Software Issues in Sri Lanka Part 8


Posted on June 18, 2007  /  223 Comments

Please continue discussion from Software Issues in Sri Lanka Part 7, on this thread. This thread is devoted to diverse software issues discussed in the context of Sri Lanka. Please stick to the topic and keep the discussion civil.

Previous discussion is archived in the following threads:

223 Comments


  1. It is high time the discussion is taken to a broader level. Standardisation of Sinhala is not the only software issue we face.

    There are so many other issues, such as the challenges in marketing products and services, high HR costs (higher even compared to India), strict labour regulations (specially when it comes to call centres), lack of infrastructure facilities and last but not the least, how the current security and economic issues affects the software industry.

    One key question why I like to pose is why only extremely few software companies ever succeeded in Sri Lanka? How many success we have? Aren’t the failures 20-30 times more than the successes? Why such a high rate of failures? Any idea?

  2. Sandhya your are correct
    We got to think in two tires

    First the International – English
    Second Local – Sinhala Tamil and English (tri lingual)

    I will talk on the second issue which is more acute.

    In India the English education was not interrupted by the Politicians. Our country not only English the Sinhala education too deteriorating. We got to correct the education path.

    To develop software — students should be guided in free thinking and user friendly ways not a with mouth fed system “YES SIR” . They should be able to use a computer freely in the mother tongue

    To pave way to use a computer in Sinhala and Tamil in the same platform we have to correct some errors. Unless the Errors are corrected soon there will be no IT in local language

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  3. Dimuthu Ratnadiwakara

    Yes Sandhya there are lots of failures. I think the main reason for the failures is failing to realize that technology is always changing or the high level of resistance to change in adapting the new technologies. Due to this, after sometime the companies loose their competitive edge and hence find it difficult to survive.

    Also, another issue that I think important is that most of the software companies in Sri Lanka are one product companies. This makes the companies highly vulnerable to the changes in the external environment.

  4. Mr. Donald Gaminitilake,

    I do not think Sinhala/Tamil in computers is that important.

    We live in a globalised society where Sinhala/Tamil has no value at all. Even anyone who does not know any of these two languages can live in Colombo and do a decent job. However for anyone who does not know English, the job opportunities are extremely limited.

    So it does not matter whether Sinhala or Tamil not being there in computers. Who cares?

    The challenge is to teach good English to children so that they have better opportunities in the international job market. Only government jobs require Sinhala/Tamil knowledge and who is worried anymore about them?

    Even in India people use local languages only to converse, that too rarely. All written work is by default done in English.

    Why do you so much worry about Sinhala/Tamil? Don’t you have any other work to do?

    Thusitha Ranavana

  5. Dear Thusita

    Where are you living? In sri Lanka or else where?

    Please read the constitution of Lanka. We have to use all three languages.

    Anyway we need Sinhala and Tamil to work and live in Sri Lanka. All govt work is done in these two languages.

    Unless you come over and change the constitution of Lanka.

    In India they have to use HINDI plus the local language.

    The Indian currency is printed using 17 different languages

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  6. Dear All

    I don’t know what Donald is talking about! What he wont is to have unique code for each and every Sighala combination like ka, ku, kai. I have calculated all the combination. it takes 3578 character space. As we know we are using 16 bit representation (65536) for Unicode. So ASCII will not allow us to use such character space to put our language and also as entity in the computer world we do not need use such space. Some people (company and institute) have taken the responsibility for this task and also they have developed and standardize the sinhala Unicode. Still sinhala unicode is developed. There are some bugs to be solved. So they will do their task. I suggest talking about the software industry more this issue. Donald will never give up. Let him to discuss him self this matter!!!!!!!!!!!!

  7. When Latin script is over 600 ad there are other languages which has gone over 10,000 characters why worry about 3578

    Do you know that your 3578 is hidden inside a software called “Shaper”?

    Unicode SInhala cannot stand alone with out this “shaper”.

    First why not register the whole set in the SLSI.

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  8. Dear folks

    Donald never understands the issue. We do need to reply him furthermore. Let’s discuss the software issue & SWOT of the Software industry.

    Sinhalaya

  9. Ane deyyane! Me mokada venne?

    Is ICTA staff so dumb that they do not know the meaning of the term ‘telemedicine’? (They think opening a tele-centre at a hospital = telemedicine)

    See this?

    Telemedicine at the Kurunegala Teaching Hospital

    19th June 2007

    The Information and Communication Technology Agency’s Nenasala Project breaks new ground when it opens its first Hospital Nenasala at the Kurunegala Teaching Hospital on the 11 th of June 2007 under the patronage of the Hon. Minister of Health Promotion and Disease Prevention and Kurunegala District MP. Mr. Jayarathna Herath. This new venture has been made possible through the partnership of the ICTA with the Human Genetics Unit of the Medical Faculty University of Colombo and the Kurunegala Teaching Hospital.

    (contd..)

    Here is a gem of a sentence I have found in the news item.

    FOR THE POOR, A HEALTHY BODY IS AN IMPORTANT ASSET AND ILL HEALTH CAN HAVE SERIOUS IMPLICATIONS TO THEIR CAPACITY FOR EARNING A LIVING.

    What an intelligent observation! We never knew till you educated us!

    Whatever said and done about late Prof. Sam, I do not think he would ever have passed a news item like this for press. His absence is certainly felt.

  10. Donald understand the issue not Sinhalaya nor the Thusitha who had come from a different planet.

    Sihhalaya cannot answer why Latin script ( I wonder Sinhalaya knows the term “”LATIN”) have registered so many individual characters. There is an absolute need to register the individual characters with correct code points to develop software in IT industry.

    ICTA should open another Nanasala at the IDH hospital angoda for the patients.

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  11. Donald,

    I don´t know if you can remember, but I tried to explain you how sinhala unicode works some years ago in the lklug mailing list. However each time that I made a counter argument, what you gave was your standard crap answer: ¨There is an absolute need to register the individual characters with correct code points to develop software in IT industry. I am going to save my sinhala¨. I have seen you playing the same kind of trick in every blog that you comment on.

    Ok, now for once more, I´m going to do it:

    Take the Unicode character set as it is… lets name them *basic* characters

    ** (please ignore the yansaya, repaya and other joining letters for now… we´ll talk about them later. I just dont want to talk about them in here right now so that you won´t mess things up)

    1) *If* there is a *standard* on how basic characters should be joined to make other (name them *composed*) characters, as in ka u = ku, etc, don´t you think all the characters except for the ones with yansaya rephaya or other joins can be created? If not why? and give me an example.

    2) Don´t you think that *if* someone crated a font and *if* someone wrote a program to display those characters on the screen and *if* someone wrote a shaper to generate the composed character shapes out of the combinations of basic characters and *if* someone wrote a keyboard driver, for a given system, will this system be able to handle sinhala characters? (again all characters except for the once with yansaya rephaya and etc.) again if not why do you think so?

    Now, don´t give me that ¨I am going to save my sinhala and SLSI is incorrect¨ crap again. When you first said that SLSI 1134 is incorrect, I know that you think it is, so please do not repeat the same thing over and over. Give me answers to exact questions that I asked. Please keep a technical argument only on the necessary details, when you say all other silly stuff, people get so annoyed that they tend to ignore your posts, I´m sure that´s what Harsha did…

  12. Dear Dumindu,

    This question is not directed at me, but this is my unsolicited answer.

    No, as long as yansaya, repaya, rakaransaya and joint letters are not concerned, Unicode is perfect. No problem at all.

  13. Hi Techno,

    I actually handcrafted this problem for Donald. But it´s great to learn that at least for now, you and I are on common grounds :)

    Ok, so for you, who understands that Unicode is a doable model, The problem is with the choice of the way yansaya, rephaya and other joint letter are represented right?

    First, don´t consider the linguistic or any other concerns like zwj is not in sinhala rage. Those are more about perfection. But what I want you to *see* is that Unicode can represent all the letters with yansaya and other coplex ones too… this is how:

    Add the *zwj* and the to the ¨basic characters¨ (refer to the prev. post for definition — it´s my own definition, just to explain it) Remember that the ¨hal kereema¨ is already in the ¨basic characters¨.

    Think of any letter that involve yansaya as yet another ¨composed character¨. For example dya — da hal kereema zwj ya, and kyo — ka hal zwj ya o and so on… these ¨basic character¨ sequences contains all the characters with yansaya. These sequences are no different from the simple sequence for ku — ka u as far as the implementation is concerned. They both can be handled fairly in the same way.

    In a similar manner. rakarashaya is created as in: kra — ka hal zwj ra

    rephaya as in: va(rga) — ra hal zwj ga

    and other conjunctions such as: ksha — ka hal zwj sha

    and the pali like *touching* letters as in: kka — ka zwj hal ka (this usage is not implemented in most of the systems as I experienced, but that´s just a improvement needed in implementations, not a problem with the standard)

    So the next question to you is:

    3) do you see that all the possible letters can be formed using unicode? If not give me an example.

    4) if the answer to (3) is yes, then isn´t your problem about an improvement?

    Well I don´t say that it is the perfect representation. But as it is now, it *works* correctly. There may be improvements that need to be done… If anything is to be changed, then if we two agree that it should happen doesn´t mean that it should happen. There is a body which has the authority (SLSI) for it, they should decide.

    That improvements part is totally off my interest. The current standard works for me, so I am not interested in changing it. If you think that it should then you have to have a strong argument as for why a change is needed? And I think there is some procedure which should be followed in order to request for a improvement. That I no idea about.

    Don´t curse me if I don´t reply to you if you say yes to (3) because I don´t think I have anything more to say :)

    Regards.

  14. correction:

    para 3 first line should be: Add the *zwj* to the ¨basic characters¨.

  15. I do not know why you guys have to be so dumb that you never understand what a standard is.

    The question is NOT forming letters, but having a proper STANDARD. So please do not repeat this rubbish once again.

    You say add ZWJ to the basic characters. (Def: Take the Unicode character set as it is… lets name them *basic* characters)

    But ZWJ is NOT a basic character. So are yansaya, repaya etc. These are NOT DEFINED in Unicode.

    So what prevent us from adding these to the Unicode chart and complete it? (There are 49 empty spaces and we need only 6 out of it. What is the big deal?)

    It is lot more easier and logical than saying these baila.

    But nobody wants to touch the Sinhala Unicode chart even for a minor modification because they are dead scared. They might be thinking the ghost of someone will come into their dreams and forever haunt them if they touch the Unicode chart.

    If Bangladeshis can modify their chart to include few new characters, why cannot we include ZWJ, and few more characters and end this darned debate?

  16. Answer one question

    why do we have one single code point for umlaut U?
    and why Latin script have registered over 600 individual characters
    They too can hide most of the characters inside a “SHAPER” have few characters registered in the unicode or ISO

    Same with Chinese Korean – their input method is using basic strokes but the end result is a single code point registered in their own Local Standard and unicode and ISO.

    Even in Sinhala the input method of sequence of code points is correct but the end result has to be a code point registered in the SLSI.

    You all mix up with the input method and the end result of the sequence.

    I always talk the end result Take “KU” —- This character is hidden inside the “shaper”with a hidden code point. When shaper does not work we see “rubbish”. with a different font set we read as “garbage”.

    All this happen because it will not be represented in the SLSI. We got to register all characters in the SLSI.

    This is the simple reason that SINHALA is not compatible across all platforms like the Latin Script.

    Why cant we meet all of you and give a presentation or I have asked Harsha to give me airtime to give a presentation for the general public.

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  17. “I do not know why you guys have to be so dumb that you never understand what a standard is.”

    well, I’m totally new to computer industry… just graduated… may be you are right. :)

    “The question is NOT forming letters, but having a proper STANDARD. So please do not repeat this rubbish once again.”

    Hey, I don’t have anything against you. Just trying to explain what I see is right.

    “But ZWJ is NOT a basic character. So are yansaya, repaya etc. These are *NOT DEFINED* in Unicode.”

    Wrong on zwj!
    zwj is defined in Unicode. Check the 0x200D codepoint. It is not only used by sinhala, but also by many other languages. However yansaya and repaya are not defined in Unicode. They are rather formed using other sinhala characters as I’ve mentioned above.

    “The question is NOT forming letters, but having a proper STANDARD. So please do not repeat this rubbish once again.”

    I told you this is not my problem. I don’t have any such requirement. Current standard works fine for me. If you think it is needed do a proper request.

    “It is lot more easier and logical than saying these baila.”

    I thought you were better than Donald, who says nothing but baila. Now it seems you are no good either. I tried to get the points that we agree with and the points that we do not. But This the crap you give me. Thanks!

    “”If Bangladeshis can modify their chart to include few new characters, why cannot we include ZWJ, and few more characters and end this darned debate?

    Of course the SLSI can. but it should be worthy if a change need be done to a standard. I’m not saying that your suggestion is not worthy. That has to be decided by SLSI.

  18. On a second note about the standards Techno, formation of yansaya, rephaya and other touching characters are defined in SLSI1134. Go get a copy and read. :)

  19. Donald,

    I told you not to give me crap.

    I clearly asked you to reply to two technical points and you failed to do that. That is just because you have this pre-conceived notion that Unicode is inherently wrong and that your Huge Code Chart is the only option.

    Well your Huge Code Chart is a option I do agree, but there are smarter people out there who came up with a better idea. So sad you don’t make a little effort to understand what it is.

    I don’t want to explain anything to you anymore when you reply to me with your standard crap replies.

    All the best with your HCC. Hope you will save our Sinhala ;)

  20. The problem of Unicode advocators is they fail to understand what the difference between a ‘standard’ and a fonts set. They create a fonts set and think it is a standard.

    Dumindu, you on the other hand does not know even the difference between Unicode and SLS 1134. The very reason why we wanted a universally accepted standard was to get rid of these local standards. If you want to use SLS 1134, why Unicode at all?

    You say: zwj is defined in Unicode. Check the 0×200D codepoint.

    Wrong my dear friend, the Sinhala Unicode chart is only from 0DB0 to 0DFF.

