I figure that since I initially posted about TUNE in And if your language starts playing a different TUNE that actually mentioned a meeting that would be happening in Tamil Nadu over the weekend that I should post some follow-up information on what happened....

This Yahoo group has a thread or two with lots of summary info, excerpted below.

Due to a last minute attempt to reach out the tamil community on the proposed unciode encoding a ONE day conference was organised by the Tamil Virtual University.

Here a summary
1. The name TUNE has been changed to TANE - TAmil New Encoding.
2. To make revision on the proposed code chart of TANE- Symbols and numerals
3. To obtain consensus from countries outside Tamil Nadu.
4. To seek support from software developers such as Microsoft and vendors.
5. To chart a migration time table from current encoding to TANE
6. TANE to be made available FREE for the community for easy access in and outside tamil nadu. ( the last tools offered free by GOI was hosted by a server from NOIDA and they were cumbersome) - Prof Balakrishnan comment.

There were few members of TU present at the event. Thiru Ramki, Naa Elangovan, Badri, Anbarasan, Logasundaram ( he is not in this list) members of KTS - Anto Peter and Ananth - KTS President and Sec respectively.

Here is an extract of email send by Elangovan of cadgraf to the Infitt.

To-days meeting was chaired by Dr.V.C.K and inaugurated by Mr.Dayanidhi Maran, Minister for IT and Communications. The Technical Committee meeting was headed by Dr.M.Anandhakrishnan. It was well attended by Microsoft, IBM, CDAC, IISC, IIT, Anna University, KTS, etc; The minister requested for a unanimous decision of all concerned for the most efficient and most appropriate 16bit encoding for Tamil as early as possible as the E-Governance project of the Indian Govt. may have to be rolled out from the beginning of 2007. There was good technical participation from all sectors. At the end, Dr.M.A. announced that there is a near consensus to proceed with the 16 bit encoding for Tamil which need not be the exact replica of TUNE. This will be called 16 bit Tamil encoding. However this will be publicised in all web sites to seek wider consultations world-wide and from all vendors for the next 3 months. The final encoding will be based on the feed backs and suggestions received. The official version of the recommendation will be submitted by Prof.MA to the TN Govt. for their further action

I am happy to see that now there is More time and scope for all technocrats all over the the world to participate and offer their suggestions.

Regards
Elango

So, the name of the new encoding is now TANE rather than TUNE (isn't Tane the Māori god of birds? I may be misremembering something here!).

I heard from several sources there that "Unicode and MichKa were a Western monopoly," which is amusing to me given the fact that Unicode is 100% locked in with ISO 10646 and all - I wonder how the NBs in Japan and other countries would react to being called a Western monopoly.

It was also interesting to be named so directly and prominently in a meeting where a bunch of people don't like me very much. Thankfully several others pointed out the good work that INFITT WG02 has been doing that I have been helping with.

That's the secret -- if you are going to make enemies, be sure that you also make friends!

When it came down to an actual vote, only two voted to keep the current encoding; 43 voted to form a new 16-bit encoding.

And there are two interesting strategic points I'll put up without commenting on as I think they speak for themselves (I have heard them both many times before over the last few years):

  1. That Chinese could get 27000 characters when there govt. put there foot down; similarly Japanese got 500+ for a character encoding system. Similarly if GOI and TN Govt. put there pressure we will get this. If they don't give, we will use PUA and over few years it will become defacto standard.
  2. There is huge cost savings in E-Governance. TN Govt has to spend Rs.3000 crores for there E-Governance initiative where 1GB is needed for each citizen. Adopting TUNE over Unicode will result in saving of Rs.1500 Crores because of Storage savings alone.

Well, I suppose we are all living in interesting times. It will be interesting to see what happens next.

 

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