonable anti-trust system, which I believe will step in too soon), this is apparently a reaction to suit broght in Israel's high court for justice (AKA, the Israeli supreme court when dealing with a special kind of cases against the government, AKA Bagatz), against the anti-trust and purchasing authorities (the accountant general).

This is apparntly (according to Israeli press in net.nana.co.il) part of the country's position before the court and can not be changed without a very good reason.

Anyway, there is more, the accountant general said (outside the court) that the licensing agreements are problematic, especially the bundling, and would only be partially renewed for a reduced price (You are right there), without bundling (e.g. they want some licenses with only word for a fraction of the price of office, because it is only a fraction of office), and that no upgrade will come anytime soon. They also consider switching to OpenOffice and Mozilla.

It seems that part of the answer to the court was that the country will distribute hebrew versions Linux and OpenOffice to facilitate citzen contact to the government.

The American government do have a strong inluence here, and I don't think the army will switch, at least for that reason.

Re:Don't get too excited

[hendrix69]

Ignoring for a second MS's monopoly which the Israeli government had chosen to ignore up till now: the claim made by this recent ban on MS products is that MS isn't localizing it's products for Apple.
This is a completely rediculous claim: 90%, if not more, of bidi localization is in the OS. Office and other progs are built on top of that and consequently have very little work to do with regards to localizatoin. Now they expect MS to either alter its' Office suite completely by making the localization built into the program (impossible) or to do the necessariy OS changes to APPLE's OS - impossible as well.
This is a shake-down of MS, plain and simple. Not that I have any objections to that (what goes around), but the end result will be more MS licensing - probably long term, and that's too bad.

Re:Don't get too excited

[mericet]

If they can't do the necessary changes, they can always go to the court, and either win (likely considering Apple's position) or delay the case forever (and 1M$/day fine until the final decision is not likely here). Anyway, it's not like the anti-trust authority did this on its own accord, they are doing it to avoid a court case against it from the user group, not wanting to dirty its hands for MS.

The user group OTOH, didn't have a lot of other options in court, they couldn't go against Apple for giving up on Israel, that is not a monopoly decision (and with a 0% market share here, Apple is not one), they can only go against MS. I hope that ignoring the monopoly was a mistake made by the previous anti-trust administrator, which the current one is not going to repeat.

I hope you are wrong about the licenses, but my experience causes me to agree that this is likely.

Re:Don't get too excited

[deblau]

The Israeli government is just holding out in order to get a better deal on MS products for the upcoming years.

Sorry, but this is paranoid speculation. If you're negotiating with someone, and there's a chance you can reach a settlement, you don't set arbitrary punitive deadlines in the distant future. Suppose MSFT offered Israel free software upgrades until the end of time, everything that you have supposed they want. How does announcing now that they're cutting off contracts until the end of '04 help Israel's bargaining position? It kinda shafts them, doesn't it?

Nope, this one is past negotiating, folks. Israel has clearly had enough. They've decided MSFT is a monopoly, and they're gonna see justice done. And who said anything about upgrading to Linux? There are plenty of alternatives out there. And who said anything about upgrading at all? How many people do you know who still run Windows 95, or Linux 0.99, or AIX, because it works?

Let's not be unnecessarily self-recriminatory. We scored a big one here, let's celebrate.

This proves it!

[callipygian-showsyst]

1. G-d Speaks Hebrew

2. Macs don't support Hebrews

THEREFORE G-D USES WINDOWS!

Re:This proves it!

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

Hmm, OK, I know this was a joke, but...
2. Macs don't support Hebrews
1) they don't support Hebrew, not Hebrews
2) they do support Hebrew, just that the MacOS X versions of Office don't. In the article they talk about the OS supporting R to L scripts such as Hebrew (and Arabic and Urdu) since 10.2.

Maybe this is proof G-d uses OpenOffice? =)

Re:This proves it!

[spectecjr]

2) they do support Hebrew, just that the MacOS X versions of Office don't. In the article they talk about the OS supporting R to L scripts such as Hebrew (and Arabic and Urdu) since 10.2.

The Mac OS X versions of Office came out before MacOS 10.2, which is why there's no support in Office v.X for right-to-left languages.

Re:This proves it!

[mortonda]

Don't be silly. There's a huge hole in your logic. (I guess it might be "holy".... groan)

God obviously doesn't use Microsoft... He uses something that works better. I would think that would be obvious on a site like /. :P

Re:This proves it!

[asparagus]

Nah...God uses a mac and is tired of waiting for Office support, so he 'urges' the Israeli government to sue to help fix his problem.

Now, if only he was into gaming. Of course, that would mean that the Bungie aquisition was the work of the devil...

Re:This proves it!

[Quobobo]

No, Bungie being sucked up by MS is pretty obviously Satan's work anyway.

Re:This proves it!

[spectecjr]

Right to left layout and ligatures were in the OS X text object from the time that OS X was called Openstep in 1996. The problem is with the Carbon and more likely with Microsoft themselves since the Office suite uses precious little Carbon as it is, but rather does a lot of it's own text layout and rendering.

Yes, and Office for Windows handles it fine, using its own text layout and rendering. It does, however, require Uniscribe support and Opentype script support for glyph reording and substitution.

The most obvious answer is that when Office vX first came out, the functionality needed to support it wasn't available from the API used to write it.

Hidden anti-semitic agenda at MS?

[illumin8]

I have wondered before if some developers at Microsoft might have a hidden anti-semitic agenda. Before you brush me off as a tin-foil hat conspiracy theorist, try the following exercise:

1. Open MS Word.
2. Type the letters "NYC" (capitals) into a blank document.
3. Highlight the text NYC and change your font to Wingdings.
4. Voila!

Re:Hidden anti-semitic agenda at MS?

[NanoGator]

"I have wondered before if some developers at Microsoft might have a hidden anti-semitic agenda. Before you brush me off as a tin-foil hat conspiracy theorist, try the following exercise:"

Too late, already brushed you off as a tin-foil hat conspiracy theorist.

So tell me, why is NYC the factor that makes that message meaningful? Okay, so NYC is a well known city. Also, NYC was attacked by religious extremists. So it must mean that it's too much of a coincidence that those 3 letters happen to put up those symbols, right?

Wrong.

Never mind that 9-11 burned NYC into our minds, thus making "NYC" significant in relation to the symbols, the fact of the matter is just about any letter combination could have been made to have found meaning. ABC -- There's probably some skeleton in ABC's closet that could tie those symbols to an anti-semitic agenda. GWB -- That one's obvious. XYZ -- Somebody'd come up with a fake story about how one of the planes in 9-11 had 'XYZ' in the flight # or something.

The odds that NYC would land on those symbols are pretty damn high. That's why Microsoft was sued over this. However, that is the extremist perception of what happened. Instead of thinking about the odds of that particular combination, think about the odds of those 3 symbols being tied to letters that couldn't be twisted in some fashion to make the 'message' seem intentional. Suddenly, it's not so obvious that somebody at Microsoft intentionally put an anti-jewish message in there. Don't believe me? Use your same trick, only type in MSNBC. Still don't believe me? Type SLASHDOT and tell me that 'message' isn't startlingly appropriate.

Re:Hidden anti-semitic agenda at MS?

[Basehart]

Try MSFT...does this mean things will be getting a little toasty in Redmond this Christmas?

Bah, Humbug!