    Why do you want to take code points from other charts when you can so easily include zwj in Unicode chart?

    Two old fools have done a mistake once and their golayaas continue to talk baila without doing anything to correct it.

    Talk about Mahadenamutta and his golayas.

  21. I just found something interesting in my old computer.

    In 2002, before ICTA, before e-Sri Lanka and everything else, there was a meeting of almost all interested parties in Sri Lanka’s IT. People were given an opportunity to view their opinions and this is what a certain gentleman (can’t remember his name. Senaratne?)has come up with. It is regarding the allocation of dot lk domain names.

    (Extracts from the transcription. If I remember correctly, it was Mr. Eran Wickramaratne who chaired the session.)

    [quote]

    Basically I had a problem, I have lost ten million dollars on this in Sri Lanka. I wanted to launch Asia’s largest eCommerce network called Commerce On Line and I faced a few problems, but before I come to that I’d like to mention a few other things.

    I wanted a domain registered called hunt.lk and spider.lk which was supposed to be a search engine which was supposed to consist of -Yahoo, Google, Infoseek, – but unfortunately I was told because it’s a generic name that it cannot be given and my question was Are you telling me that the domain spider.lk would be given to a spider and this guy goes ‘Yes’.

    So I said Oh, that’s great, then I go for Hunt.lk and they say it’s supposed to go for Wildlife Conservation and I thought, look, am I on opposite direction here, because hunt.lk was supposed to be to hunt for the right search but this guy wants to give it to the Wildlife Conservation which is the exact opposite of conserving.

    So these are some of the issues that came up and then when I wanted Co.lk which was Commerce on line, they refused and I have lost ten million due to that because my name servers worldwide is registered with Col and I’m big, I’m from London and I’m trying to set up a big project here in Sri Lanka but unfortunately for the last 3 years it has been dragging on and I feel if we are to go into eGovernance which I think we need it right now for example if you look at the Internet Exchange which has been implemented last year. I was harping about it 4 years ago which we needed it, but nobody listened to it.

    But unfortunately after 4 years, or fortunately we have got it today. Today there are websites, there is no traffic, very good websites but they don’t know how to promote it. The reason being nobody is aware of how it should be promoted or maybe they are but they’re not implementing it. That’s one other area. So an organisation such as CINTEC and sub divisions within CINTEC needs a certain reform and I believe it’s in good hands today with Mr Eran Wickramaratne and I hope that it should and it will move ahead with that but I think this is a priority area we should look into before we move into eGovernance because it’s very large, it’s a very vast area, you go in there you have no time for mistakes, you’re going to lose, you’re going to go in for lots of trouble.

    So I feel this is something that you should seriously look at because today the IT industry has dropped severely because of this. I worked with Microsoft very closely, I was in the US. I saw that rapid development. I worked in Malaysia with Mahathir Mohamed I saw the rapid development but unfortunately in Sri Lanka whereas when Hon Ranil Wickrenasinghe introduced IT way back donkeys years ago we should have been right on the top in Asia, but unfortunately it is not. The reason is the slow development and you have lot of old hats in these departments, this is one of the reasons and I don’t know whether they need a dose of Viagra to get the boost because I find it very difficult …. excuse my language..

    Chair: I think we missed the point though, your point is CINTEC should be more..

    Not necessarily CINTEC, let me put it this way. For example there is an Internet Committee which decides on a domain registration but when one particular person decides that this domain cannot be given, the rest of the committee ..(not audible)..so where does the Committee come in, that’s my question? Do we have guys who just stick by the law and work on it or are we just going to have yes bosses around?

    Chair: I think we heard you on that stick to re-evaluate your guidance on how you approve domain names. Your second point is?

    Well, basically if you’d gone through a 3 year frustration with a ten million loss after a BOI company being implemented, I’m sure you would feel because I have gone through the mill and I just didn’t want to be involved in IT in Sri Lanka. I can say I was one of the pioneers of IT in Sri Lanka since early 90s or late 80s. I worked with EastWest, I worked with some of the biggest boys here, I’m sorry I have an American accent, an American way of saying it so it might not be right

    What I’m saying is we need to go into eGovernance very badly but the reason being before you move into eGovernance it’s a very vast area we shouldn’t let room for mistakes such as this and we need some sort of a reform within the Council before we move into that, that is something that I feel. Thank you

    [unquote]

    Have things change much during the last 5 years?

  22. First ZWJ
    These are defined in unicode as “”U 2000 – U 206F General Punctuation””

    You can download this chart from unicode and see it yourself.

    My issue is not ZWJ or ZWNJ etc etc

    Issue is the SLSI 1134 standard.

    Only few characters are registered in the SLSI.

    AA.Admit this fact

    Rest of the characters need to represent Sinhala us hidden inside a shaper

    BB.Admit this fact

    In some OS “shaper” works some does not work
    When it does not work we see “Rubbish” Sinhala

    CC Admit this fact

    Even on the same OS if we use a different font set we see “Garbage”

    DD.Admit this fact

    This show us that Sinhala unicode and SLSI1134 cannot stand alone without additional back up software (name as Shaper)

    EE Admit this fact

    Shaper contains the additional characters which are not registered with the SLSI1134

    FF Admit this fact

    Therefore SLSI 1134 or Sinhala unicode is incomplete registration.

    We have to correct the SLSI.

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  23. Let me present this analogy.

    A normal human being (man) has two arms.

    However, even if a man loses both his arms he still remains to be a man.

    Current Unicode chart is like that armless man. It does not have few characters but by definition it still remains to be Sinhala Unicode chart. It works okay, but not fully functional.

    Still, unlike that poor man, we can still correct this easily and make the chart complete.

    Is suggesting adding few characters to current chart a crime?

    Why the advocators of current Unicode gets so upset when I propose to add just SIX characters?

    This is something that can be done by one e-mail. Of course I cannot write that e-mail. If the write person writes it, that will be done. Everything will be okay.

    Why not do it and end this debate?

  24. One character or 1000 characters the process is First we have to correct the National SLSI
    Then report this correction to unicode and ISO

    This has to be done by ICTA to SLSI

    Not you or me

    That is why I request ICTA to come for a discussion

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  25. It seems like Dumindu Pallewela is honestly trying to get the things straight.
    But he is not in right terms when he says:

    “First, don’t consider the linguistic or any other concerns like zwj is not in sinhala rage. Those are more about perfection. But what I want you to *see* is that Unicode can represent all the letters with yansaya and other complex ones too… this is how:

    Add the *zwj* and the to the ¨basic characters¨ (refer to the prev. post for definition — it´s my own definition, just to explain it) Remember that the ¨hal kereema¨ is already in the ¨basic characters¨. ”
    Duminda,
    zwj (U 200C ZERO WIDTH NON-JOINER [ZWNJ] and U 200D ZERO WIDTH JOINER [ZWJ]) are a kind of “work a round’s” introduced to Unicode specifically for stylistic and formatting purpose.
    So it is not an intelligent design/standard decision to make the basic language features (if you consider yansaya and rakaransaya as basic language features that is) to depend on this kind of supporting workarounds.

    And to the dismay of our super intelligent IT fathers, then came the bugzilla:

    1.There are issues when you use zwj in certain ways (identifiers). Industry did not like cross script characters identifiers. Networks can restrict the use of zwj.

    2.And then the performance consideration. It is obvious that when you 3 words where you can use 2 words it becomes inefficient. There are certain things in engineering that you have to be simple as much as possible to be smart.

    (See http://www.unicode.org/review/pr-96.html for further information)

    Ok these issues will be fixed some day, yes that is some day in future! But that is not the question here.
    Is the current standard – the one took 20 some years of research and development to come up with, the one on which government spend 600 million to develop (I don’t know see LankaeNews for the figure) – a credible optimal smart solution?

    After all “works some how” is not good enough for engineering standards. Yes it may be ok for some software implementation.

  26. Sorry I forgot to mention. I am not saying that current unicode is a total crap and go back re invent the wheel or follow Donald’s solution or some thing. What I am saying is it has bugs/issues and has to be fixed, not just nice to have enhancements as Dumindu says.
    It is some times ok to have bugs in a software that we can live with, but it is not ok to have even a slight bug in a fundamental standard (on which whole singhala communities future data/information systems are going to build upon- if I may exaggerate a little).
    We are practically experiencing these issues.
    For example I am writing a Blog in singhala.
    http://namalamarasinghe.wordpress.com/
    I am getting mails from people saying I cant see this and I cant see that. (Yes they have XP sp2 and fonts.lk installed)

    =========================================================
    Ha ha! This is a cheesy publicity stunt for my blog guys!!

  27. I think Namal Amarasinghe is spot on.

    There is a minor bug in current Unicode chart, which can be so easily corrected.

    We do not need Donald’s 1660 Character allocation tables. We do not want to bin any of the work so far done. It wont affect any commercial developments done so far.

    It is as simple as adding six more charters to the present chart. There are already 49 empty spaces. What is the problem of getting 6 out of this 49?

    This can be done by one e-mail. If the Sri Lanka authorities send that e-mail Unicode consortium will do it immediately.

    I volunteer even to write that e-mail (for free!) and also promise to mange any follow up correspondence if you are ready to take that decision.

    I do not want any patents, and royalties whatever.

    Unicode advocators, what do you select?

    (a) Please do this minor correction and silence Donald forever.

    (b) Go on debating with Donald for another 10-20 or even 30 years (till he joins Prof.)

    Choice is yours.

  28. But there is one ghost roaming around the Sri Lankas ICT blocks!!
    Saying that:

    Dot LK kudu keewee api ekataaaa
    “Samsung”lagen pen beewee api ekataaaa
    atha thibbothin Unicoodeta maa nethi witaka
    Mirikanawa thoge botuwath walenuth negita

    ඩොට් lk කුඩු කෑවේ අපි එකට
    “Samsung”ලගෙන් පැන් බීවේ අපි එකට
    අත තබ්බොතින් යුනිකෝඩෙට මා නැතිවිටක
    මිරිකනවා තොගෙ බොටුව මා වලෙනුත් නැගිට

    Booohooo!!!!!!!!!!!

  29. At last Namal writes the truth.
    Techno writes the truth but he is worried on the money spent so far on the wrong track

    Other than apple where there was data was forward compatible most of the other software was rewritten.

    No one can change the SLSI by sending an Email or letter.

    There is a process to do. They will have to open the SLSI 1134 objection report and accept those facts then move forward.

    Who filed the objections — It was DONALD and Sri Lanka association of printers where Donald is a member.

    ICTA will have to accept the Error and correct it as soon as possible under my guidance

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  30. Namal,

    [quote]

    I am not saying that current unicode is a total crap and go back re invent the wheel or follow Donald’s solution or some thing. What I am saying is it has bugs/issues and has to be fixed, not just nice to have enhancements as Dumindu says.

    [unquote]

    I 100% agree with you. This is exactly my stance. Current Unicode is definitely a workable solution but needs improvement.

    Donald,

    For god’s sake man, please leave me alone. I am not worried about SLS 1134 or whatever. It is a local standard. The sole purpose of having a Unicode standard is to get rid of local standard.

    If I can get Unicode chart corrected (modified is a better word) I am not worried about SLS 1134.

    Donald, please do not make me a part of your stupid campaign. Thanks.

  31. Looks like someone can make some money on developing a mechanism to type in Sinhala:

    http://www.indi.ca/2007/06/sinhala-phonetic-typing-tender/

  32. Techno why don’t you understand that Unicode Sinhala equals to the ISO 10646 equal to the SLSI 1134.

    If you want to change the ISO or Unicode you got to solve it within Sri Lanka at SLSI

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  33. Dr Samarajiva
    thanks for the site unless the SLSI 1134 is corrected with all he sinhala characters no IME will work. no e-dics no compatible Sinhala across all platforms. Nothing

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  34. Donald,

    First get your facts right.

    Unicode standard is one thing SLS 1134 is something else.

    The singular reason to have Unicode standard (Unicode = Universal-code) is to get rid of all local standards.

    The singular reason why our people have SLS 1134 was because Unicode standard was incomplete. It never even mentioned about Yansaya, repaya and joint characters. So our people created SLS 1134 as a rejoinder. (Oona Pooranaya)

    Having a local standard is against the very concept behind Unicode.

    I am not worried about local standards. Correct the universal standard first. That is what matters.

    For example, if a font developer in India or USA creates a fonts set that will not include yansaya, rapeya and joint characters but still be called ‘Unicode complaint’. Prevent that happening.

  35. Donald,

    First please get your facts right.

    Unicode standard is one thing SLS 1134 is something else.

    The singular reason to have Unicode standard (Unicode = Universal-code) is to get rid of all local standards.

    The singular reason why our people have SLS 1134 was because Unicode standard was incomplete. It never even mentioned about Yansaya, repaya and joint characters. So our people created SLS 1134 as a rejoinder. (Oona Pooranaya)

    Having a local standard is against the very concept behind Unicode.

    I am not worried about local standards. Correct the universal standard first. That is what matters.

    For example, if a font developer in India or USA creates a fonts set that will not include yansaya, rapeya and joint characters but still be called ‘Unicode complaint’. Prevent that happening.

  36. Prasanna Jayamanna

    Dear Donald

    You have asked several good people to kick the buckets. Now we wonna ask you (warest) the same question. plz Donald Kick the Bucket!!!!!

    We know about you and your work area. at the same time now we can understand to whom you are working for!

    Dear donald get loss

    What you have done so for we can read here. all the blogs you have done we read, and finally we agree to ask you to make suicide.

    dear donald plz make suicide.

    Prasanna Jayamanna, Colombo 2.

  37. Noname (I am not donald gamini)

    Yes prasanna

    you are correct. donald is a Pissek. ignore him and do all your work. dont weast your time and money.

    Donald Pissa.
    PISSU DONALD

  38. Quote
    We know about you and your work area. at the same time now we can understand to whom you are working for!
    Unquote

    Why not publish in this site for everyone to see.

    Answer the technical question posted in the site. Come for a public TV debate.

