[9:24] Marc: Agenda items:
[9:24] Marc: 1. Planning of keyboard meeting on June 12th
[9:24] Marc: 2. Progress of http://wiki.cdfg.org/CombinedICTProposal2007
[9:25] Marc: including comments received
[9:30] Havard: Good morning, Marc.
[9:32] Marc: Good morning, Havard
[9:33] Havard: Before we start: I will be away the next two Tuesdays. We are going to the US on Friday to stay for a bit over a week. Also: It is very unlikely that I will be able to go to Brussels on 12 June. Sorry.
[9:34] Marc: A pity. Do you have to go the US for private reasons?
[9:35] Havard: Carol's mother's situation is getting worse, and we want to spend time there while she has her cognitive capacities.
[9:36] Marc: that is sad news
[9:38] Marc: should we switch to Skype until somebody else turns up?
[9:38] Havard: ok
[9:39] Havard: I am at home with two computers running. I think I will use Skype on the other one. A second.
[9:44] kutz: Hello, I'm sorry I'm late.
[9:45] kutz: I promised to tell you something about Basque. I prepared a little thing. I'll paste it here.
[9:45] Marc: Hello Kutz!
[9:45] Marc: Great
[9:45] kutz: There are around 600.000 Basque speakers in Europe. This means tha Basque is still an endangered language. There are lots of initiatives to keep it alive, most of them coming from the Basque Government. As far as the work in computational linguistics there are a few agents: IXA taldea, a group in the computer science department at the University of the Basque Country. Elhuyra Fundazioa, a non-profit organization that works mostly on science in Basque, translation, lexica, etc. Eleka, a company created by the two above mentioned institutions. This company works mostly on linguistic engineering applications for Basque and is now moving into multilingual applications. These three institutions are part of the Opentrad consortium and the have a version of a Machine Translation system for Spanish-to-Basque. Eusko Ikaskuntza, which is another non-profit group mostly supported by public institutions and dedicated to the archiving and distribution (Eusko Media) of Basque knowledge). There are other few things, but Ill stop the listing here. The center where I work VICOMTech is an applied research center dedicated mostly to visual technologies. Founded by Fraunhofer and EiTB (the Basque television), it is moving now towards the integration of Natural Language Parsing technologies into their work. As far as the European Community, I dont know much about whats happening with minority language. I know there is the chart for minority languages and Im pretty sure that France, for example, is not abiding by it. Im sure there is a lot of work to be done in the European front and I would love to get into it, but Im not too sure where to start.
[9:46] kutz: Correction: Elhuyra Fundazioa --> Elhuyar Fundazioa
[9:47] Marc: Thanks for this presentation!
[9:48] Marc: It is very interesting indeed
[9:49] Havard: Are there any particular items that you feel a need to discuss in the context of the CDFG? Character set issue? Keyboard issue? Lack of standard support? Then we could have that on our agenda. Of course general information exchange is of great interest also!
[9:50] Marc: As to the Charter for Minority Languages, it is a very important charter from the Council of Europe, building on the principle of self-declaration
[9:51] kutz: AS far as the standards that you mention, no, I don't have anything.
[9:51] kutz: I didn't know this group took care of those issues only.
[9:52] Marc: in fact we don't
[9:52] kutz: Meaning?
[9:52] Marc: these are purely examples
[9:52] Marc: for the kind of standards activities that we can look at
[9:52] Havard: Please don't misunderstand: I am not at all trying to "bite you off". It is very good and nice that you want to join our general discussions. I just wanted to know if there are things in particular.
[9:53] Marc: others include impact in eBusiness, eGovernment, in specific registries of language / cultural needs etc
[9:53] kutz: No, no. I'm not taking it badly. It's just that I'm still trying to figure out what this group is exactly trying to do and if I can contribute or do something.
[9:54] kutz: There is a lot of work to do in and for Basque in the fronts you mention. For sure
[9:55] Havard: Good then; I do hope that you can participate on a regular basis. Your presentation above will be stored in the chat log for reference. Shall we try to attack the real agenda at hand?
[9:55] kutz: Ok. Sorry!
[9:55] Marc: as a complete aside, are you also working on issues of lexical semantics?
[9:55] kutz: No
[9:57] Marc: as to teh keyboard meeting:
[9:58] Marc: start time: 10:00
[9:58] Marc: end time: 17:00
[9:58] Marc: starting with two presentations of 30 minutes each, one from Erkki (?), one from Karl Ivar / Sweden (?)
[9:59] Marc: lunch around 12:30
[10:00] Havard: Should there be a "general presentation" from someone "outside" as well? Microsoft? Hardware person?
[10:00] Marc: yes, that'd be a good ideal. Suggestions?
[10:01] Marc: somebody from Cherry?
[10:02] Marc: via DIN?
[10:02] Havard: It should be someone geographically close, probably. I am sorry that I don't have any names. May be some of the contacts that Erkki or Karl Ivar have used?
[10:03] Havard: (Although we don't want to make it a Erkki/KarlIvar war
[10:04] Havard: What kind of people do we want to have attending?
[10:05] Marc: implementors and keyboard manufacturers
[10:05] Marc: amongst others
[10:05] Havard: People from the "multilingual requirements" side as well, probably?
[10:06] Marc: we could ask DIN for a "neutral" voice via Karin Winkelmann
[10:07] Havard: That would be good.
[10:08] Havard: And then there is the issue of the "wisdom" of having several different keyboards available. Do we in fact want to promote the situation where all sorts of keyboards are installed on computers, and people can pick and choose as they go?
[10:08] Marc: that would be one question to discuss there
[10:09] Marc: maybe we should write up some topics for discussion at the meeting alongside the minimalist formal agenda
[10:09] Marc: Incidentally, could you draft the formal agenda and check with Frau Winkelmann or should I do so?
[10:09] Marc: possible topics:
[10:10] Marc: * generation of pre-composed or decomposed characters?
[10:10] Marc: * keyboard layout?
[10:10] Marc: * choice of keyboard layouts to end users?
[10:10] Marc: * platform support?
[10:10] Havard: There is also the issue of the "locale", where language, punctuation, keyboard, etc etc are all messed up in one set of settings.
[10:11] Havard: I can of course write up the formal agenda and invitation.
[10:12] Havard: But can I use you (Marc) as contact, since I may not be available all the time?
[10:13] Marc: no problem
[10:13] Marc: in any case we need to get the commitments from the three prospective speakers ASAP, actually this week
[10:14] Havard: OK, so I will draft an agenda/invitation today, send it around for comment, and hope to have actual names in most of the slots in the course of the week.
[10:14] Marc: great. then the invitation would be out pretty much exactly one month in advance --- which should be OK
[10:14] Havard: I will send to Erkki and Karl Ivar (and Marc). Anyone else before it is final?
[10:15] Marc: in some form or shape to DIN
[10:15] Marc: if NI-ERG is to suggest a third "neutral" speaker
[10:16] Havard: Just give me an email address, and I shall send. Karin Winkelmann (she is at DIN, right?)?
[10:17] Marc: done
[10:17] kutz: I'm going to check out. Talk to you next tuesday. Bye
[10:17] Marc: great and thanks for participating!
[10:18] Havard: Yes; and please become a "regular"; it gets easier to follow then.
[10:31] Marc: Bye!