Re:Hidden anti-semitic agenda at MS?

[loucura!]

All those make it immediately apparent that Microsoft has some extremely violent and deranged individuals in its employ. ;)

Re:Hidden anti-semitic agenda at MS?

[NanoGator]

"And, from that background, it just "happens" that the NY abbreviation in Wingdings gives a symbol of death and a Jewish symbol? Gimme a break."

Yes, that's exactly what it is. Go type in some other names in Wingdings and tell me you don't find coincidental messages there. I mean seriously, what's the likelyhood that some programmer would think to put those symbols together when one spells NYC? What would possibly make him think "I know, I can put an anti-Jewish hate message in here. That'll express my hatred of jews!" Yeah right. The odds are extremely favorable for finding offensive messages in there. The NYC one there just happens to be it. NYC could just as easily have been a picture of an airplane, a skull/crossbones, and a thumbs up.

Re:Hidden anti-semitic agenda at MS?

[illumin8]

Too late, already brushed you off as a tin-foil hat conspiracy theorist.

I don't actually believe it either... it's just an strange coincidence. Anyhoo, my message was just a joke, hoping to get modded +5 funny... (why, I'm not really sure because my karma's already excellent).

Use your same trick, only type in MSNBC. Still don't believe me? Type SLASHDOT and tell me that 'message' isn't startlingly appropriate.

Ok, the MSNBC one looked a little crazy, but what was there about the SLASHDOT in Wingdings that made it so "startingly appropriate"? A water drop, frowny face, peace sign, thumbs down, flag, and a snowflake? What significance did you find in that message? I'm just curious.

Re:Hidden anti-semitic agenda at MS?

[NanoGator]

"I don't actually believe it either..."

Ah, wish I had caught on to that, woulda been a little more polite to ya. ;)

"but what was there about the SLASHDOT in Wingdings that made it so "startingly appropriate"

Well, understanding I'm not being terribly literal here, when I saw that it looked like people crying and booing over just about everything. Snowflakes, peace, countries, etc.

Re:Hidden anti-semitic agenda at MS?

[Richy_T]

Ok, the MSNBC one looked a little crazy, but what was there about the SLASHDOT in Wingdings that made it so "startingly appropriate"? A water drop, frowny face, peace sign, thumbs down, flag, and a snowflake? What significance did you find in that message? I'm just curious.

It's an angry website (frowny face) where no concensus can be reached (peace sign, thumbs down) and is always waving the flag (flag) for a product associated with a swimming (water drop) creature that comes from a cold (snowdrop) place [i.e. Linux and Tux] {Although looking, I see you missed out a pointy down finger and rearranged the order which would require a whole other interpretation which I am too lazy to do}

It's a conspiracy I tell ya.

Here's one for you though. If you type "WMD" using the Wingdings font, you get a crucifix, a bomb and a thumbs-down. Clearly a message that those who oppose Christianity plan to use violent methods to eliminate it. Spooky, eh? :)

Rich

Re:Hidden anti-semitic agenda at MS?

[illumin8]

Here's one for you though. If you type "WMD" using the Wingdings font, you get a crucifix, a bomb and a thumbs-down. Clearly a message that those who oppose Christianity plan to use violent methods to eliminate it. Spooky, eh? :)

Brilliant!

Re:I guess when you have suicide bombers . . .

[HBI]

The Europeans don't like to be reminded about their past harassment, oppression and extermination of Jews. Hence, the flamebait mod. Don't worry, this one is going down too because it tells the truth about them.

Can't be having that, can we? Unfortunately you might succeed in downmodding a post on Slashdot today, but we will always know the truth about you.

Actually, they have a lot of reasons to care

[SuperBanana]

Microsoft has perfectly valid reasons for not giving a crap about Mac users

Actually, considering the amount of cash MS earns off MS Office for the Macintosh, they actually have a lot of 'reasons' to 'give a crap' about Mac users. The Macintosh division is one of the most profitable.

I suppose you think apple was 'saved' by MS with that $150M stock purchase, too, don't you?(even though Apple had billions in the bank at the time.)

Not any different from before

[AvantLegion]

Here in the US, Microsoft was targeted for using their position in one area (operating systems) to try and force another of their products (Internet Explorer) on consumers.

In Israel, it's about using their position in one area (office software) to try and force another of their products (Windows) on consumers.

The only difference is how they're doing it. With IE, it was a matter of forcing you to have software and not letting you get rid of it without damaging a completely unrelated other piece of software - the OS.

With Office on the Mac, they're denying a key service - language support - to try and force you to use the product on THEIR operating system.

In a world where MS doesn't control everything, the makers of the office software wouldn't be the makers of an OS, and would have no duty but to serve their cusomers. Instead, we have MS crippling an important piece of software (where all other competition has been driven out) to try and force customers to use the software on their OS.

Re:Not any different from before

[zangdesign]

Oddly enough, a really good word processor for the Mac platform is made by an Israeli company. If you own a Mac, do yourself a favor and check out Mellel. It has full Hebrew support (which I don't need). I've used it some and it does what it's supposed to do.

The key thing it doesn't do: work with Microsoft documents. Oh, yeah, and you can forget typing in equations and whatnot (but how many people in the real world really need to do that?).

Re:China

[SoSueMe]

I thought we were all fairly intelligent here

Bzzzt

Please pay again.

THE DEADLY RESULT

[47Ronin]

its interesting that Israel is suspending all its Microsoft contracts.. i wonder if MS will send its own suicide bombers to attack..

then what that occurs, Bush will conclude that MS has weapons of mass destruction and the marines will storm Redmond, take over, topple the statue of Bill, then get attacked by guerilla MS supporters with rocket-propelled grenades.

Beware!!

LONG SINCE DEBUNKED by Microsoft

[StandardCell]

From Snopes Wingdings Legend Page:

Here is Microsoft's official statement on the issue:

We can certainly understand how people would respond with some shock to this apparent issue. We did too when it first came up nine years ago and we investigated it thoroughly in partnership with the Anti-Defamation League. The conclusion was that the sequence in the Wingdings character set is coincidental and that there was no malicious intent. In fact, it impacted several software companies at the time and continues to do so. Unfortunately, there was not an easy way to fix the problem. We understand that this requires explanation.

At the simplest level, wingdings and webdings are much like an alphabet of characters and provide thousands of potential combinations from which a person could choose. Changing the character set would create an impact of unknown scale on existing data and code using the affected font. Again, using the example of the alphabet, what would happen to existing documents and applications if we switched around a handful of letters? The likely result is that we would create significant issues for people, cause some unintended humorous moments and several offensive ones. For that reason Wingdings has been left unaltered since its inception.

So, while it fails your tin-foil hat test, it doesn't look like it's really connected. Correlation does not necessarily imply causation.

Re:Wow

[StarmanDeluxe]

I think he was referring to Joseph from the bible, and his many-hued coat. Why he was doing so, uh, I dunno.

Mod GrandParent UP!

[temojen]

Come on, that was one of the few funny, on topic posts to this thread.

Re:Microsoft, don't take more crap

[Llywelyn]

"Microsoft has perfectly valid reasons for not giving a crap about Mac users. If I were Bill Gates, I would reply to this by removing Hebrew support from Office for Windows."

Wow, you think a business should retaliate against its customers because they refuse to deal with MS?

Let me know if you run any businesses so I can be sure not to buy from them, your customer service departments would be horrible!