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  39. I partially agree with Donald’s solution for the Sinhala Unicode issue. To expertise, it is not the perfect solution (though even it is close). Recently, I have discovered a new solution which solves all the issues related to Sinhala Language IT implementations. Right now, I don’t want to broadcast my solution yet, since I am awaiting for the patent for my invention. Briefly, my solution is to have a unique code for each Sinhala word. This is much better and cleverer than the Donald’s solution. I have created the MahaDanaMuttha Word Allocation Table (MWAT), no body has ever thought of.

  40. I partially agree with Donald’s solution for the Sinhala Unicode issue. However, it is not the perfect solution (though even it is close). Recently, I have discovered a new solution which solves all the issues related to Sinhala Language IT implementations. Right now, I don’t want to broadcast my solution yet, since I am awaiting for the patent for my invention. Briefly, my solution is to have a unique code for each Sinhala word. This is much better and cleverer than the Donald’s solution. I have created the MahaDanaMuttha Word Allocation Table (MWAT), no body has ever thought of.

  41. For MWAT to work each character has to be given a code point then MWAT will work and we all need one to back the system – MWAT equals to e-dic

    So there will be several MWAT’s depending on the subjects.

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  42. http://www.ucsc.cmb.ac.lk/ltrl/services/feconverter/?maps=s_k-u.xml

    in a different blog they talk about the above site (see 31)

    The Sinhala we get can be seen on the following link

    http://www.akuru.org/images/kumana dumriya4.jpg

    Is this our Sinhala??? Just rubbish!!!!

    If unicode SInhala and SLSI 1134 is correct why we see such funny Sinhala???
    Above ucsc site uses the govt emblem too!!!!

    Please admit your errors and correct the SLSI 1134 as soon as possible.

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  43. Donald,

    This is not a e-dic. Some old Sinhala words can not be represented with your solution. Eg. BrahmaDatta (In this case, tt has two bendi letters not hal th). That is why I am saying your solution is not complete.

  44. In my suggested system anyone can propose a missing character or /s and that could be added in a simple version up. There is enough space available. Hope you had seen my ISBN 955-98975-0-0 if not send me your address I will send a compliment copy.

    I checked the list I have given a “”temp”” code point in the ISBN as 3547 it is already there.
    Not only these Badhi characters I have given two rows for Prof JB’s Sinhala.

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  45. I forgot to add one more comment

    Using my proposed system there is no “mata wadaya”
    If someone want to use only “hela” or “elu hodiya” he can select that option and all characters registered under “elu hodiya” will be given access over others
    Likewise it will be the same if someone wants to use “Sammatha Sinhala” character set.

    You also will be able to mix all three language characters in the same (Sinhala , English . Tamil) sentence. The default system fonts will render all these.

    The Font developers too can make their own fonts based on my table. All this will be published properly when I am invited to perform and the product is out.

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  46. Interesting quote from site listed in 31

    Quote
    P.S > But I can assure you that if you put 7 days (14 days maximum) to get used to Wijesekera layout after that it’s just a piece of cake. Why? Because Sinhala has too many characters, more than you can phonetically place on English keyboard. In the long run and when it comes to more complex use Wijesekera layout is the best. That’s why almost all the people who actually use computers for daily writing in Sinhala chose wijesekera layout :-)
    Unquote
    The person whoever wrote the above comment has never seen an IME working. QWERTY keyboard is enough to represent all the sinhala characters.

    I talk of proper SLSI then the developers could do an IME other could make e-dic etc

    When people live in a well like the frogs How come we develop IT in Sri Lanka!!!

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  47. Dr Ravi Jayawardene

    Reading thro the thread of information, it is now clear how much this site is spreading half truths.

    For Instance “Telemedicine” has quoted bit and pieces of information from a laudable initiative laucnhed by ICT Agency (ICTA), to make available clinical genetic infor through a tele centre. Why not quote the entire New release…

    QUOTE

    The significance of this latest ICTA initiative is that it opens up new opportunities in healthcare for remote rural communities. For the poor, a healthy body is an important asset and ill health can have serious implications to their capacity for earning a living. Yet, providing quality healthcare to the vast majority of the poor living in remote rural areas is a significant challenge.

    One of the many ways in which ICT can facilitate health care is through remote consultation, diagnosis, and treatment through telemedicine. An inconceivable phenomenon not too long ago, it is now a fast growing reality; a patient in a remote rural area being able to obtain expert advice from a specialist in Colombo without having to move out of his local environment is an extraordinary development. Although it has yet to bring a paradigm shift in the delivery of healthcare services, increasing sophistication in supporting technologies such as telecommunication, mobile monitoring devices etc has made telemedicine systems much more potent than ever before.

    This initiative of the ICT Agency seeks to take the dividends of the highly specialized field of Human Genetics to rural communities through an ICT platform and draws on the infrastructure facilities of the newest Nenasala at the Kurunegala Hospital and that of the Koslanda Nenasala.

    There are thousands of disorders caused by genetic defects, some of which are very rare, while others such as Thalassaemia are common and affect a large number of people. Taken as a whole, the number of people affected by genetic disorders is quite significant and comprises a sizeable percentage of the population. Since these conditions cause long term disability, the effect on the economy of the country due to the drain on health care and social services is enormous. For instance, the treatment of Thalassaemia alone takes up 5% of the country’s healthcare budget. When a genetic condition affects a family, it usually affects more than one member. Occasionally entire communities are affected by such disorders, as is in the case of Thalassaemia which is highly prevalent in the Wayamba Province. Since no cure is available for these disorders the only way to reduce the burden of such disorders to the country’s social and economic infrastructure is to provide appropriate counseling to affected families on management of the disease and thus prevent transmission of the condition to future generations. Proper medical advice and guidance also enable such families to better understand their condition and try to live as productive a life as possible.

    There is only one centre in Sri Lanka providing such clinical genetic services, the Human Genetics Unit of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo. It isn’t possible for everyone to come to Colombo to seek their advice, especially because some of the people affected with genetic disorders are disabled and cannot travel far. The development of an islandwide network of Nenasalas equipped with ICT infrastructure and broadband connectivity has opened up an array of opportunities in the field of healthcare. The Human Genetics Unit, Faculty of Medicine, Colombo can now be contacted online without the need to come to Colombo for a physical examination. This telegenetic project, which is probably the only one of its kind in the world, is aimed at giving the opportunity to remote communities to get the best genetic advice available in the country, which is on par with that anywhere in the world, via videoconferencing with the clinical geneticists in the Human Genetics Unit; Prof. Rohan W Jayasekara, Dr. Vajira H. W. Dissanayake and Dr. Prabha Mallawarachchi.

    The pilot programme of this project involves online consultations with patients of the Kurunegala Teaching Hospital and the Koslanda District Hospital and will be coordinated through the Kurunegala Hospital Nenasala and the Koslanda Nenasala.
    UNQUOTE

  48. Please see the ongoing discussions at this link. (Sinhala Unicode group)

    http://tinyurl.com/2u2yu9

    It proves that Sinhala Unicode is still not a standard and different people use different methods to represent same character within systems which claim Unicode compliant.

    So Donald is correct after all…

  49. Thanks Ankuraya for writing the truth.

    The reason is only a few or limited number of characters are registered in Sinhala unicode or the SLSI 1134 or ISO 10646 (all are the same)

    Rest of the characters which represent Sinhala has not been registered at any level. All are hidden inside a carpet program called “shaper”. Different groups keeps these characters under different code points. That is why we see “garbage” Sinhala.

    I want you all to join me to make this voice louder and to make the SLSI 1134 corrected.

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  50. http://www.sinhalaunicode.org/info0.php?xi=131&xs=සිංහල

    සිංහල යුනිකෝඩ් ප්‍රමිතිය සමිමතයක්‌ බවට පත්වීම
    Making Sinhala Unicode Standard a Community Standard
    සිංහල යුනිකෝඩ් ප්‍රමිතිය සමිමතයක්‌ බවට පත්වීම සිංහලෙන් වැඩ කරන අප ලද භාග්‍යක්‌. ඉන් සිංහල බස විශ්ව භාෂාවක්‌ ලෙස ජාත්‍යන්තර පිලිගැනීමකටද ලක්‌ව ඇත.

    සිද්ධි රස්‌තු
    පළමුව 21 වැනි සිය වසදී විශ්ව බසක්‌ ලෙස පිලිගැනුණු සිංහල බස එතනට ගෙන එන්නට යුනිකොඩ් ප්‍රමිතිය සැකසූ, තාක්‍ෂණ්‍ය දියුණු කල සැම දෙනට අපගේ @ගෘරවය

    සිංහල යුනිකෝඩ් ප්‍රමිතිය සමිමතයක්‌ බවට පත්වීම සිංහලෙන් වැඩ කරන අප ලද භාග්‍යක්‌. ඉන් සිංහල බස විශ්ව භාෂාවක්‌ ලෙස ජාත්‍යන්තර පිලිගැනීමකටද ලක්‌ව ඇත. මේ සමගම අපට මුහඋණ දෙන්නට සිදුවන ප්‍රධාන අභියෝගය නම් ජනතාව අතර සිංහල යුනිකෝඩ් භාවිතය ප්‍රචලිත කිරීමය. මේ සඳහා ප්‍රායෝගික වැඩ පිළිවෙලකට මුල පිරීම ඉන් ප්‍රධානය.

    එම වැඩ පිළවෙල සැකසීමේදී ජන සහභාගීත්වය ඉතාම වැදගත්ය. ඒ සඳහා යුනිකෝඩ් ප්‍රමිතිය පිළිබඳව සියල්ලන් දැනුවත් කිරීම, රාජ්‍ය කටයුතු හා ජන සන්නිවේදනය කෙරහි යුනිකෝඩ් ප්‍රමිතිය ආරෝපණය කිරම, අළුත් සිංහල මෘදුකාංග දියුණු කිරීම, අළුත් අකුරු
    වැල් නිරමාණය, පැරණි ලේඛණ හා දත්ත සිංහල යුනිකෝඩ් ගත කිරීම, නව ලේඛණ යුනිකෝඩ් මගින් සැකසීමට දිරි දීම මෙහිලා වැදගත් වේ. වසර 14 ක්‌ පමණ විවිධ ප්‍රමිතීන් වල වැඩ කරන්නන් යුනිකෝඩ් ප්‍රමිතියට හුරු කරවීම හුදෙක්‌ පුහුණුව සහ මෙවලම් පමණක්‌ නොව ආකල්පවල වෙනසක්‌ කිරීම අවශ්‍ය වේ.

    යුනිකෝඩ් ප්‍රමිතිය දේශයක්‌ වශයෙන් අපට විශාල මුදල් ප්‍රමාණයක්‌ හා කාළයක්‌ ඉතිරි කරනු ඇත. එය අප විසින් අනිවාර්යෙන්ම ඉදිකළ යුතු තාක්‍ෂණ අත්තිවාරමකි.

    මෙහිදී අනිවාර්යෙන්ම සාමාන්‍ය ජනතාවගේ එදිනෙදා භාෂා අවශ්‍යතාවයන්ද, අධ්‍යාපනය හා රාජ්‍ය කටයුතුද, බැංකු හා පුද්ගලික
    අංශයේ සන්නිවේදනයන් කෙරෙහි සැලකිලිමත් විය යුතු සේම
    රාජ්‍ය අනුග්‍රහය සේම දේශපාලන නායකත්වක්‌ද අනිවාර්ය වේ. මේ සඳහා දීප ව්‍යාප්ත වැඩ පිළවෙලකට අනුග්‍රහය ලැබීම වැදගත්ය.

    සිංහල යුනිකෝඩ් ප්‍රමිතිය හා විවෘත මුදුකාංග කෙරෙහි කරන ආයෝජනයන් ප්‍රායෝගික හා ජනසෙත උදෙසා කරන්නක්‌ වීම ඉතා වැදගත්. ජනමාධ්‍ය කරුවන්, අන්තර්ජාල ප්‍රකාශකයන්, රජයේ කාර්යාල, පාසැල් සිසුන්, විධායකයින්, පොත් සහ පුවත්පත් ප්‍රකාශකයන්ගේ විවිධ අවශ්‍යතා සහ වෙනස්‌ කම් පිළිබඳ අවබොධයකින් මේ සඳහා කැපවීම වැදගත්.

    අනිවාර්යෙන්ම මෙම වැඩ පිලිවෙල දීප ව්‍යාප්ත කඩිනම් වැඩ පිළිවෙලක්‌ විය යුතුය. රාජ්‍ය පරිපාලන, අධ්‍යාපන, ජනාධිපති, අගමැති,
    දිසා ලේකම්, ප්‍රාදේශීය ලේකම් කාර්යාලද නැණසල හා පාසැල්ද ප්‍රථම අදියර තුල සිංහල යුනිකෝඩ් භාවිතය සඳහා ආරෝපණය කල යුතුය. එක්‌ එක්‌ ආයතන වල අවම වශයෙන් සිංහල යුනිකෝඩ පුහුණුව ඇති අය තිදෙනකුවත් සිටීම අනිවාර්ය වේ.

    සෑම ආයතනයක්‌ම ඒ සඳහා අවශ්‍ය මුදුකාංග සහ තාක්‍ෂණික සහය ලබා ගැනීමට පහසුකමි සැලසිය යුතු අතර, නව තාක්‍ෂණය හා ප්‍රචාරණ ක්‍රම වේදයන් යොදාගත යුතුය. උපක්‍රමශීලි ලෙස සැම සහයෝගය ලබාගත යුතුය. මේ සඳහා ජාතික ප්‍රමුඛතාවයක්‌ ලබාදී පහසුකම් නොඅඩුව සැපයීම වැදගත්.