Re:I like Jews

[Avada Kedavra]

Lord Voldemort's wand is made from the Yew tree.

Very interesting

[Pan T. Hose]

This news is very interesting considering the fact that Bill Gates during his visit in Poland today has made a great deal in supporting Polish language, giving Windows to every school, to the government (even the source code with the ability to modify and compile!) like the 99.8% (plus being the only OS supporting the mandatory tax software) was not enough. Poland, like Israel, has been repeatedly exploited by Germans (and Poles, just like Jews, often hate Germans for what they did to their people) who incidentally are opposing Microsoft domination, scientology roots of core Microsoft developers and the recent SCO FUD campain, but now, when Poland is joining the EU, it is much better camrade for Microsoft to fight Germans than Israel is, thanks to its veto power in European Parlament and corrupted government (from the lowest levels up to prime minister). Or is it just US being grateful because Poland has blindly followed Bush in his Iraq invasion? Obviously nobody can be sure about it, but certainly I can't wait to see how it will end.

Re:Very interesting

[fejikso]

Well, you have to remember that Polish is written in a very similar way as English, as it is an modification/extension of the Roman alphabet, whereas Hewbrew uses a completely differerent alphabet (which shouldn't be any problem if Unicode is used properly), and more important, is not written in the same direction (which can be a big problem to fix if you didn't think about this when coding your program).

Re:Very interesting

[SpacePunk]

Israel was never expoited by the Germans. Israel, recently, did not exist untill after WWII.

win/win

[cpeterso]

Both the Israelis and the Palestinians make claim for the same land. For decades, both sides have made it obvious that neither will leave.

My question: why must one side lose and the other win? Why don't the Israelis and the Palestinians work together and create a secular democratic government? Jews and Arabs can work and live side by side. This is a win/win situation! Let economic freedom and inter-dependencies foster peace.

If the Israelis and the Palestinians are arguing JUST over land, then this is the solution. If the issue is about revenge, then there is no solution.

Re:win/win

[cpeterso]

They call the same god by a different name, it'd never work.

good point. In Soviet USA, people claim different gods have the same name: "under God".

Re:win/win

[good soldier svejk]

My question: why must one side lose and the other win? Why don't the Israelis and the Palestinians work together and create a secular democratic government? Jews and Arabs can work and live side by side. This is a win/win situation! Let economic freedom and inter-dependencies foster peace.

That is the conclusion "leftist" intellectuals like Eqbal Ahmad and Edward Said eventually reached. However, you have to understand that if Israel becomes a multiethnic pluralistic democracy, it is no longer Israel. Zionism is predicated on Jewish sovereignty. Israel without Zionism is a tough sell to Israelis (because it eventually means Palestine).

Conversely, the single state solution requires Palestinians accept their disenfranchisement. When the UN partitioned Palestine, Jews comprised about 31% of the population and owned 7% of the land. The plan awarded them more than half the country, and the 1948 war and expulsions disenfranchised hundreds of thousands more Palestinians. When Ahmad and Said began preaching the single state solution, it was blasphemous to mainstream Palestinian nationalists. Now the Palestinian body politic is more receptive to such a message. But the same weariness which created this spirit of compromise has empowered a competing religious radicalism which doesn't know the concept of compromise and will actively disrupt any hint of it.

Is it hopeless? Yes and no. The reality is a single state solution is all but inevitable. Israel's Jewish population is shrinking and its Palestinian population (Muslim, Christian and Druze) is growing. If you count non-Israeli citizens in the occupied territories, Palestinians under Israeli rule will soon outnumber Jews. While the current administration envisions a South African style minority rule surrounded by Palestinian Bantustans, such a model is not sustainable. In the long run it will suffer the same fate as South Africa: pluralistic multiethnic democracy.

". . . Let us not today fling accusation at the murderers. What causehave we to complain about their fierce hatred to us? For eight years now, they sit in their refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we TURN into our homestead the land and villages in which they and their forefathers have lived. We should demand his blood not from the [Palestinian] Arabs of Gaza but from ourselves. . . . Let us make our reckoning today. We are a generation of settlers, and without the steel helmet and gun barrel, we shall not be able to plant a tree or build a house. . . . Let us not be afraid to see the hatred the accompanies and consumes the lives of hundreds of thousands of [Palestinian] Arabs who sit all around us and wait the moment when their hand will be able to reach our blood."

-Moshe Dayan, eulogizing a settler killed by a Palestinian in 1969-

Re:win/win

[Artifakt]

"Just land" is a lot to argue about. For example ,the Palestinians do not have a ntional budget big enough to compensate all the israeli settelers with equal DEVELOPED acreage in what would be the remaining nation of Israel. They simply couldn't afford it, if they spent 100% for decades on nothing else. So someone else has to pay. Then there's the typical settler. He dosn't want to move. If he is forced to move to a new place, there will be something wrong with it. If the schools are as close then it's farther to the hospital, or to visit the relatives, or the water isn't as good (and if it tests as good, it still tastes funny). So he wants to more than break even, he wants extra. Rather, what he defines as even is always a lot better than what looks even to outsiders. Now, not only the PLO can't afford to give him what he wants, it would be a strain on Israel's taxes. The secular, democratic government is also improbable. The people on both sides who are the most commited are highly religious. They don't like their secular fellow jews or arabs, and in fact, consider a secular government to be every bit as bad as being forced into the sea by their enemies.

Re:win/win

[cpeterso]

thanks for the links. very interesting.

Re:win/win

[good soldier svejk]

Here is another good Eqbal site. He was not just a brilliant academic, but a man of great principle and compassion who awed inspired everyone around him.

Re:win/win

[good soldier svejk]

"Just land" is a lot to argue about. For example ,the Palestinians do not have a ntional budget big enough to compensate all the israeli settelers with equal DEVELOPED acreage in what would be the remaining nation of Israel.

Compensate the "settlers?" That is insane. "Settling" is a war crime. Article 49, paragraph 6 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states "the occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territories it occupies." Likewise, the 1907 Hague Regulations prohibit the confiscation of public and private property in occupied territory. Furthermore, you make it sound like these "settlers" have made some kind of risky capital investment in these camps. In actual fact they live of fat Israeli government subsidies. "Settlers" receive tax breaks, grants and loans for land and construction, subsidies for water and agriculture, free schooling, and preference in government jobs. In many cases the government even pays to bulletproof their cars. If Israel can foot the bill for their "settlement" she can also pay to relocate them.

During WWII the Germans packed up my entire family, confiscated all their property and sent them to Auschwitz. They then imported Germans to live in there houses. After the war, nobody asked the four survivors to compensate the Germans for their relocation back to Germany. On the contrary, they received generous reparations checks from the German government till the day they died. After the fall of Jaruzelski, the Polish government offered repatriation, as required by international law. If I had the original deed, I could go to Warsaw and claim my mother's house.

Re:Microsoft, don't take more crap

[Bill Dimm]

Wow, you think a business should retaliate against its customers because they refuse to deal with MS? Let me know if you run any businesses so I can be sure not to buy from them

Sounds like he works for SCO.

Accountability?

[hethatishere]

And with it's newly obtained security assured by using Anything Other than Windows(TM), the already piss-poor accountability of Israel drops once more.

Re:Yeah, Hebrew in Mac Office makes sense.

[TummyX]

So everyone in the world uses computers do they?