    සාමාන්‍ය ජනයා වෙත යුනිකෝඩ් ආරොපණය කිරීමෙදී දැනටමත් ඔවුන් භාවිතා කරන අකුරුවැල් හා විවිධ යතුරු ක්‍රම පිළිබඳව සෙනේහයෙන් බලා, අවසාන ප්‍රතිපලය යුනිකෝඩ් වන පරිදි එවන් අකුරු වැල් වලින් නිර්මිත ලේඛණ යුනිකෝඩ් වලට හැරවීමෙ මෙවලම්ද ලභාදිය යුතුය. කිසිවක්‌ අතහරින්නට බල නොකල යුතුවා සේම, යුනිකෝඩ්
    වලට මග පෑදු විවිධ තාක්‍ෂණයන්ට නිගා නොකල යුතුය.

    අපට අවශ්‍ය වන්නේ යුනිකෝඩ් පිළිබඳ ජාතික සම්මුතියකට මග පෑදීමය. ලංකාවේ අදත් නිවාස සැලසුම් අඳින්නේ අඩි අඟල් වලිනි. කොලඹ සිට මහනුවරට සැතපුම් 72 කි. නමුත් තියෙන්නේ කිලෝ මීටර් කණුය. අළුත් ගීත ආවාට පරණ තැටි ගීත තාම ජනප්‍රියය.

    ප්‍රායෝගික තත්වය අවබෝධයෙන් මහපොළව මත සිටිමින් මේ වැඩ පිලිවෙල ක්‍රියාත්මක කරන්නට උත්සාහ ගත යුතුය. අළුත් ශ්‍රී ලංකාවක මග එයයි.

    සිංහල යුනිකෝඩ් අන්තර්ජාලයේ ස්‌තාපිත කිරීමට සියලුම රජයේ වෙබ්
    අඩවි සිංහල යුනිකෝඩ් භාවිතා කිරීමට අනිවාර්ය වන පරිදි දින නියම කල වැඩ පිළිවෙලක අවශ්‍ය වේ. අන්තර්ජාල පුවත් ආයතන සිංහල යුනිකෝඩ් භාවිතයට දිරිදීම සඳහා මෙවලම් හා පුහුණුව ලබාදෙන දිරිගැනවීම් වැඩ පිලිවෙලක්‌ ආරම්භ කල යුතුය.

    ජනමාධ්‍ය වේදීන්ට අන්තර්ජාලයේ නිදහස්‌ ප්‍රකාශණ පහසුකමක්‌ සලසා
    දෙමින් සිංහල යුනිකෝඩ් භාවිතය ජනප්‍රිය කල යුතුය. සිංහල යුනිකෝඩ් ස්‌තාපනයේදී අපට පාඩම් ඉගන ගත හැකි හොඳම උදාහරණය නම් 1978 පමණ ක්‍රියාත්මක කල මෙට්‌රික්‌කරණ වැඩ පිළිවෙලයි. අප රාත්තල් වලින් කිලෝග්‍රෑම් වලටද, අඟල් වලින් සෙන්ටිමීටරයටද, ගැළුමෙන් ලීටරයටද පහසුවෙන් මාරු වූයේ ඉතා පහසුවෙනි. මිනින්දෝරු, වාරිමාර්ග, මහාමාර්ග, ඉංජිනේරු, ගණිත,
    විද්‍යා වැනි හැම විෂයක්‌ම වෙනස්‌ වුයේ තාක්‍ෂණය හා ආකල්පන් සමගිනි.

    මෙයත් එවැනි වැඩ පිළිවෙලකි. තාක්‍ෂණය හා ආකල්ප සමගින් අපද වෙනස්‌ විය යුතු බව මගේ නිහතමානී අදහසයි.

    නිරංජන් මීගම්මන
    කපුටා.com

    niranjan 2006-08-27 11:57:00 (52)

  51. Dear Niranjan

    Please see the following text

    http://www.akuru.org/images/quote47.jpg

    This is what we see as Sinhala.
    This is not Sinhala. TSinhala to be a universe language it has to be seen on any computer without any problem. These are not bugs but because of incomplete nature of the SLSI 1134 and Sinhala unicode.

    we have to correct this error. Error done by the late professor.

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  52. Donald seeye,

    If you are so concerned about Sinhala, why do you always write in English?

    Isn’t it time for your to shift to your mother tounge and show everyone else your non-Unicode superior product to the world?

  53. I write in English because Sinhala is not compatible across all platforms.
    Cant you see the Link No 48. There is no IME for Sinhala. The SLSI1134 is incomplete.

    Once all these are corrected not only I but you too will be able to just talk to the computer in Sinhala and the text will flow.

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  54. Donald seeye,

    [quote]

    I write in English because Sinhala is not compatible across all platforms.

    [unquote]

    This is like a 2 year old saying ‘Why should I learn Sinhala language, only 17 million out of the 6 billion world population knows Sinhala and I will wait till everybody in the world start speaking Sinhala to learn it’

    Admit it, in spite of giving ‘pora talks’ you have not even created a single font, and probably you do not even know how to install a font set in your PC, let alone creating it.

    Please go to IDM and do a basic course in computing first. You are never too old to learn.

    – Munupura

  55. සිංහලයා

    නිරංජන් මීගම්මන මහත්මයා

    ඔබේ සාකච්චාව ඉතා අගෙයි. අප ලාංකිකයන් ලෙස යුනි කේත ප්‍රචලිත කිරිමට අවැසි පසුබිම සෑදිය යුතුයි.
    මා මීට ‍‍පෙර ‍ඩොනල්ට කේත 3600 පමන බාවිතයේ ඇති අපහසුව පෙන්වා දුනි. ඔහු මෙය පිලිගන්නේ නැත.
    මා දන්නා ලෙස ඔහුද සිංහල ස්ථාපනය කර ගෙන ඇත. එනිසා ඔබේ අදහස් සිංහලේන්ම ලියන්න.
    (බල්ලෙක් බිරුවාට කන්දක් පාත් නොවේ-ප්‍රස්ථාපිරුලකි)සත්‍ය සත්‍යමයි

  56. I talk about a standard not Font or set of fonts. Fonts are secondary matter

    If you do not understand what is unicode and SLSI 1134 please go and learn the subject.

    Please answer the technical question posted in this link
    http://www.akuru.org/images/quote47.jpg

    Why not come forward for a public debate

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  57. Dear Sinhalaya

    Whether we have 3600 or more will not a problem to represent in computer. First we got to correct the SLSi 1134
    This is the most basic step

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  58. Donald seeye,

    Even assuming SLS 1134 is incomplete, that does not prevent you from writing in Sinhala.

    If Mr. Niranjan Meegammana can write in Sinhala (and you can read it) why cannot you write in Sinhala and respect your mother tongue, which you are so eager to save?

    Do not be a hypocrite. Prove your self by action.

    – Your loving Munupura

    Ps. Please pass my regards to achchi.

  59. Let any one writes but everyone will not be able to read what is written on 47 or 52.
    For every one to read we have to use Latin script until SLSI 1134 is corrected.

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  60. To read the content in the 47 & 52 you can install sinhala Unicode. Visit http://www.fonts.lk and install

    Nalin

  61. I am posting the following Email mgs sent between Prof Ruwan and self for your perusal

    I am a TAX payer in Sri Lanka and a Citizen of Sri Lanka and University do have a right to answer any question posted by a contributor also to meet and discuss in public.

    Sinhala is a National language of Sri Lanka and we got to protect it.

    Professor clearly say that I misguide the public.

    Please answer the technical question posted in this link
    http://www.akuru.org/images/quote47.jpg

    When we see Sinhala like the above image How can one say SLSI 1134 is correct!!!!

    **********************
    Certain names were deleted for privacy
    ***********************
    First mail was sent to BT options re my interview

    i read the article on the digital divide (actually on sinhala enabling IT) in the current issue of BT with interest. i’d like to extend you an invitation to the language technology research lab at the university of colombo school of computing in case you are really interested this stuff.

    ruvan weerasinghe

    **************
    Donald replied
    ************

    Dear Ruwan

    Why don’t you organize a Public & Press presentation. Invite all the media and I will show them the incomplete SLSI 1134 standard.Enclosing two images for you to answer. I will not accept the word “bugs”. You have to admit that the SLSI 1134 unable to stand alone without any additional back up like ‘Shaoer” Inside this “shaper” you have hid the rest of the Sinhala characters. To represent Sinhala fully you need “shaper” to be present. Even on XP this shaper does not act correctly. 25 years of public funding has gone waste inside a “shaper”. If you have corrected the SLSI with all the chracters this problem never occur. This fact was filed by me at the SLSI 1134 objection meeting. You people over ruled me and made a mess out of sinhala. There is no IME developed for Sinhala nor we can use Sinhala Tamil and English on the same document like MSword on one format set of font. Also there is no SLSI for Tamil Language nor any research done by CIntec or ICTA for Tamil.

    Best

    Donald Gaminitillake

    *******
    Ruwan’s reply
    *********

    Dear Donald,

    Thanks for giving me the contact for Harin Fernando of Business Today.

    As a matter of fact, we have done that already – i.e. had a public
    launch of our Sinhala language resources and tools a few months back. I,
    and then many many others, have over the past 3 years (actually more)
    done our fair bit to educate the entire publishing industry (with which
    incidentally we have an excellent rapport) and succeeded with the
    exception of you!

    While I’m very prepared to make a presentation and demonstrate how our
    Sinhala tools and resources work in UNICODE, I have absolutely no
    interest in extending the meaningless ‘debate’ you claim to be
    championing: rough consensus and running code are fine for me.

    To all those others to whom this is copied, and who may also be being
    mislead by Donald, let me invite you to the UCSC for some live demo’s of
    the following: (a) a Sinhala text-to-speech system, (b) a Sinhala
    optical character recognition system (c) a Sinhala lexicon (d) a 10m
    word Sinhala text corpus, (e) a word-level web page translator and (f) a
    tool for converting most proprietary (old) fonts to Sinhala UNICODE. We
    could also point to several other people’s work with Sinhala UNICODE
    including websites and even a search engine.

    I hope that we can all then get back to work and do something actually
    *useful* for our country.

    Regards,

    Ruvan.

    PS: In case any of you find my response not courteous enough for Donald,
    please understand that some of us have had more than 3 years experience
    with him. For many years several people gave him the benefit of the
    doubt and tried clearing his doubts about UNICODE. After initially
    dismissing UNICODE as an imperialist technology ‘poked down our
    throats’, he has now come to the realization that fighting UNICODE will
    not get him anywhere. So he has shifted his focus to trying to include
    his scheme of things (largely derived from the Japanese character
    encoding model) as Sinhala UNICODE for reasons that some of us know all
    too well. Let’s wish him well with the UNICODE Consortium… which I’m
    sure he has already approached on the subject (but for some unknown
    reason has not got a response from?).

    PPS: Donald, I know you will reply this and draw more red herrings. Let
    me state clearly that I do not intend to reply any of those since I
    respect the judgment of all those you’ve copied this to – I also respect
    their time and am confident that they would contact me direct for any
    clarifications.

    ————
    Donald’s reply
    ***********

    Dear All

    I requested a public hearing as SLSI 1134 is incorrect and incomplete product.
    I had enclosed two images to prove the incompleteness of this product

    One can simulate on a close environment but Sinhala is not compatible across all platforms nor SLSI 1134 unable stand alone.

    The university is dead scared not to answer the technical question posted in my mail.

    I request that I need a public hearing on this subject to save Sinhala from extinction.

    Best regards

    Donald Gaminitillake

  62. Donald,

    I didn’t have any problems of viewing Sinhala letters, as you mentioned in item 48

    http://www.akuru.org/images/quote47.jpg

    I believe the problem is related to your montor. My advice is to replace it with a new one. Go for a Flat screen. Believe me, I am Mahadanamutta. I have solved thousands of similar problems before.

  63. I think Prof. Ruvan Weerasinghe has no other work than replying to mad men like Donald.

  64. Dear Donald,

    All these emails you exchanged are private mails and I don’t think it is ethical for you to publish them in a blog. Please stick to basic ethics. You may have a couse to fight but do it in the ethical framework.

    We don’t know to whom you have copied this email as mentioned in the mail. But do not use the cc bar for the simple reason that it is there in your mail program. Fight ethically. Do not resort to gurilla attacks like this. Many people will feel embarassed in this kind of unethical acts. This is not a question of Unicode and your so-called solution. This is a question of ethics. Technology is there for people like you and me to use with a sense of responsibility.

  65. Reply to 58 there is noting wrong in the screen. This is not a screen problem or a problem in computer Some computer sees and rest see as grabage or as rubbish. This is clearly proved even in unicode consortium.

    Dear 60 Sinhala SlSI 1134 is not a private issue. It is a public issue. Public should know what is happening. I have copied it to many, many as possible. At least someone will open the eyes and look into the matter with a correct vision.

    I use the cc bar so that the recipient knows who gets it. If you hide the name/s bcc it is unethical. If you publish it then they all knows the facts.

    What is wrong in exposing the truth? Sinhala is not compatible across all platforms simply because the SLSI 1134 is incomplete.

    Accept this error and now the time is ripe to correct it.

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  66. Ruvan Weerasinghe

    Dear Donald,

    At long last I realized that I was wrong all along and you are right. Let’s scrap SLSI 1134 and Sinhala UNICODE and start afresh.

    Ruvan Weerasinghe

  67. It is really sad that people like Dr. Ruwan’s caliber has to deal with people like Mr. Donald. (I am comparing ONLY the the academic knowledge, experience of this two people have with respect to the issue they are fighting for) But why things are happening like this in our country.

    1. People who are experienced enough to study these issue are all in agreement with Dr. Ruwan and late Prof. Sam or they don’t like to get in to this debate due to certain unknown reasons.

    2. There was no proper open academic discussion on these solutions before they come to conclusions on things like SLSI 1134. (I am pretty sure that if few more sinhla scholars involved in the initial discussions, yansaya and rakaransay defineetly will have little more importance in the standard).