Your ideas are right, but your numbers are meaningless. It could work out to be 1000 people or 100000000 people. Obviously if it was only 1000 people there isn't much commerical reason to support it.

This is not the place to insult Jews nor Arabs

[WildBeast]

Geez the racism is quiet pathetic around here. This subject is not to be used as an excuse to insult Arabs nor Israel nor Jews.

As for Mac Office in Hebrew, well they should have to use Windows. I don't see Apple porting it's software to PC.

Re:This is not the place to insult Jews nor Arabs

[SydShamino]

Microsoft is required to maintain its Office suite on the Mac per its antitrust settlement. Apple, well, isn't a monopoly, and isn't mandated by the government to do anything special.

Re:This is not the place to insult Jews nor Arabs

[WildBeast]

Why should Microsoft loose money and time for such a small market? If they don't like it, they shall feel free to use another office suite.

Re:This is not the place to insult Jews nor Arabs

[SydShamino]

Because Microsoft is a convicted criminal, and convicted criminals do not get to always do things that make themselves the most money. That's not flamebait or trolling, it is a simple fact. /shrug

Re:This is not the place to insult Jews nor Arabs

[vbdutch]

At last, a sane voice. Agree with you. I'm Israeli (I guess it will build up a tail of racist replies, go on cowards) and I'm disgusted to see both. Is this me or US has changed so much in the last two years? What's even more pathetic, all those messages are signed by "anonymous cowards". I guess that's what most racists are. Concerning Mac Office in Hebrew issue, there is a pragmatic reason for that. Israel is mostly Microsoft country (because, sadly, M$ has built the best support for bidi languages), but Mac hardware is still in use in some government offices, and (judging from what some of my government customers say) it is not as upgrade-hungry as PCs. So naturally, they want to keep 'em, but with the new office they won't have any choice.

Re:This is not the place to insult Jews nor Arabs

[WebMasterJoe]

Why should Microsoft loose money and time for such a small market?

Did you even read the post you are responding to? BECAUSE MICROSOFT IS A MONOPOLY. This is part of what happens when you're a monopoly, you have to play by some stricter rules. There isn't a viable alternative to the Office suite, if you want to work with almost any other company out there. So MS has to provide reasonable support for the competition. That means porting Office to the Mac in a timely fashion.

But aside from that, your logic is frighteningly small-minded. Why should stores have wheelchair accessible entrances? Such a small market, and not worth the money it costs to set up such a thing, I would think.

Does this mean...

[donnz]

Microsoft will have to build a "fence" round Isreal?

-1 Troll

CONSPIRACY

[nickgrieve]

spell "jew" and change the font to wingdings... Hmmm you'll find that it translates to "become a Christian and you'll be happy" if you read it right to left like Hebrew...

and what with that two towers thing, bit much for co-incidence hey?

Re:China

[wass]

Where the hell do these racist idiots come from?

Welcome to slashdot.

You thought the anti-Chinese comments from yesterday from their successful launch were bad and racist? This is really the worst thread discussion I have seen on /. in a LONG time. Seriously. Maybe about 15% tops of the comments posted so far are related to the topic at hand.

If it was any other country with similar or worse human rights record, say Sudan, people would be rejoicing at their rejection of MSFT. But Israel bashing is just too chic these days.

I'm saddened that with the China thread on slashdot many open-minded people went out of their way to say "Don't bash China for their human rights, let's celebrate this achievement instead." But only hours later, there's silence as the ignorant masses troll away.

Re:Microsoft, don't take more crap

[Grishnakh]

This is a very straightforward issue: Israel says it needs Hebrew support, and Microsoft needs to provide it to keep Israel as a customer. Perfectly reasonable. There's no need to get mad or retaliate. Just act like a professional.

Professional?? Microsoft? You haven't seen Steve Ballmer's "Monkey Dance" video yet, have you?

Re:No Apple Support

[Keeper]

Does Office run in Virtual PC, or is it a native OSX application?

If it's a native OSX application, does OSX have much in the way of bidi support?

seriously, though

[Spetiam]

Israel has long been considered to have the best intel/security...perhaps this also says something about computer security? ;)

Re:Microsoft, don't take more crap

[Henry V .009]

Should a business retaliate against customers? No, that is dumb. Should it retaliate against governments? You bet.

Too Bad

[JCMay]

Too bad there's historically no such thing as "Palistinians," and has never been a soveriegn nation called "Palistine."

Too bad that the Six Day War didn't go the way you think it should have. Since when does regions conquered in wartime count as "stolen?" It was won, fair and square.

Too bad nobody realizes that there will never be peace in the Middle East until one side wins. Whom ar you rooting for?

Re:Too Bad

[ChaosDiscord]

Too bad there's historically no such thing as "Palistinians," and has never been a soveriegn nation called "Palistine."

Historically there's no such thing as Midwesterners, and there has never been a sovereign nation called "The Mid-West." Yet I'm darn well a Midwesterner and live in the Mid-West.

There are a bunch of people in a place who feel that they are a distinct group. They need a name, if only because it's shorter than summarizing their status every time you mention them and the region. Palistinians works well enough.

Historically there wasn't a United States, but things changed. Historically Israel was a long dead idea, but things changed.

Now, whether or not Palistine should become an independent nation, or be aborbed by one or more nations surrounding it is an interesting discussion. Attempting to define Palsitine out of existance is just sticking your head in the sand.

Too bad that the Six Day War didn't go the way you think it should have. Since when does regions conquered in wartime count as "stolen?" It was won, fair and square.

Egad, to suggest that taking land by force is "fair and square" is a scary idea. Iraq managed to take and hold Kuwait over six months. Should Kuwait simply have been ceeded to Saddam? Germany managed to hold large portions of Europe for a long, long time, were the Allies so horrible to force them back? Are we to return to Might Makes Right, if you can take it, it's yours?

Re:Too Bad

[admbws]

Too bad there's historically no such thing as "Palistinians," and has never been a soveriegn nation called "Palistine."

Shame. Because they exist now.

P.S. it's spelt "Palestine".

Re:I guess when you have suicide bombers . . .

[MsGeek]

I kinda prefer murder/suicide bombers, myself. Everyone knows the concept of a murder/suicide. The term "Homicide Bomber" is just a propaganda phrase that means absolutely nothing.

(Sorry to post off-topic but I had to pipe up.)

Re:Leftists' heads explode

[wass]

You said it!

Remember all the leftists that came out yesterday and today trying to prevent criticism of China and it's human rights record in the slashdot discussions? Don't be racist and complain about China, let's look at their aerospace accomplishments instead.

Notice that these kind of emails are notably absent now? Yeah. It's bad to criticize other countries if not about the current topic. Oh wait, unless it's Israel, those damn zionist racist apartheid colonial occupying thieves.

Open Office Has Had Support For A While

[Solokron]

Open Office has had Hebrew support for quite some time.

2002 Hebrew OpenOffice Files

Open Office Hebrew HowTo

Re:No Apple Support

[questionlp]

Office for Mac v.X is an OS X native application and does not run on Mac OS 9. OS X does support Hebrew (and most likely Arabic) but Microsoft uses their own layout and rendering engine for Word and the rest of their Office suites and does not use the rendering engines provided by Apple. Others have already covered those two points.

You can run Office for Windows under Virtual PC, but it will probably be fairly sluggish.