    That is the only thing we can get out of this useless debate. Many higher up academics/policy makers do not consider any body else in this country are qualified enough to challenge them. Other than trying to make opposing voices silent, they are not ready to listen to why they oppose you. Then they use what ever the power they have to silence the opponents. When people see this happening over and over again I doubt any scholar who has many other avenues to peruse in there carrier would want to come to debate with this kind of dictators. Once this top guys lose any kind of meaning full criticism due to their this tough un-academic behavior, it is no surprise that you will have only opponents like Mr.Donald left.
    Dr. Ruwan, (I don’t know may be one of the princes in Dr. Sam’s little kingdom, may be next king) I kindly request you to look at the past as an academic and try to build an open environment where people can have different ideas but still can play. That is the only responsible solution to silence people like Mr. Donald.

    ==========================================================
    If all you have is a hammer, every problem is a nail
    (They took all my other tools away from me :) But the hammer is not that bad after all, isn’t it? )

  68. Dear Namal

    Thank you for your comments.
    I cannot read your site correctly.
    If you are in Colombo please call me.
    Lets meet and discuss. I will show the error.
    We got to correct this error

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  69. Namal you are doing Sinhala blog have you ever visited this blog using any other operating system?

    At 45 Ankuraya
    Quote
    It proves that Sinhala Unicode is still not a standard and different people use different methods to represent same character within systems which claim Unicode compliant.
    Unquote

    The SLSI 1134 cannot stand alone without a “shaper” Also different people keep the same character on different codepoints. (the characters that has not been listed in the SLSI1134)

    This is the issue I was addressing all these years. Why do you want to hide the characters?

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  70. This is not about Unicode/Sinhala. This is about dialogue.

    Whatever Donald says is immaterial, but we should respect his right as a citizen to propose to the authorities what he feels right. The question is whether anybody would listen.

    From the inception ICTA’s attitude about everything (not just this one) has been “We know all whats good for you. Don’t try to teach us, we don’t care about your opinion, we do what we want”

    Why ICTA has to be so bossy?

    When people complain about inflation, Central Bank not only takes measures to reduce it (at least they show so) but the Governor himself publicly answer those issues. (though you may or may not agree with it)

    When people complain about transport service, healthcare service, education etc. at least the authorities show concern and the minimum pretend that they would address the issues.

    Why ICTA has to be different? Is it because ICTA employees think that their salaries are paid by WB and not the public of this country? (Mind you, what WB gives is a loan, not aid)

    What is the use of initiating a policy dialogue, if ICTA is never ready to listen to anyone? (spare Donald)

    Why ICTA employees have to walk six inches above ground and pretend that they do not hear anyone?

    If they continue to do so, I do not think people like Donald has any other means than restoring to guerilla tactics. I have seen he is doing that so many times, but I cannot blame him.

    When somebody does not listen you take a hammer and hit the head of the person. May not be ethical, but what option left?

  71. Thank you Sandhya for the lovely comment
    I really admire the contents

    They over rules me at the SLSI public hearing and gave a product to the country
    I told them incl Prof Ruwan that their path is incorrect 3 years ago
    Now we see its errors

    Is it because of their “ego” that they try to rule else making the public fool

    We have seen the error I have a solution (correct the SLSI1134) if there is another better solution why not they publish?

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  72. Thanks Sandhya, your views are very relevant and timely.

    I also want to add this about the so called ‘ICTA forums’.

    Started by Manju, the objective of having forums is to have a set of a large number of volunteers contributing for e-Sri Lanka effort. Manju had invited the right people from right organisations to have a meaningful input.

    However, what had happened to these forums today is very pathetic.

    ICTA forums are today dominated by few boot lickers. (like Kaputa) What they all do is to use the forums to eulogise Emperor’s new clothes. ICTA is happy listening to these petty eulogies so that they do not have to answer tough questions. I heard recently in one forum other members were thoroughly disappointed about the way Kaputa (Niranjan) tried to dominate it.

    Let me ask who the people in these forums are today.

    Are they the people really work on ICT4D or a set of people whose only aim is to receive 5 million grants under e-society fund?

    I am not taking about strangers. Even if we take ex-employees of ICTA there is a fair number still work actively on ICT4D (Manju, Dilanthe, Helani, Shoban) Are any of these represent these forums?

    No. Because their views are perceived dissident and ICTA does not want to hear any dissident views. ICTA people think they know all, others know nothing, so all they want is a set of yes men to boot lick.

    Will these things ever change?

  73. Visit the following link and see the image

    http://www.akuru.org/images/SinhalaJune30.jpg

    Don’t you guys feel shy a Simple Sinhala like “Buddha Pujawa” cannot be written with unicode Sinhala or SLSI1134

    You all talk that this is a working Solution!!!!

    Do not tell it is a “BUG” This is the result of a incomplete SLSI 1134 or Sinhala Unicode

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  74. India aids rural 'Knowledge Centres' in Lanka

    India has gifted computers, scanners and fax machines worth LKR 13 million ($1,16,906)
    million to 20 of the 377 Nayasalas or “Knowledge Centres” in rural Sri Lanka.

    Lalith Weeratunga, Secretary to the Sri Lankan President told Hindustan Times in Colombo on Saturday, that the Nayasalas (Gyanashalas in Sanskrit) were President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s pet scheme which he had been working on since the time he was Prime Minister.

    Impressed with the increasing use of computers in rural India, Rajapaksa told Hindustan Times soon after becoming Prime Minister in 2004, that he would go to New Delhi seeking Indian aid for a similar movement in Sri Lanka.

    Weeratunga said that the President had set a target of 1000 Nayasalas to be established by the end of 2008.

    The 377 th. Naya Sala was inaugurated by Weeratunga and the Indian High Commissioner in Sri Lanka, Alok Prasad, on Saturday at Tissamaharama in draught-prone South Sri Lanka.

    http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=2eac21bc-a501-4fc7-b577-8becb42b8e97&MatchID1=4470&TeamID1=2&TeamID2=4&MatchType1=2&SeriesID1=1111&PrimaryID=4470&Headline=India aids Lanka’s ‘Knowledge Centres’

  75. We can have 10,000 nanasala’s in Sri Lanka but if we cannot work across all platforms in Sinhala & Tamil what is the use of having them!!!!

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  76. Wijaya Pariganaka on VK

    Read Wijeya Pariganaka’s editorial on late Prof V.K. Interesting to read. But full of wrongly dedicated credits to V.K. Donald must read this.

  77. Please visit the following site
    You will need a (PC running on windows) xp Computer to read the text in Sinhala.

    http://www.lankaenews.com/Sinhala/news.php?id=2526

    Then read the text that I have uploaded into my site Akuru — a scan copy of the text of Wijaya Pariganaka 2007 July issue. (77)

    http://www.akuru.org/images/editorialjulypariganaka.jpg

    Read both articles compare the text and understand the truth.

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  78. Thanks Donald.

    I am surprised to learn (from Wijaya Priganaka) that somebody treats telecasting election results or doing graphics for cricket matches as things very important to the community.

    These are not ‘vishvakarma’ tasks one should eulogise. It is an insult to late Prof. VKS if somebody treats them as his biggest achievements.

    I also did not know Prof. VKS had anything to do with relasing exam results over web/mobile phones. I thought it was done by Examination dept with EWIS and Dialog. How wrong I was. Tomorrow somebody would say it was Prof. VKS who designed www and C and I am sure nobody would say otherwise.

    The question one should ask is why we are still so backward in IT compared to India, our nearest neighbour with comparable socio economic conditions. Who was responsible for that ‘development’?

  79. Pariganaka editor says Prof. S has neither been a great scientist nor a great mathematician.

    This is nothing but serious mistake and an insult. Let me correct that.

    Some of the greatest achievements of Prof. S had been in the field of Mathematics and Nuclear Physics, not in ICT, though it is there he built his name at a later stage.

    Had Pariganaka editor done a Google scholar search he could have easily found the contribution of Prof S. to the field of Maths and Science.

    Is Parganaka editor too e-illiterate or is it just showing his ignorance? Or he too in the game of attacking people who can no more defend themselves?

  80. I don’t think we should take Pariganaka Editor’s comments seriously. If you guys read his editorials you may understand he is yet another Wasudewa Nanayakkara. (Cardboard Hero) He attacks all big companies like Microsoft, etc. and try to show he is a great socialist. Dhanawadaya Bhangawewa type of man. But can the industry survive without these big time investors?

    Editor does nothing more than copying and pasting from English websites to the magazine. Old Pariganaka was rich in local content and addressed local issues. But what happens now is just back scratching to survive. It won’t take long for WNL to understand this foolish editor’s tom foolery and replace him with someone who has some brain and fresh ideas. A lunatic should not destroy this magazine which did a yeoman service to the field. If this lunatic continues his boot licking in this manner there will be dedicated blogs for him as well sooner than later. One should have principles to run the game. WNL management is not fools. They run the best publications in the country. Pariganaka has lost its good contributors over the years and one can read only bullshit in the magazine now. We feel sorry for the readers who can read only Sinhala. They have no option but to read this bullshit as there is no other options. If they have internet access and Sinhala content as Donald keeps stressing this editor cannot fool the readership. Magazine has started offering more prizes (like the FM radio stations and low quality TV stations do) to lure readership. But people bought this magazine in the past because it was content rich. But today the magazine is bankrupt without proper content. This is high time readers raise their voice against this cheap approach of luring them with prizes instead of content.

  81. I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine

    People like Pariganaka editor and Kaputa are following the theory of “I’ll scratch your back, you scratch mine” for their survival. These guys know that though VK is dead his henchmen are ruling the ICTA and ICT field yet. So, praising them will help the survival of these ass licking admirers. Why can’t these people count on their talents than trying to survive by scratching people’s backs? Both have talents which can be put into good use. They don’t have to betray their conscience for ‘few more rupees.’

  82. සිංහල භාෂාව භාවිතා කරන ප් රජාව සැලකූ විට ඔවුන් තාක් ෂණයේ අසරණ වූ
    කොටසකි. මුදුකාංග බොහෝමයක සිංහල යුනිකේතය අවුල් . වසර 2 ක් ගිහිනුත් තාම
    වාහක වල එය හරියට දර්ශනය නොකරයි . ආර්ථික වාසි අඩු නිසා කුඩම්මාගේ
    සැලකිල්ලට සිංහල වැනි භාෂාවන් ලක්වෙලා. ජාල , ජංගම හා අනිකුත්
    තාක් ෂණයන්ද එහෙමයි .

    සිංහල අකුරු දමන්න පුළුවන් වුනාට අඩවියක් සිංහල වන්නේ නැහැ . සිංහල පමණක්
    දන්න අපේ මාමාට එය බලන්න පුලුවන් විය යුතුයි.

  83. http://www.akuru.org/images/Lirne82.jpg

    Above link is a screen shot of the above text No 82.
    Is this Sinhala???

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  84. I think Kaputa (Mr. Niranjan Meegammana?) and Donald uncle say the same thing this time. So strange.

    Have they agred now there are problems in Sinhala Unicode?

  85. සිංහල පමණක් දන්න අපේ මාමා

    “සිංහල අකුරු දමන්න පුළුවන් වුනාට අඩවියක් සිංහල වන්නේ නැහැ . සිංහල පමණක්
    දන්න අපේ මාමාට එය බලන්න පුලුවන් විය යුතුයි.”

    I don’t think Niranjan does not mean MR by “සිංහල පමණක්
    දන්න අපේ මාමා.” MR is a lawyer and he knows English much better than Niranjan does.

    One day we all will have to agree that Sinhala Unicode is bullshit and Donald is correct. Only problem is we will be too late when we understand that. There was faint hope that Unicode will be ok when Vista comes but the problem persists. I think at least now we should listen to Donald. Donald may not be able to carry the operational part out alone. He may need the expertise support. But his concept seems right. Rather than trying to silence him, let’s learn from him.

  86. I think “සිංහල CAT පමණක් දන්න අපේ මාමා” is Donald.

    Everyone else knows Unicode and how to do their work properly.

  87. Hey 87
    Why dont you answer the posting of 84

    http://www.akuru.org/images/Lirne82.jpg

    Unicode Sinhala or SLSI 1134 unable to stand alone.
    This fact has been proved.

    Also donot mix Unicode and Sinhala unicode which is based on incorrect SLSI 1134.

    I talk only of Sinhala unicode which is based on SLSI 1134

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  88. Great People Discuss Ideas
    Average People Discuss Events
    Small People Discuss Events
    What are you ….

    This site thrills like a sex site
    better to have these typo sites which gives entertainment
    specially we are fucked up with office, our job, life and wife

    Great

  89. ශිල්ප සයුර පිළිබඳව අප විසින්ම නිමවන ලද මෙම විනාඩි 6ක වීඩියෝ පටය නරඹන්න. මේවා බැලීම සඳහා යූ ටියුබ් අවශ්‍ය වේ.

    This 6m video on Shilpa Sayura is produced inhouse with our own resources. You need utube to view this.

    http://www.shilpasayura.org/uniportal/news/info.asp?xi=10

  90. Dear 91

    The content of Shilpa Sayura is developed on Sinhala SLSI 1134 or Sinhala Unicode which has been proved incorrect and incomplete. Also certain characters that appear on kaputa site too incorrect Sinhala.

    Great concept to destroy the language Sinhala. Our friends in North must be having a good laugh when they see these contents. How Sinhala elite damage their own language for a few $.

    First step is to correct the SLSI 1134 and then develop the Shilpa Sayura

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  91. හිතවත් මිතුරනි,

    වැදගත් තොරතුරක් ඔබ වෙත ගෙන ඒමට කැමැත්තෙමි .

    ඉක්ටා විසින් අපේ ප් රධාන දේශීය භාෂා මෙන් ම රාජ් ය භාෂා වන සිංහල හා
    දමිළ භාෂාවන් පරිගණක සඳහා භාවිතා කළ හැකි අයුරු පිළිබඳ තොරතුරු, උපදෙස්
    මෙන්ම ඒ සඳහා අවශ් ය වන මෘදුකාංග අපේ ප් රධාන දේශීය භාෂා භාවිතා කරන
    ජනතාවට ලබා දීම පිණිස වෙබ් ව් යායාමයක් අරඹා තිබේ.

    මෙ මගින් අදහස් කරනුයේ සිංහල හා දමිළ භාෂාවන් පරිගණක කටයුතු සඳහා යොදා
    ගැනීමට උදව් වන සියළු තොරතුරු එක් තැනකින් ලබා දීමයි . එය http://www.siyabas.lk,
    http://www.emadumolihal.lk, http://www.locallanguages.lk, http://www.fonts.lk යන සියළු වෙබ්
    ලිපිනවලින් යොමු වන වෙබ් අඩවියකි . දැනට අඩක් හෝ නිමව ඇත්තේ සිංහල පිටු
    පමණකි. ඒවා ට http://www.siyabas.lk මගින් පිවිසිය හැක .

    මෙයට පරිගණක පාරිභාෂික වචන මාලාව ද අද හෙටම එකතු වනු ඇත .

    අප සියබස් හි දක්වා ඇති අයුරින් ” මෙය මින් ඉදිරියට ගෙන යාම ද එහි
    සාර්ථකත්වය ද යුනිකෝඩ් ප් රජාවේ දායකත්වය මත ම රඳා පවතිනු ඇත. මෙය ශ් රී
    ලාංකික යුනිකෝඩ් ප් රජාවේ වෙබ් අඩවියයි !” සමූහයේ සාමාජිකයින්ගේ සහය ලබා
    ගැනීම පිණිස ම මෙම වෙබ් අඩවිය මෘදු දියත් කිරීමට (soft launch) තීරණය කරන
    ලදී.

    එනිසා මෙහි අන්තර්ගතය මෙන්ම එහි තත්වය ද නැංවීම පිණිස ඉක්ටා ඔබ සැමගේ සහය
    පතයි! අවශ් යතාවය අනුව ඔබ ට අවසර රහස් පද දීමට ද යෝජනා වී ඇත .

    කරුණාකර ඔබගේ අදහස් හා යෝජනා siyabas-feedback@icta.lk වෙත එවනු මැනවි !

    ස්තුතියි !
    වසන්ත

  92. Hello Donald,
    Above 93 http://www.siyabas.lk seems to have public comment area (Visible to public).
    So you can go there for your battle.
    Lets see how ICTA going to respect the views of general public and the freedom of speech.
    It must be run by public money so it should allow you to comment :-)

  93. Following was my posting:
    Visit

    http://anuradha-ratnaweera.blogspot.com/

    See
    Unicode and Sinhala Alphabet

    He has given 3 examples. The problem is with the 3 image. For Sinhala SLSI 1134 or Sinhala Unicode to be effective you need additional software called ‘Shaper’ to be exsist. On certain Operating systems even running with XP this shaper will not function and you will only see Image two.

    Also he has admitted that we have over 1000 Sinhala Characters.

    This clearly proves that SLSI 1134 if incomplete and incorrect. It cannot stand all alone by itself. The text is not compatible across all platforms.

    The SLSI will have to be corrected and then implement the other projects.

    I have the solution and this is published ISBN 955-98975-0-0

    If you permit me to come over and give a presentation I will do

    Quote from Unicode Consortium
    http://www.unicode.org/review/pr-96.html
    Quote’-The use of format characters in identifiers is problematical because the formatting effects they represent are normally just stylistic or otherwise out of scope for identifiers. To make matters worse, it’s possible to misapply format characters such that users can create strings that look the same but actually contain different characters, which can create security problems -’ unquote

    If every person in Sri Lanka to have the benefit of a computer in trade & in communication it is necessary to have a uniformity in Sinhala & Tamil characters.

    Once a default digital character coding for Sinhala & Tamil has been established, a nation wide ICT infrastructure could be implemented for the benefit of the public.

    The wide spread use of computers will not only change the way of doing business but it will change the way you live.

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

    http://www.akuru.org

    =============

    It is funny I posted a mail to siyabas-feedback@icta.lk
    as requested from Wasantha

    I got an auto reply from

    Thanks for your value response , ASAP I will reply to you …

    Have a nice day ;

    T.M.MIKTHAM

    Creative Department
    Pooranee Inspirations ( Pvt ) Limited .
    Level 3 , Dewman palace ,
    Battaramulla .
    Sri Lanka .
    Tel : ( 94) – 11 – 2875959
    Fax : ( 94) – 11 – 4408866
    Web : http://www.pooranee.com
    : http://www.pooranee.lk
    Wap : wap.pooranee.lk

    Is it funny!!!!!!!

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  94. සියබස් වෙබ් අඩවිය

    Nothing new. Same old mistakes in Siyabas.lk too. See in Firefox.

    සියබස් වෙබ් අඩවිය
    Tue, 07/03/2007 – 09:00 —

    සියබස් වෙබ් අඩවිය සිංහල යුනිකෝඩ් හඳුනා ගැනීමට මෙහි පැමිණෙන ඔබ සාදරයෙන් පිළි ගනී! මෙම වෙබ් අඩවිය ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ භාවිතා වන ප්‍රධාන දේශීය භාෂා මෙන් ම රාජ්‍ය භාෂා වන සිංහල හා ‍දමිළ භාෂාවන් පරිගණක සඳහා භාවිතා කළ හැකි අයුරු පිළිබඳ තොරතුරු, උපදෙස් මෙන්ම ඒ සඳහා අවශ්‍ය වන මෘදුකාංග ද ඔබට පිරිනමයි.

    මෙය ඉතා කඩිනම් ගමනකින් පෙරට යන තොරතුරු තාක්‍ෂණ දියුණුවේ ප්‍රතිඵල තම ප්‍රධාන භාෂාව ලෙස ශ්‍රී ලාංකීය දේශීය භාෂා භාවිතා කරන ජනතාවට ලබා දීම සඳහා යන ගමනේ දී තබන තවත් වැදගත් පියවරකි.

    පරිගණක කටයුතු සදහා දේශීය භාෂා යොදා ගැනීමේ ගෝලීය ව සම්මත විධික්‍රමය වන යුනිකෝඩ් ක්‍ර‍මය අපි දු පරිගණක දේශීයකරණය සඳහා යොදා ගතිමු.

    එ මගින් විවිධ වූ පරිගණක වේදිකාවල මෙතෙක් ඉටු කොට ඇති අති මහත් කටයුතු රාශියක් හා අදාල සම්පත් රාශියක් මෙය රැගෙන ඒ.

    මෙහි ඇති සම්පත් භාවිතා කොට එහි ගුණ-අගුණ අප වෙත දන්වන ලෙසත් මෙය තවත් ඉදිරියට ගෙන යාමට මෙම සම්පත් වඩන ශ්‍රී ලාංකික යුනිකෝඩ් ප්‍රජාවට එක් වන ලෙසත් කාරුණික ව ආයාචනය කරමු.

    සියබස් වෙබ් අඩවිය ශ්‍රී ලාංකික යුනිකෝඩ් ප්‍රජාවේ සාමාජික ඔබ ද සහෘදශීලී ව පිළිගනී! මෙතෙක් ආ පරිගණක දේශීයකරණ ගමනේ දී ශ්‍රී ලාංකික තොරතුරු තාක්‍ෂණික ප්‍රජාව අසීමිත ව තම ශ්‍රමය, කාලය හා ඥානය මේ සඳහා කැප කොට ඇත. මෙය මින් ඉදිරියට ගෙන යාම ද එහි සාර්ථකත්වය ද යුනිකෝඩ් ප්‍රජාවේ දායකත්වය මත ම රඳා පවතිනු ඇත.

    මෙම ව්‍යායාමයේ අවසාන අරමුණ, එනම් දේශීය ජනතාවගේ ජිවන මට්ටම් ඉහළ නැංවිම සඳහා පරිගණක හා අන්තර්ජාලය ආදී මෙවලම් නියම අන්දමින් යොදා ගත හැකි මට්ටමට ‍දේශීය ව පරිගණක භාවිතය වර්ධනය කිරීම සඳහා තවත් බොහෝ දේ කළ යුතු ව ඇත. ඒ අතර අප සැම ට එක් ව ඉටු කළ හැකි කාර්යයන් බොහෝ ඇත.

    ඒ සඳහා එක් වන ලෙස සහෘදත්වයේ දෑත් ඔබ වෙත දිගු කරමු!

    මෙය ශ්‍රී ලාංකික යුනිකෝඩ් ප්‍රජාවේ වෙබ් අඩවියයි!

  95. Dear Dear Wasantha

    see this link

    http://www.akuru.org/images/unicode_karmaya_1.jpg

    This is what I read. “”Unicode Karmaya”” Is this what ICTA wrote ????

    High time to change this karmaya!!!

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  96. Item 93 was not posted by me in this blog. I have posted it in Google Sinhala Unicode Group where all the people use given names and committed to improve and popularize Sinhala Unicode. Who ever posted it here has done it with out my permission as I published it to be known “Only among the members of Unicode Group” until it is finalized and launched. This is a wrong doing.
    Simply I did not publish here as I right now do not want to get embroiled in this unfruitful dedate on whether Unicode is incorrect and whether SLS 1134 is incorrect.
    We are right now using the best solution available. If it can be used in any platform and if we can exchange text in Sinhala Unicode across all platforms, it is good enough for us to use. Siyabas shows that it is even implemented in Apple Mac.
    If it is proven that the claimed inaccuracies related to consonats such as yansaya, rakaranshaya and repaya do really exist and Sinhala Unicode can be improved further by giving code points to those, we will push the people who are in charge (of Sinhala Unicode) and knowledgable to improve it.
    Also I did not want to get in to a debate with people who try to character assasinate by using bogus names and peole who can spend all their lives writing blogs.
    We meet the Sri Lnakan ICT industry once in very 3 months and have an open forums with people who come without masks over their heads. Last private sector meeting held two weeks back was attended by more than 100 people from local ICT companies.
    I visited this blog after a long time simply because (some body informed me that) a post has been published here under my name (without my permission).
    I do not wish to reply to any blogs related to this simply because this is used to throw mud by the majority while only few try to discuss worthwhile issues. Sadly those useful blogs are drowned by the cacophony of mud throwers. You can be drawn by genuine bloggers who discuss worthwhile issues but as usual to be ambushed by mud throwers.
    Wasantha Deshapriya

  97. Dear Wasantha

    Quote
    we will push the people who are in charge (of Sinhala Unicode) and knowledgable to improve it.
    Unquote

    Can you name them? The public would like to know who they are and what they are doing!!!

    If Sinhala unicode or SLSI 1134 is the best solution why you are pushing these guys to change?

    Also Siyabas have no option for MAC it has given only Linux and Windows Solution.

    Please do not misguide the public Wasantha.

    I have asked you for a presentation you have not yet given to me.

    Also you have not answered
    http://www.akuru.org/images/unicode_karmaya_1.jpg
    Is this your best solution??? Read Sinhala as rubbish!!!!!

    I may not have internet access until wed.

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  98. Dear 91, Congratulations for your excellent work. Don’t be discouraged by rubbish comments made some nasty people in this blog. Obviously, they have a different agenda. I can read clearly all these Sinhala texts. I believe others can read the same except for few who don’t want to read. Guys, go ahead with your Sinhala projects. Ignore these wild beasts. They are jealous. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist understand what they want do. It is a wide spread belief that these nastly elements are funded by NGOs against our Sinhala Nation.

  99. See how Kaputa scratches Wasantha’s back in Sinhala Unicode group. No wonder why ICTA approves Kaputa’s funding proposals. Long live Kaputa.

    “වසන්ත මහතානෙණි
    සාමාජිකයින් අතරේ පමණයි කීවාට, සියබසට ගිය ගමන්ම සිංහල යනිකේතයට ගරිල්ලා
    ප්‍රහාරයක් එල්ල කර තිබෙනු දුටුවෙමු.
    අසේවනාච බාලනම් යන සංකල්පය අනුව අප කෙසේ ඊට පැටලෙමුද ?
    කරුණාකර මෙය මඩවියක් වීමට ඉඩ නොදෙන්න.
    සියබසට සුභපැතුම්
    නිරංජන්”

  100. Hey, 101- Backscraching, Unfortunatley, Donlad Can’t read the Sinhala part of you messgae. Do something for it.

  101. This has nothing to with Unicode.

    I am sad to read what Mr. Wasantha Deshapriya had written.

    Every month Mr. Wasantha gets his paycheck thanks to the tax payers of this country, but like many of so called public servants…ooops sorry,…Honorable Government Officers, he too has started treating the public of this country a nuisance.

    As many have previously noted, this is exactly the attitude of ICTA. They think they know all and see no reason why they should listen to somebody else. Typical Sri Lankan bureaucratic attitude. (Munge daadiya apita ivasanna puluvanda?)

    Mr. Wasantha identifies good blogs and bad blogs.

    What are good blogs? That say “Ehemai Swaminwahansa” to everything ICTA says.

    What are bad blogs? That have people with dissident views, ask questions from ICTA etc. Mr. Wasantha does not like that.

    When people ask questions he cannot answer Wasantha hamuduruwo gets angry. Who are these sinna podiyens to ask questions from our Wasantha hamuduruwo?

    Who are you people to question what Wasantha hamuduruwo does? Stay out of the way. You should take the ‘saluwa’ off from your shoulder and jump into ditches when Wasantha hamuduruwo comes near by.

    We talk about empowering people, we talk about openness and we talk about transparency. But this is the reality in our country. Nothing different from the feudal days.

    Poor poor us, the citizens!

  102. Looking at all of the comments above we see Lineasia is going down the drain. Instead initiating valueble dicussion, it now provides cheap entertainment by few people who dominate this forum.

    This forum also has become a people discussion forum borrowing content extracts from other forums. Which may not be relevent. Its also said here that annonymus names used unethically and its bad for the reputation of lineasia.

    We dont see any discussion on telecom regulations, BPO scams, Telco Dominances and issues in other software other than sinhala unicode, which is a quite boaring topic now.

    The borad of directors of http://www.lirneasia.net need to have a look at this content which makes lirneasia least interest for valueble content. Its transforming into a paparazi website who talks anything from sex life to celebraties.