Re:I guess when you have suicide bombers . . .

[cranos]

Yup the Europeans sucked when it came to the treatment of the jews, but shit does that give the jews the right to do exactly the same to others?

Its like the man who was beaten up on a regular basis when he was a kid, turning into a thug when he grows up because thats the only thing he knows. An eye for an eye is all very well until there aren't any eyes left to pluck.

Hebrew

[Raven42rac]

I bought a replacement keyboard for a Gateway Solo 2500 on ebay for 9.95 USD, list price is something like 60 USD. The only "caveat", which I think is cool, is that listed under the english keys, are Hebrew letters. I thought that was pretty cool.

Re:cant be any harder than japanese support.

[Mike A.]

Does Microsoft actually support Japanese in that order? All the Japanese apps and web pages I've seen go left-to-right top-to-bottom, just like European languages.

Re:I like Jews

[bheerssen]

Confusion, war, and terror is the normal state of the world. It is peace and understanding that is fleeting.

We can only hope that the world will one overcome over the normal state of affairs and outbreaks of peace will be more than just pleasant footnotes in history.

Re:I guess when you have suicide bombers . . .

[antiMStroll]

And you don't find blaming the sins of the neighbour's great-grandparents on 'us' bigotry? Tell me again why generational hatred is ripping the middle east apart.

Re:C'mon Bill

[glenebob]

Balmer would dance across the stage with all those explosives strapped on and detonate right as he passes the podium. DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS *BOOM*

It wouldn't be safe. Funny as hell, but very unsafe.

Here's my chance to ask!

[Erwos]

How the hell do you type nekudot (vowels) in OpenOffice 1.1? For the life of me, I've been unable to figure it out!

Otherwise, awesome work. Assuming you install the Hebrew fonts, Hebrew support is "out of the box" in RH9, and it even has the Culmus fonts!

-Erwos

Israeli attacks

[revisionz]

I wonder what the range is on Israel's fighters? Maybe they have some old missiles around to send to Redmond? Israel _has_ been in a really pissy mood lately.

Re:or...

[Troll_Kamikaze]

MS sees God as competition.

Nah, they don't reaaally. They just said that during the antitrust trial to minimize public perception of the true extent of their monopoly.

Re:THE ONLY GOOD ISRAELIS ARE DEAD ISRAELIS

[Rimbo]

I don't get the whole anti-semitism thing.

Double Standard

[The Monster]

Since when does regions conquered in wartime count as "stolen?" It was won, fair and square.

I have never understood this double standard either. Back in WWII, Germany lost Silesia, Pomerania, and East Prussia to Poland, and the Russians wouldn't even entertain the notion of ending their occupation of the DDR and letting it reunify with the BRD until it was stipulated that Germany forever renounced any claims to that land. I fail to see how Judaea/Samaria, the Gaza Strip and Golan Heights should be any different - Jordan, Egypt, and Syria respectively lost those lands to Israel and that should be the end of it.

When Jordan was the only country to support Iraq in Gulf War I, I thought the proper punishment should have been to rename the country 'Palestine' and tell all those who consider themselves 'Palestinians' that they had a homeland now and could stop fighting.

Re:Double Standard

[0x0d0a]

(a) A couple places, like Jerusalem, are a big deal to both sides. Land is not fungible, in this case.

(b) (Assuming you're from the US) What if the Soviets came, took over, kicked you out of your house, and moved you up to cold Canada? Would you be thrilled at the idea of renaming Canada "The United States of America", and the exiles stop complaining and being resentful?

No OpenOffice for Mac for a while

[kingLatency]

You might recall a recent article about how OpenOffice for Mac OS X is being delayed for several years. That means he'll have to use it in X11. Doable, but not as satisfying.

Re:Microsoft, don't take more crap

[1lus10n]

i would like to see that ...... i really would. especially since the gov't is more likely than not acting in the best intrests of its citizens.

Microsuck is just being a bunch of stuborn assholes, they could very easily use the mac osx hebrew libraries. but they prefer to cripple office for mac by writting some half assed butcher job to implement hebrew. this obviously pissed of the isreali gov't since their native language is hebrew.

they will end up using openoffice/star office, because it already supports hebrew, and they wont suffer from MS's bullshit lock in/overpricing problems.

Re:I guess when you have suicide bombers . . .

[Peaker]

Huh? Sharon accepted it.

An opportunity here...

[BrokenHalo]

Anybody know if OpenOffice.org supports Hebrew?

Re:An opportunity here...

[websaber]

none yet

http://l10n.openoffice.org/localization_responsi bilities.html

Re:I guess when you have suicide bombers . . .

[Peaker]

Its not that simple.

An eye-for-an-eye may prevent someone from plucking out an eye due to fear of having his own eye plucked out.

mellel

[rhood]

Maybe it's just a way of giving a benefit to the local software market. Mellel, produced by Redlers is an excellent Mac word processor written with Hebrew and other right-to-left scripts in mind (I have no affiliation with the company).

Re:cant be any harder than japanese support.

[amake]

Office for OS X supports vertical text. There is no support for vertical text in HTML that I know of, so of course you've never seen a vertical-text webpage.

Re:I guess when you have suicide bombers . . .

[b17bmbr]

apparently, you know nothing about the middle east. how many middle east nations allow palestinians citizen ship? how many middle east nations allow palestinians to vote? how many middle east nations allow palestinians to serve in the government? one. israel. now, they are hardly the agressor. i would be mad, but you're simply ignorant not spiteful. except for egypt, no other arab/muslim nation even recognizes israel's right to exist. now, look at palestinian text books. any mention of israel? none. according to oslo, they were supposed to totally revamp their texts. have they? not at all. so you got another generation of young palestinians growing up with the arab version of the blood libel.

israel is simply in defense mode. they have no other option. but apparently we who sit safely far away can pass judgement upon them while they fight for there very existence.

In israel Linux is hardly known

[Anonymous Coward]

When I was in Israel earlier this year the Linux penetration I saw among friends was almost nil. Hopefully this action is more than a barganing move. But we must remember that even in the US most people are afraid of anything without the familiar start button. Microsoft still rides on the distinction of having the first comercial OS written in Hebrew.

Looking for a tin-foil hat

[appleLaserWriter]

It gets better. Type the first letters of "Muslim Al-Queda" (MAQ) into word, and change the font to Wingdings.

Why Orobor? Use Apple's!

[Llywelyn]

Why use OroborOSX and XonX? Why not just use Apple's wonderful, Quartz Extreme capable version of X11?

Re:I guess when you have suicide bombers . . .

[cranos]

This is not defensive, it is offensive. The fact that the settlements still exists and in fact are growing, makes it an offensive campaign. If the Israelis were truly sincere about defence, they would have pulled back to their legitimate borders instead of routinely flouting the UN resolutions and building WMDS(mmmm seems a familiar scenario).

Re:language support

[Gilmoure]

Hebrew is the only ancient language to still be in daily use. How many computer languages and protocols will survive 2500+ years and still be in regular use by millions of users?

Re:I guess when you have suicide bombers . . .

[commodoresloat]

Can you dig up a link to the poster you're talking about? I would really like to see it.

Re:Microsoft, don't take more crap

[Ieshan]

Hebrew is the National Language of Israel.

There are religious nuts, and secular schoolchildren who use this product. Stop being such an ass.

Re:I guess when you have suicide bombers . . .