    Please take action before it can get worse.
    Dont attack me for writing this, I used to learn a lot from this site, but now no more learning instead it is becoming a very third grade political portal like crazylanka.

  103. Dear Mr Istik (I assume this is not a pseudonym given your comments above):

    Thank you for taking the trouble to comment and express concern about the content of our site.

    However, I have yet to see any discussion of sex in this website, but they say sex is in the eye of the beholder.

    If you do not wish to read about unicode, please don’t read this thread; around 20 threads are started each month on a broad range of topics. Just click the “blog” button and it will take you to the front page.

    On our (non)editorial policies, please see: http://www.lbo.lk/fullstory.php?newsID=538826416&no_view=1&SEARCH_TERM=24

  104. Mr Wasantha Deshapriya says in above post 98
    [quat]I have posted it in Google Sinhala Unicode Group where all the people use given names and committed to improve and popularize Sinhala Unicode. Who ever posted it here has done it with out my permission as I published it to be known “Only among the members of Unicode Group” until it is finalized and launched. This is a wrong doing.[/quat]

    First of all I agree with Mr. Deshapriya that it is unethical to publish some thing from another site/group without giving any reference to the source, to miss lead the readers here.
    But being a ICTA guru in SL he seems to be unaware of the privacy of that google group. Google Sinhala Unicode Group is visible to any body. You don’t have to be a member to read the posts in there. So if Mr. Deshapriya published some thing related to his “secret missions” on ICTA in that google group thinking “to be known “Only among the members of Unicode Group” until it is finalized and launched” he has compromised the “security” of our(his) sacred ICTA, and he should be punished.

    And there is no wonder these are the kind of people instruct government to ban tamilnet, to become wizkids in front of ignorant politicizations.

    P.S.
    May be “Hora Kaputa” can help Mr. Deshapriya keep his job :) by making Google group unreadable to non-members now.

  105. See the irony of the situation.

    Wasantha expects the user feedback for a product. That is why he gives an email address specially created for that purpose. Fine.

    So if somebody sends feedback he should be happy. He should be even happier if someone posted his message elsewhere because he gets free promotion and the product is exposed to a wider audience.

    So why, pray why, he is so upset?

    If he does not want feedback, why the hell he request for it?

  106. I sent a mail to that feed back address
    I got a reply not from ICTA but by a person called T.M.MIKTHAM Creative Department he will get at me asap
    today is monday July 9th

    Yet I have not got any reply for the question post.

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Kandy

  107. Dear Donald,

    Wasantha will answer only ‘to his own people.’ You are not one of them. His answers are exclusive for Sinhala Unicode group. That means Kaputa only. ICTA has found only one loyal servant. That is Kaputa. If you want to get your CAT approved get tuition from Kaputa. He knows how to handle ppl like Wasantha. You should learn from him. There is no Unicode Group as such. It’s only different avatars of Kaputa.

  108. Dear Lalith Weeratunge (Secretary to the Hon President) and Mr Wasatha Deshapriya ICTA,

    As per your comments on Blog No 98 Wasantha Deshapriya on Jul 7th, 2007 at 11:09 pm

    http://www.lirneasia.net/2007/06/software-issues-in-sri-lanka-part-8/

    Quote”If it is proven that the claimed inaccuracies related to consonats such as yansaya, rakaranshaya and repaya do really exist and Sinhala Unicode can be improved further by giving code points to those, we will push the people who are in charge (of Sinhala Unicode) and knowledgable to improve it.”
    unquote

    Also visit

    http://www.akuru.org/images/unicode_karmaya_1.jpg

    The Unicode consortium (http://www.unicode.org/review/pr-96.html)
    Clearly says
    Quote
    To make matters worse, it’s possible to misapply format characters such that users can create strings that look the same but actually contain different characters, which can create security problems
    Unquote

    If we do not correct the SLSI 1134 Sri Lanka is heading for a bigger problem in IT Hope you all we open your eyes and listen to me.

    Please let me know the people who are involved in this project
    2. Who selected this group?
    3. I have the right to be in that group as I was the only person who had made objections to the SLSI 1134.
    4. I need a time to visit the ICTA and make a public presentations of the errors of the present SLSI 1134. (invite the media)

    enclosed a mail received by SLSI for your perusal
    or visit the following link
    http://www.akuru.org/images/Letter from SLSI.jpg

    Donald Gaminitillake

  109. My comments that were posted in siyabus has been deleted
    Great
    Using Tax payer money but tax payers are deprived to make the comments

    Quote from Wasantha
    it is good enough for us to use. Siyabas shows that it is even implemented in Apple Mac.
    Unquote

    Please visit the link below

    http://www.siyabas.lk/OS_Support

    See how Wasantha misguide the public. He is a govt servant paid by out tax money
    If he too misguide the public what has gone wrong with the ICTA

    Is he the second DINO

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  110. Sandun Gunarathne

    Donald, Naom et al, Shame on you.

    You are such a bunch of primary school kids you fell on Wasantha’s trap.

    He has been contributing (not with mud or death wishes as you guys do) to this blog earlier. Even Samarajiva who is an opponent of ICTA had appreciated his contribution in the early blogs. Wasantha exactly said that you are only trying to character assassinate and do not discuss any thing in civilized manner. So what have you done? Exactly what he said. You are naming him as the 2nd dino and reffering him as the person who advised government to block TamilNet, and he is the Hamuduruwo blah, blah and it will go on.

    He has exactly said that you mud throwers would ambush him if he comes to any discussion with you. You exactly did that.

    You guys do not know the meaning of “soft launch”. Soft launch is launching\opening some thing for a limited crowd for finding out faults\bugs to fine tune the solution. He has not asked feedback from any body other than from Sinhala Unicode Group where he has 260 odd firm believers of Sinhala Unicode. So their cult will test Siyabas and refine it before launching. It is not open for public or for you to complain.

    Also Donaldino is trying to mislead the Lirneasia bloggers by giving half tryths as usual and claiming that there is no Sinahala Unicode solution for Mac. You need to check the very bottom part of the link given by Donaldino (http://www.siyabas.lk/OS_Support) to find the Sinhala solution for Apple. Or you can also click the following link given in Siyabas.

    http://www.xenotypetech.com/osxSinhala.html

    Since I am an addicted Mac user I know Sinhala Unicode works fine in Macs.

    For me Siyabas is shaping out to be a very good site, showing versatility of Sinhala Unicode. It has been implemented in all platforms and nicely working in MS Office as well as Open Office. Text to Speech, OCR all have been done. You need to check the site before barking and biting.

    Why do not try to appreciate what has been achieved for Sinhala through Unicode.

    “People, who do not want to see, can not see”

    You might call me a back scratchers; but that is only or the people who do not want to see.

    Sandun

  111. I quoted from http://www.siyabas.lk/OS_Support
    And Wasantha had written that Siyabas do support Apple

    What you had given is a site to buy a product.
    This product may be able to use on MAC but there is no comment that the text is compatible across all platforms

    Why not come on a public arena and have Demo with me. OCR may work with a hidden set of characters but it will never be compatible across all platforms like the Latin script.

    I always talk of a standard for sinhala software. The present standard is incorrect and incomplete.

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  112. Hi Sandun,
    It looks like you are so worried about my point in above post 106. But go look again. What I said was that Mr. Deshapriya’s statement
    [q]I published it to be known “Only among the members of Unicode Group”[/q]
    was wrong. Because that group is not only visible to members. It was readable to public. As a responsible government officer he should not make such mistakes. Now it is so foolish to cover it up using back scratchers like you guys.

    And I asked Donald to go there and give them his feedback. As a institution funded by taxpayers money they should listen to all the opinions.

    I don’t care whether it is a soft or hard launch. If that was the problem they should have given that as the reason for not publishing any user comments.

    “People, who do not want to see, can not see” indeed! there is no yansaya, rakaransaya and reepaya in sinhala Unicode code chart. People who do not want to see this truth can not see the truth.

    This is not mudslinging. We are talking about issues and rights of general public.

    Mr. Donald,
    please wait until they do the “HARD LAUNCH” :). Then go there with your CAT case. Let others to continue other ICT policy issues here. We heard enough of your CAT fuck already.

  113. Post 113 (Mr Sandun Gunaratne):

    Please do not characterize me as an opponent of ICTA. Is there any evidence to support your claim?

    I was involved (with many others) in designing e Sri Lanka; getting the money to Sri Lanka, and then served on the Board of ICTA until I was asked to resign. I have donated a lot of my time and energy to ICTA. Why would I be an opponent of an entity I helped create?

    I have publicly disagreed with their telecenter strategy (http://www.lbo.lk/fullstory.php?newsID=2086475423&no_view=1&SEARCH_TERM=24) and with their recruitment procedures (http://www.lbo.lk/fullstory.php?newsID=2146526699&no_view=1&SEARCH_TERM=24) but surely that does not make me an opponent of ICTA, unless we live in some totalitarian reality.

    I have previously asked people to refrain from dragging me into these personality-based debates. I ask that again.

  114. Hi Noam

    To do any software in Sinhala the CAT has to be corrected. No CAT no Sinhala correct software.
    This site is Sri Lanka software issues not Japanese or Latin script issues.

    To work in sinhala the data has to be compatible like the LATIN script.

    Until that happens I post

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  115. Donald,

    You are the only one saying it is wrong. All the others are happy with the solution and they doing some work on it. I am sure those people are not stupid to do any development on an inorrect standard. You are just barking without doing anything. Don’t you understand that something wrong with you. If you have the correct standard, why don’t you publish it, so others can develop software based on that (Don’t ask us to buy your book).

    The way you behave on blogs, raises real concerns over your mental condition and the knowledge of IT.

  116. I have published the book ISBN 955-98975-0-0 If you want a copy send me the postal address.

    Why don’t you guys permit me a public presentation at the ICTA with media
    Answer the images that I will show.
    Most of the images are on
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/7528191@N04/

    No one ever answered the technical questions posted by me.
    Always drag the subject towards unwanted area of mudslinging.

    As you know software runs on a machine language. For human to understand the answers are displayed with proper text.

    For Sinhala to be displayed on a computer screen you need a “WAGUWA” or Matrix of Sinhala characters. The present Sinhala matrix which is SLSI 1134 is incomplete and incorrect.Therefore it cannot display the answers correctly without “Shaper”. If you need additional software to display the SInhala SLSI 1134 or Sinhala unicode it is an incomplete product. We got to correct this error.

    This is the issue I am addressing.

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  117. Accuracy of Sinhala

    I don’t want to be rude to Niranjan or his Shilpa Sayura. At least we haven’t seen it let alone using it. But can Niranjan or someone from ICTA explain us as to how the content in Shilpa Sayura was approved. Because one cannot take education for a joke. There should be a proper content development procedure (like NIE) and I am not sure if Niranjan was given green light from NIE. Kaputa may be good in technology, but can we expect him to be a good educationist? Who takes the responsibility of the accuracy of the content in SS?

    We don’t need to discourage Kaputa. But the content which goes to students should be correct. Kaputa seems having fun in his own empire in Google Group without coming to the places where problems are discussed.

    Donald is touching only the technical part of the language. What about the accuracy of the content? Do we have another Donald to talk about proper use of the Sinhalese grammar? I am not a good grammarian. But I do have doubts about Kaputa’s preaching.

    Read what he says,

    “ද්විත්ව උක්‌තය වාක්‍යයක කතෘ පද දෙකම උක්‌ත ස්‌වරූපය ගත් කල්හි,
    අඛ්‍යාතය හෙවත් අවසාන ක්‍රියාව උක්‌ත දෙකටම පොදු බහු වචනයෙන් තැබීම
    ද්විත්ව උක්‌තය නම් වේ.

    බොහෝ රියදුරෝ දක්‍ෂයෝ නොවෙති.
    අනාගත නායකයෝ අපි වෙමු.
    සිසුවියෝ ශිෂ්‍ය නායිකාවෝ වීමට කැමැත්තෝය.
    ඕ ක්‍රීඩිකාවක්‌ වුවාය.
    ඔහු ලේඛකයෙක්‌ විය.
    රිය අනතුරකින් පුද්ගලයෝ හතර දෙනකු තුවාල ලැබුවෝය.
    අප එක මවකගේ දරුවෝ වෙත්වා.
    සමහර උගතුන් විචාරශීලී බුද්ධිමතුන් නො වෙති …………… :)

    බලන්න. ශිල්ප සයුරින් ගමට හදපු දේ මේ.”

  118. First we have to get the character encoding done
    Then others can develop the E-dic and Grammer part
    For any one to develop any Sinhala software the characters have to be readable across all platforms without any additional software like “SHAPER”

    Once we achieve this the rest will follow like a chain reaction

    Today in some sinhala the “KU” is written the wrong way NOBODY says anything. Only I make a voice.

    See my images in Flicker I have given all the options and what you will get from using my method

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  119. Donald, Then why people say ‘මිතුරනි
    සිංහල යුනිකේතයේ අවුලක් ඇතැයි කියා මා සිතන්නේ නැහැ. එය දිනෙන් දිනම
    දියුණු වෙනවා. යම් කරුණු මත එය පිළි නොගන්නා අය සිටිනවා. එය අනවබෝධය කියා
    මා සිතන්නේ.?’

  120. If you give me time for a multimedia presentation I can show you the errors of the present Sinhala unicode equals to SLSI 1134.

    Even the Unicode Consortium talk about a security probelems in Sinhala unicode.