[MindNumbingOblivion]

Can we get an offtopic mod for this? The issue isn't Israeli-Rest of the Region relations, its Israeli-Big American Software Monopoly relations. I don't see how discussing the merits of sucide bombings and Israel's response to said bombings has anything to do with Israel ditching Microsoft (unless you think Steve Ballmer, as religious leader of the Church of Gates, will declare a holy war in response to this) because Microsloth refused support for the official language of the Jewish state.

For one, I think this move is commendable. Whatever your stance on politics in the region, there isn't much question about Melkorsoft's idiocy in this issue. Languages should be preserved, as a record of the human story. Refusing to provide support of any language is a blatant move to selectively propogate certain tongues over others. True, in the 'internet culture' the default speech between peoples is English, and that fact is seen as a threat in and of itself to the survival of languages, esp. such as Hebrew, which is not spoken much outside of Israel other than in ceremony or in homes (correct me if I'm wrong -- I'm admittedly ignorant of things which I'd like to know more about...I just know from my personal experience that spoken Hebrew is not a common conversational mode in the US). But what about those that aren't part of the 'internet culture', that group of people who use the internet everynow and again to find useful information for school, work, or just for the hell of it? I swear I have a point in here somewhere...something about protecting languages...Ah hell, I just thought all the bickering over who's more wrong detracted from valuable bickering over Morgosofth's idiocy.

PS Any other good creative euphamisms for the Dark Enemy of the Internet?

Re:language support

[Gilmoure]

revived to daily use, I guess. I was amazed, taking Biblical Hebrew, how close it was to modern Hebrew. Biblical Greek was something else.

Re:Microsoft, don't take more crap

[jbolden]

Should it retaliate against governments? You bet.

You gotta be nuts to not try and avoid fights with governments. Governments can:

a) have very long memories
b) be able to fight at a loss
c) escalate beyond a business's ability to respond

Re:THE ONLY GOOD ISRAELIS ARE DEAD ISRAELIS

[Rimbo]

I still don't get it. Is this an envy thing?

Re:I guess when you have suicide bombers . . .

[24-bit Voxel]

"An eye for an eye and the world is blind."

Mahatma Ghandi

Re:I guess when you have suicide bombers . . .

[jedidiah]

Gross body counts are MEANINGLESS.

What really matters is what the intent of those that give the orders and carry them out. The IDF intention is not specifically to increase civilian casualties. However, that is primary strategic goal of the Palestinian factions involved.

War is hell. Don't start what you don't have the stomach to finish.

Re:I guess when you have suicide bombers . . .

[zukester]

>>That would be a reasonable analogy, if it weren't for

1. the fact that you were the aggressor in this conflict, <<

Wrong on number one. Aggressors NEVER give back land taken, as Israel does-until more innocent bodies are ripped apart by bombs looaded with nails, like the Sinai they took from Egypt and gave back. Such things never happen with aggressors..........on to number two.

>>2. continually stealing their land, <<

Yep, as expected, wrong on number two also. Historically speaking, it is Israel's land and there is no such thing as a Palistinian. there is also, BTW no such thing as a Jordanian either, according to your line of reasoning. Jordan was made by the U.N. "Palestinians" are Jordanians, ,and Jordan hated them and still does. Even tried to kill them. Of course, you knew that. "Palestinians" are also murdering liars who cheered 9/11 and cheered todasy when three American were slaughtered by a homicide bomb.

>>3. destroying their homes, <<

Three strikes........glad this is not baseball.

They are merciful enough to only destroy the homes of terrorists and their activities. Of course, the Israeli-hating-terrorist murtderous liars also destroy Jewish restaurants, hotels, cars, public places........ad nauseum. You forgot to mention that, and who has to rebuild them.

You also neglected to mention how Israel pumps more money into "Palestine" than all of her Muslim neighbors do.

>> 4. killing their people. <<

No ya went and done it. Four strikes. Whoa.

Israelis attack military targets and go out of the way (which they should not) to avoid civilian targets. Your friends the lying murderers nearly always target the innocents.

That is why they are called "terrorists".

Yasser Arafat invented the hijacking of planes, remember?

Ignorance is bliss..........you are having a bliss-ard.

Why does Israel even put up with these animals?

Regards,
Bob Zuvich

Bill Gate's official response

[Anonymous Coward]

"Christ killers don't deserve support from our beloved Christian nation".

Re:Bill Gate's official response

[Slime-dogg]

Gates probably hates them because he thinks that they wrote his biography 1970 years in advance.

Re:I guess when you have suicide bombers . . .

[Trelane]

PS Any other good creative euphamisms for the Dark Enemy of the Internet?

Going with three themes:

1. rejected Microsoft software
2. Israel
3. Evil

I propose we name the Dark Enemy of the Internet BeezelBob .

Re:language support

[LPetrazickis]

The way things are going, the X Windowing System will still be used in 2500+ years by millions of users.;)

Re:I guess when you have suicide... MOD PARENT UP!

[Darby]

Kinda ironic: WHAT DO YOU EXPECT WHEN YOU BUILD A MOSQUE ON A SACRED PLACE?

Were I the type to build a mosque, church, temple, etc.,

Then where else would I build the freaking thing?!?

This is not all the reasons,

[bercko21]

Do you realy think that the reason is that microsoft wont support hebrew?
From what I've understood from the israeli goverment publications on this matter, it's because Microsoft products are not very secured, as you all know, and right now there big consideration to implemt open source software in goverment facilities.

Re:I guess when you have suicide bombers . . .

[Darby]

Of course there have been more Palestinian casualties. When they keep BLOWING THEMSELVES UP, what do you expect??

I expect that I'd take out more than one on the way out.
I imagine the body count for suicide bombers is lower than that for suicide bomber victims.

This skews the odds the other way than that which you wanted to go.

Re:I guess when you have suicide bombers . . .

[HBI]

I would say the sins of your grandparents.

Mine still remembered, particularly my grandfather who, with Patch's First Army in France and Germany, liberated Lyon and discovered some of the more odious locations in the Pan-European Reich. What he was willing to say was enough.

It could happen again. Don't think things have gotten any better, really. You're fooling yourself.

Try REDMOND it is a conspiracy!

[ratfynk]

Try typing in REDMOND then put it to wingdings, it says bomb the place if the sun doesn't shine. Near as I can figure.

Re:I guess when you have suicide bombers . . .

[n9hmg]

"An eye for an eye and the world is blind."... is a powerful statement against the petty, moronic "500 years ago, they assassinated our king in revenge for our massacring a border village, now they all must pay" bullshit.
The great soul was smart enough to understand deterrence, punishments, rewards, behavioural psychology, etc.. If India had been occupied by a less-humane and reasonable people, his reasonable, humane approach would have been met with absolute destruction... and, he wouldn't have wasted his people's lives on it.
I still remember Woody Morgan. I met him as he attacked me outside the choir room, at the start of 10th grade. I tried to find out what the conflict was, but was met with silence when we were supervised, and more violence when we weren't. I adjusted my schedule to avoid him, and he followed. I had to fight back three times (and be punished for turning it into a fight, the first two times) before he was finally sent away. It was nice to have a higher authority to take over and administer justice. I feel so badly for the poor people who are forced to perform the violence themselves in order to defend themselves. Can't we just "evict" the evil people from our planet? I don't mean "evil" as it is often used, in the form of "anyone who does not obey the commandments of our leader", but rather as the inverse of that... those who seek to force others to "obey the commandments of our leader". Mightn't we all just leave each other the fuck alone?

Re:Try REDMOND it is a conspiracy!---IT IS!!!

[Stevyn]

"See the sun, it's bad. Blow it up. A flag, with skull and crossbones is bad too."

Here they say that Sun Microsystems is bad and software piracy is bad!

I've done it again!

Doesn't matter much, anyway

[epepke]

Apple's APIs are such that, if you do things the right way, new supported languages will just work.

I know this may come as a shock to some of you, but it's true.

Re:Doesn't matter much, anyway

[Keeper]

However, we're talking about a port of an application written on Win32.

You don't honestly think that MS would completely rewrite an application that took thousands of people to create for the PC for the Mac do you? Especially considering how substantially smaller that market is than the PC market...

I'd be willing to wager that the Mac version consists of a bunch of Win32->MacOS wrapper libraries built into the application... And I'd be willing to bet that the MacOS design vs Win32 design does not make such a task "easy."

Re:Doesn't matter much, anyway

[spectecjr]

Apple's APIs are such that, if you do things the right way, new supported languages will just work.

I know this may come as a shock to some of you, but it's true.

That's complete and utter balderdash.

If you're writing a notepad replacement, maybe.

If you're doing anything more complex - no, I doubt it.

Do all applications suddenly magically support 32-bit unicode because of Apple's API support? No. They don't. So that's at least one language (namely, Chinese) that's not automatically supported.

MS is a god...

[psycole]

"Thou shalt have no other gods before me"

no wonder MS has to go.

Re:I guess when you have suicide bombers . . .

[mirko]

o you want us to go back to the old indefensible positions, which invited our "friendly" arabic neighbors to attack en-masse?
Israel actually stroke preemptively.

Re:who the heck modded this "flamebait?"

[admbws]

This is one of the reasons why I read at -1 (the other reason is because I like it!). In flame wars like this, the most unpopular opinions get modded -1, Flamebait (aka -1, Unpopular), whilst popular (and usually also incredibly illinformed) posts get modded +1, Insightful. Such as this post - from a person unable to even spell Palestine correctly. (We'll forget the fact that this entire thread should really be modded -1, Offtopic!)

You missed the really big story here

[fidros]

This statement came out only after the Israeli government effort to help organise and partly finanace a Sun, IBM & Israeli Open Source activists project to drive Hebrew and Arabic support to Open Office became a success with the results showing in version 1.1 - the first stable penOffice version that supports Bidi languages (Hebrew & Aarabic) in a close to decent way.

Forget what they say about the reasons for this move and look at the facts - this is a premeditated move and a damn smart one.

I just wish other givernment would be as smart.

Re:language support

[SharpFang]

Now I'd like to see an ancient-egyptian keyboard!!!

Stating the Obvious

[Ohreally_factor]

But someone could make KDE support Hindi by either doing it themselves or paying someone to do it themselves. It's Open Source.

In the case of Israel, MS was offered money to add the support. Since it's proprietary SW, there is no way for anyone to do it his or herself. MS turned down the bespoke project. AFAIK, they never said, "Sorry, we'd need more money." They basically said fsck off, we're busy.

Wrong direction, dudes

[shachart]

I'm an Israeli, and as such am more intimate with the details of the annoucement. What the Israeli government drives at here is neither a stab at Microsoft for lower prices, Hebrew for Macs, or anything of that sorts.

What it drives for is open standards. Unfortunately, our economy is not too strong right now, and a when a poor fellow buys a computer, she cannot afford to pay another $129 on Windows, $200 on Word, or $300 on Office, which accumulates to (almost) more money than the hardware itself. She can install Linux, and will be able to use OpenOffice, of course. But what about opening Hebrew word files? No luck there.

As part of a cross-government effort for open standards (see some government sites for documents), they also drive for open standards. If pushing MS to do so by not buying their software anymore will accomplish that, then I salute 'em... :)

As for Linux penetration here in Israel, I can say it is no lesser than the situation in the US or Europe. No Munich yet, but we're getting there...

Re:Wrong direction, dudes

[jo42]

In Israel, fellow == she???

Must be too many Russian immigrants...

Re:Wrong direction, dudes

[shachart]

Do you have a feminine equivalent for "fellow", you vocabulary-nazi, you...?
If so, I would gladly adopt it.

Re:cant be any harder than japanese support.

[bani]

you can make chinese / japanese vertical text in html using tables, but it is a major PITA. i've seen some sites do it though. still other sites use gif/jpeg images for vertical text (some arabic sites do this as well as arabic support in browsers tend to suck ass).

explicit vertical text support is in css though.

microsoft has (i guess nonstandard) support for vertical text.

Re:I guess when you have suicide bombers . . .

[pommiekiwifruit]

Gross body counts are MEANINGLESS.

That depends on your philosophy. Enlightenment philosophy might include Utilitarianism, i.e. that ethics is based on the greater good for the greater number of people; that is based on ends rather than motives.

Previous (e.g. Greek) philosophies might be that your place in the hierarchy is important, and that what a King says gets written down, but what a peasant does is not important. Hollywood is very keen on this philosophy - that whoever is arbitrarily defined as the good guys will win and that the bad guys get killed without trial.

oh well.

[eshefer]

I appriciate your points, but they extreemly nitpicky.

remembering the question I was unswering (regarding the hebrew language as a secular language) - your points are, at best, irrelevant.

Re:I guess when you have suicide bombers . . .

[nordicfrost]

All the college students bitching about the Jews really need to watch out. Western Europeans have a dangerous pogrom tradition that goes back 1000 years. It's a serious case of glass houses.

Well, my heritage chose not to be mean to the jews so I'll have my two cents here as a member of one of the few European peoples that were nice to the jews through history. No glass houses here.

This sentence applies to both the palestinians and the israeli: What the hell are you doing?!? This moronic spiral of violence is instigated by your leaders and fanatics. Not you.

That was the mandatory voice of reason. Now for the solution: Israel; get the hell out of the UN-defined borders and while you're at it, stop executing people with apaches. Palestine, get your police off their fat asses and arrest the key instigators before you collapse in civil war.

Re:I guess when you have suicide bombers . . .

[Zeriel]

I'm sorry, but there's just no way this makes sense. Blaming an individual for the acts of their ancestors is nothing short of lunacy.

Noting that a culture was once twisted into something evil and could possibly be again is moderately acceptable.

But there is a difference between saying "The cultural and political climate in Europe is showing signs of the insular racism that led to Nazism in the past." and saying "Your grandparent was a Nazi, and you could turn into one ANY SECOND."

Re:I guess when you have suicide bombers . . .

[BlameFate]

Not necessarily:

Israeli soliders in tank takes out Hamas terrorist camp - Palestinian casualties guaranteed; Israeli casualties not guaranteed.

Palestinian terrorist takes out bus full of schoolkids - Palestinian casualty guaranteed, Israeli casualties guaranteed.

Therefore, the use of *themselves* to blow up Israelis leads to a factor that increases their casualty numbers which is not present in the Israeli figures.

Re:I guess when you have suicide bombers . . .

[Zeriel]

If I had mod points, I would mod you up. That is the single clearest and most complete summary of Israeli history I've ever read, and every point you made is truth.

I'd friend you, too, if you weren't AC.

Re:I guess when you have suicide bombers . . .

[HBI]

But there is a difference between saying "The cultural and political climate in Europe is showing signs of the insular racism that led to Nazism in the past." and saying "Your grandparent was a Nazi, and you could turn into one ANY SECOND."

OK. I'll accept it's a little unfair. I agree with the previous statement regarding the political climate in Europe incidentally. However, I will say that the unctious sanctimony of the Europeans regarding the affairs of Israel reminds me of the behavior of ex-smokers who decry smoking in their presence.

I'll also admit that I just don't like Europeans in general. I have a bias. I used to like them too. The last 10 years have been very destructive to my opinion of same, and the hypocrisy on the Israel issue is just the tip of the iceberg.

Re:Yeah, Hebrew in Mac Office makes sense.

[Alsee]

force users to use MS Windows over Mac if they want right to left Hebrew

Quiet Pinky, I'm trying to plan for tonight.
Why Brain, what do you want to do tonight?
The same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try to take over the world!
How are we going to do that Brain?
I believe I have conceived my most brilliant plan to date! The first thing we need to do is gain control of the computers of everyone who wants right to left HEBREW!
Eagad, Brain! Brilliant! NARF!!

-

Mod parent up

[haggar]

Excellent post, thank you!

However.

[Kickasso]

Mac is is still strong in Israeli academic world, and absence of Hebrew is a pain.

A reaction to CheckPoint?

[grue23]

I wonder if this is in part a response to the U.S. Government's policy to not use some Israeli software products. In particular, I am aware that they refuse to use Checkpoint for security concerns.

AFAICT

[Kickasso]

with X11 it depends on your XKB setup. You should be able to type nikkud with ctrl+numbers in any application, but I had little success with KDE apps. Will try more...

Apple software to PC

[FuzzyDaddy]

I don't see Apple porting it's software to PC.

Actually, they do. Not just Appleworks, but all the iTunes stuff too.

Re:THE ONLY GOOD ISRAELIS ARE DEAD ISRAELIS

[Rimbo]

"Are we to believe that every civilization, since civilzation began, has been flawed?"

If they weren't flawed, why aren't they still around? You're not actually going to blame a tiny ethnic group on the collapse of all civilizations, are you? Even Chinese civilization has eaten itself multiple times without any help from Judaism.

I think the simpler explanation is that civilizations are flawed, rather than reverting to some kind of third-rate racism.

Re:THE ONLY GOOD ISRAELIS ARE DEAD ISRAELIS

[Rimbo]

Didn't the Christians behave the same way, believing that they alone held the truth?

Haven't the Chinese existed for millenia believing themselves to be the center of civilization?

Why single out the Jews when EVERYONE believes themselves superior?

You're ascribing to Judaism something which is appropriately ascribed to almost all races, religions, etc. You yourself, by vilifying the Jews, have done that very thing which you accuse Jews of doing.

I think what's really going on here is that you're blaming the world for your troubles rather than

1. recognizing that everyone faces those troubles, and
2. doing something proactive to make things better.

That's the one and only thing that's become clear from this discussion.

Re:STOP

[hesiod]

> American trying to make the Arab people look bad

Okay, the poster's an idiot, but he didn't say a damned thing about Arabs, so why did you make that jump? Hell, you don't even know if he's an American.

let them hire an US LINUX company to meet that!

[urbieta]

any US based linux company may be contracted bt the israeli gebernment and tell the US they are still doing good things with their money ;)

Windows had support for Hebrew before Apple

[edxwelch]

"Although Apple has provided operating system-level support for Arabic, Hebrew, Urdu and other right to left languages since the release of Mac OS X 10.2 last year" It doesn't say much about Apple if they only started Hebrew one year ago. I do remember reading about right to left support available in Windows a long time before this. Was it even in Windows NT? I don't remeber.

Re:I guess when you have suicide bombers . . .

[mr100percent]

"Besides the fact that Sharon accepted the road map..."

He accepted it with 16 "reservations". He flat out refused to follow certain parts, saying the Palestinians had to do their end first, and they had been already. So the Palestinians had to put away all their guns, and maybe the Israelis would pull their tanks out if they were lucky.

"Try looking back to the July 2000 Camp David summit between Clinton, Barak, and Arafat. When Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered Arafat 96% of what Palestinias claim they want, including a Palestinian capital in parts of Jerusalem, rather than accept or even come up with a counter-offer, Arafat refused the offer and left the peace talks."

That's a huge load of propaganda. Look at the reality of Barak's 'generous' offer

Oh and by the way, the Palestinian Liberation Orgranization PLO, was founded pre-1967 and their charter calls for the destruction of Israel so don't go thinking this is about borders.

So what, in 2000 Arafat accepted and officially recognized Israel. At the same time as the PLO made those former statements, Prime ministers said the following:

"There is no such things as a Palestinian people... It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn't exist." -- Golda Meir Statement to The Sunday Times, 15 June, 1969.

"In our country there is room only for the jews. We shall say to the Arabs: Get out! If they don't agree, if they resist we shall drive them out by force." --Professor Ben-Zion Dinur, Israel's First Minister of Education, 1954 from History of the Haganah.

I don't believe the textbook thing anymore. It's been propaganda for sooo long. After the Oslo accords, they're supposed to recognize Israel. Show me proof.

I never implied that Hamas or Islamic Jihad were interested in a two-state solution. They're not running Palestine. Part of Hamas wants a two state plan, but the other part rejects it, however.

Give me the rundown on the Oslo accords then. Israel destroyed and shut down the Palestinian police force. Did the accords say something about stopping settlements or right of return?

Re:I guess when you have suicide bombers . . .

[mr100percent]

I'm quite sick of how when a Palestinian gunman kills 3 Israeli soldiers, it's Terror (which it is), but when an Israeli tank kills 6 civillians, it's an Error, an accident, a mistake. Remember when the Palestinian firemen died putting out a fire because Isreali troops opened fire on them? There was even a video of it.

My point is that both sides feuding are practicing terrorism. Neither can claim higher moral ground on this.

Tech Support Call in Ancient Egypt

[duck_prime]

TS: Hierakonopolis Software, may I help you?
User: I'm having problems with In-the-beginning-was-the-Word 5.0
TS: What is your problem?
User: I type for a little while then the screen locks up.
TS: Did you try to hit ctrl-alt-eye-of-horus?
User: Yes, I keep getting the lapis-lazuli screen of passing-to-eternal-reward.
TS: Maybe you're short on RAMses.
User: I'm not a newbian! I think there's a main system chariot interrupt conflict.
TS: Reinstall and pray.

s/better/later/

[randomencounter]

Yeah, it's a nit, but I just had to picket.

Fonts, Fonts, Fonts

[4of12]

Windows metrically equivalent fonts

Cigar time. That is the one key most signifant practical barrier to widespread adoption of Open Office.

If metric equivalent fonts, especially non Latin fonts, were widely available, there would be a tidal wave of OOo adoption.

Re:I guess when you have suicide bombers . . .

[ralian]

the Inhabitants (who call themselves Palestinian) of this land converted to Islam 1400 years ago

Dude, there WAS no Islam 1400 years ago. Check out a Muslim calendar.

Re:no harder than the bidi languages it supports n

[jrumney]

Chinese and Japanese are left to right, and I beleive that the Mac version of MS Word does not support Arabic either.