    If they think they are correct why dont they come forward for a public debate with enable internet facility

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  121. thushara wijeratna

    i visited Donald couple of weeks back and he showed me a number of sites, both on Windows and Mac, along with explanations of why sinhala characters look wrong in some systems – it is a compelling argument.

    i’m sure that these basic problems can be fixed by getting the shaper to acknowlege the intricacies – but that sure seems the harder way to go about this – by implementing the full character table (donald’s suggestion), it seems we can solve this more cleanly.

    anyway, i’m not an expert on the subject – why don’t you guys (opposing Donald’s viewpoint) take him up on his offer on a face-to-face chat – the guy is so desperate he will even foot the bill – i mean what do you have to loose? ;-)

  122. thushara wijeratna

    Also, somone made a comment why we need to worry about Sinnhala on the PC, as users need English to use a computer anyway.
    Apart from the fact that SL government does buisiness in Sinhala / Tamil (ex: forms) i’m sure we can think of lots more reasons why digitizing sinhala is a good thing –

    for one, imagine being able to Google for ‘Gam Peraliya’ in sinhala and have it take you to amazon.com where there will be a preview of the book that you can read, whether you use Safari,firefox or IE on Suse Linux, Windows or the Mac.

    imagine scanning sinhala past papers and storing them digitally to be used by students – apart from making the reach global, sigitizing will have the additional advantage of being able to search for phrases, cut and paste into other formats (ex: excel spreadsheet etc)

  123. not rude to anyone

    120. We can see are not rude to anyone who does something in Sinhala Language. You look like the enemy of anyone Communicating in Sinhala.

    I saw your postings at anti professor vks blog times back. Poor old man is dead with your curse. I see your hate here too. Where else I can see you other than this ? Kottu ? educationforum ? one network.

    You seems to be a greatest blogging failure of the history as you can not come out of anything of your own. You make a living by critizising on other people and their work.
    Others cant say anything to you as you have not done anything worth while other than being an internet parasite.

    Do a good research before you jump the gun to conclusions and critisize. You look like a real fool when you write nonsence.

    I am not being rude to you, but hate you for your dirty behavior on internet and anti sinhala approach.

    Get a Life man.

  124. Donald,
    Re 119:

    Why can’t you publish your solution on your web site ?. If it is realistic , developers might consider using it.

    What is the story about public debate ?. Arn’t these blogs are public ?. Don’t forget, for last 4 years, you have been engaged in a public debate throgh these blogs, though no one has accepted your solution.

    Do you have any technical knowledge to ask any technical questions ?. (At least are you familiar with any programming language).

    Regarding your quote on mud slinging. Who did the mud slinging first ?. You call VKS as “Jara Mahalla”. As all of us learnt from our parents and teachers it is a rude and an inapproiate word to call any elderly person. I am not sure whether it is common word in family backgroud. I am wonderng whether you call your father and mother as “Jara Mahalla” and “Jara Mahalla”.

    I am sure, you have a serious problem which requires medical attaention.

  125. I have a better technical knowledge in Typology and typography than any one of you in the Cintec or in the ICTA.

    Like Thusara why don’t you guys visit me and talk to me. If you have an office invite me for a presentation.

    Try to understand the Sinhala issue first rather moving to mudslinging activities.

    A public debate is a talk face to face. Show examples using internet. I can show many images where SLSI 1134 is incorrect. Mr Harsha offered a public debate on the TV. Other than Donald no one came forward. Everyone bolted.

    Visit
    Questioning ICT Myths
    You can read more about the beginning of this blog. Go and sort the words and see who commence these nicknames. I may have used these nick names but never commence a nick name other than “2nd Dino” .Not only VKS, others too had so many nick names in this blog. Why you worry about nick names?

    Come and meet me

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Collombo

  126. “Jara Mahalla” is not a nick name. Do you understand the meaning of it ?. Do you call your farther as “Jara Mahalla” ?

  127. Please answer the technical question posted. Why Unicode Sinahla equals SLSI 1134 cannot stand by itself without any additional software?

    Who made this error?

    When I pointed this out at the SLSI who over ruled it?

    All this work done with public funds and you will have to answer the public.

    There will be no sympathy from me on any one who uses public funds and does not give a proper product. Once the error has been pointed out you got to admit and correct it. If you want to make an issue of the nick name please do so but answer the public for the errors made by him. More you guys try to defend your master you all will expose more dirt which will hurt the soul. Better face the truth and facts correct the errors for the development of the country.

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  128. Nenasala ground to halt

    Nenasala ground to halt http://www.dailymirror.lk/2007/07/14/Rural/03.asp

    By Sanjeewani Ariyaratne

    The Nenasala Information Technology Training Centre in Ganewatta DS Division in Hiriyala electorate which was declared open by the Provincial Council Member (NWP) Laxman Perera ceased to function within days of opening.

    The training centre was established according to a concept of President Mahinda Rajapaksa to expand Information Technology at grass-roots level.

    However it is a matter of serious concern that Nenasala Information Technology Centre in Ganewatta has grounded to a halt in a short period of time.

    The residents of the area said the successful applicants were from the families of UNP supporters and that the Training Centre ceased to function due to political interference.

    Nenasala Information Technology Centre was intended to provide, Internet, E-Mail , E-Library Information and Computer Technology Training.

    The residents of the area accused the authorities for denying educational facilities to their children on political grounds.

  129. Re : 130

    Oh Dear, I don’t know, whether this man’s brain is in his head or somewhere else. I have seen no of educated people answering to your question. Obviously, there is a wide knowldege gap between you and rest of the people who are working in this area. As already suggested by someone, go and get a proper IT training.

    I visited number of Sinhala sites and blogs. I didn’t have any problem of reading or understanding them.

    I don’t how you came to the conclusion that VKS is my master. Pls explain.

    I don’t think Sinhala Unicode is a one person’s invention. As I am aware of, it is a work of well educated team (most of them are from Sri Lankan Universities).

  130. Come over I will show you what is the SLSI 1134 is.

    You may be able to see in your computer environment but not in internet across so many platforms.

    Face the errors in the Sinhala SLSI 1134 correct them for the betterment of our country before it is too late.

    You have no knowledge to see wide and answer the question posted in 130
    You can see images in
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/7528191@N04/

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  131. See the following link

    http://www.akuru.org/images/garbagesinhala2.jpg

    You can clearly see that the “SHAPER” is working but when you copy the text into the Word it reads as garbage

    Your Sinhala Solution is incorrect.

    Unicode consortium is correct by saying — http://www.unicode.org/review/pr-96.html

    quote To make matters worse, it’s possible to misapply format characters such that users can create strings that look the same but actually contain different characters, which can create security problems unquote

    The SLSI 1134 and Sinhala unicode is incorrect and incomplete

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  132. Leave it to the professionals to fix any outstanding issues. If you don’t agree or not wanting to use it, pls implement your solution. It shouldn’t be hard to find volunteers prepared to implement them as long as the solution is reaslistic and acceptable. This kind of blogging doesn’t do anything. It has already been proved. People use whatever the best available solution. At the moment, there is only one solution published and being implemented as long as I am concenerd.

    You can’t stop what other people are doing. Don’t forget as said before, they are not foolish. They are well qualified and educated people for the job.

    I belive, the best thing to do here is publish you solution, invite volunteers to implement it. There is no better public place other than the web.

    I think you already, tarnished your image by these low level blogging.

  133. If you cannot copy a simple text from IE to word one will know the knowledge they have.
    They have the knowledge to fool the public and fill the three bags with our money.

    Come on public arena I will show the public your Solution

    SLSI1134 and Sinhala Unicode is a incorrect solution

    Accept it

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  134. Those people have done something at least up to that level. Your haven’t done anything, instead blocking their work.

  135. Dear Mr Weeratunge

    I am writing this mail under the privilege given to me by the Hon President’s “Mahinda Chinthanaya”.
    As a Tax Payer I have been assigned the Special Number “xxxxxxxxxxx” by the inland revenue for this privilege — to meet and discuss with any Government Agency for dedicated service.

    The present Sinhala Solution is incorrect and incomplete. The annexed image proves that Simple Sinhala text cannot be copied from IE to Word.
    (IE= internet explorer, Word= Microsoft word)

    I request you sir permit me to do a presentation at ICTA to show the public the errors of the present SLSI 1134.
    I also request you to invite the media to be present.

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  136. Quote from 137

    Those people have done something at least up to that level.

    Unquote

    After spending millions of $ (US$) and 25 years Is this the product given by the CIntec and ICTA?
    This is public money that has been spent.

    There are no words in my sinhala vocabulary to use for the group of people who develop this incorrect Sinhala SLSI1134. Even the word “Jara Mahalla” is too good to address. Now it should be “PLURAL” may be more of them.

    Please do not fool the public admit the error.

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  137. I did the same test of 134 (copy and paste) with Lankaenews sinhala
    http://www.akuru.org/images/lankanewsTest.jpg

    Same Computer XP OS same IE browser same Word application

    1 line is latin font
    2 line AKandy New (hopefully a unicode font?? if I am incorrect pls tell me)
    3 line DL Araliya
    4 Line DL Ridma

    Unicdoe solution was not be able read correctly on word.

    BUT the Lankaenews text was able to read on Word document. BUT was not readable on A KAndy FONT which is a unicode font!!!

    So post explanations!!!

    We got to amend the SLSI 1134 for data to be compatible across all platforms

    The ICTA SINHALA SOLUTION is incorrect

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  138. Please visit the following link

    http://www.akuru.org/images/the_kit.jpg

    If Sinhala kit support Unicode Sinhala and SLSI 1134 why cant we copy a word from the browser IE and paste it into Microsoft Word?

    Is this Kit is actually a Sinhala unicode equals SlSL 1134 or other private commercial product???

    If it is a private product say so. ICTA Please do not fool the public anymore.

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  139. Please visit the following image

    http://www.akuru.org/images/Sinhalakit2.jpg

    This is a screen shot from the readme document which is available with the Sinhala kit given by the ICTA

    This installation advice clearly prove that we got to install the enabling pack from Microsoft.
    in addition to microsoft we have to install another software from MICROIMAGE.

    What we see in the IE browser is a software created by MICROIMAGE. That is why we cannot copy and paste the so called Unicode Sinhala text into WORD or to any other application
    Sinhala SLSI1134 need the support of MICROIMAGE sotware. Otherwise we read rubbish.

    This clearly prove my case that SInhala unicode equals SLSI1134 cannot stand alone. This has to be supported by a private commercial software.

    ICTA uses public money and show the world that it uses UNICODE but it is not unicode but a commercial product is given to the public.

    We got to voice and change the SLSI1134 for the betterment of Sri Lanka

    SLSI 1134 is incorrect and incomplete which cannot stand alone without any help from MICROIMAGE.

    The word “unicode” is used to misguide the public by the ICTA.

    Sri Lanka’s Sinhala IT is heading for disaster.

    Public should voice.

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  140. To All,

    I have given up replying insane people sometime ago. However, to ensure clarity for false allegations made by Donald in above post, I thought of dropping this note. Donald, it’s not ethical to put misleading information without knowing proper facts. Further, I am happy at least after 2 years time Mr. Donald has downloaded and played with this pack to identify the partners behind this. It took more than 2 years for him to find this reason. :-) The obvious reason would have been to read more and more unicode content that is emerging all over.

    Sinhala Enablement Pack for Win XP which is available to download was a volunteered effort of Microsoft, Microimage, ANCL, ICTA, University of Moratuwa and few others. There is no commercial involvement as this was done as a workaround till Microsoft natively support sinhala in future releases of their OS and related service packs at that time. Microimage volunteered for the driver development efforts on MS platforms as we wanted to contribute towards establishing unicode standard. Also there were similar efforts during this time by Linux user groups. The driver we developed was freely distributed with this pack and this is not a commercial product of microimage. Furthermore there was NO payment/license fee/royalty paid by any organization/ICTA or government for this driver and it’s distributed freely.

    Harsha Purasinghe

  141. The issue here is not any one paying any funds to Microimage I never asked or mentioned. It is not my problem. The Driver is a product of Microimage. Without this Driver the Sinhala is seen as rubbish. Am I wrong Harsha!!

    The Issue here is the Sinhala that we see is not based on Unicode. If it is based on unicode and microsoft we should be able to cut and paste the simple text from IE into word

    This is not happening. The Unicode Sinhala or SLSI 1134 cannot stand alone.
    What we see as per Mr Purasinghe it is a software developed by them.
    So if we read as Sinhala is the content backed by Microimage software That is why we cannot copy a text into any other application.

    The Sinhala unicode group has to be renamed as Microimage Sinhala group.

    Quote
    it’s not ethical to put misleading information
    Unquote

    I have not misled anyone. With the images all can see that the Sinhala unicode or SLSI 1134 cannot stand alone without additional software from a private company. Also we are unable to use the Sinhala text across all platforms and applications. This is the basic rule of Internet and Unicode consortium.

    This is the truth and the fact Harsha.

    We got to correct this error by listing all the Sinhala characters in the SLSI.

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  142. I opened some of the software in the KIT and found following

    1
    Copyright (c) 1990-1999 Stirling Technologies, Ltd. All Rights Reserved

    2
    Microimage Installation Zone\Microimage Installation\Sinhala Kit\Script Files\Setup.dbg

    3.
    This installation can only work with Microsoft Windows XP.

    So the ICTA solution only work on XP. Also only with a Microimage installing a software.

    Even then the Sinhala text cannot be copied across on any application that runs in XP.

    We have to change this error ASAP

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  143. Please visit

    http://www.akuru.org/images/sinhala_rubbish2.jpg

    If we are unable to produce a simple sinhala character “KRI”

    “carom kridawa” where are we heading??

    Is this the working solution that Wasantha defends!!!

    Also is this the software developed by Harsha’s Microimage???

    I have no sympathy on both of you for destroying my language Sinhala

    Accept the errors and lets correct it. First correction is the SLSI1134.

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  144. Apoptosis is a known as cells self destruction mechanism.

    Today Sinhala language is facing the same issue of self destruction due to the lack of knowledge.

    All this is because of few tottering tycoons who are controlling the subject

    Only the captain got out but there are more players in this game.

    Voice to save the Language Sinhala.

    http://www.akuru.org/images/sinhala_rubbish2.jpg
    http://www.akuru.org/images/Sinhalakit2.jpg

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  145. Please visit the screen shot

    http://www.akuru.org/images/Pra_sinhala_5.jpg

    Answer why the character “PRA” is written in two different ways.
    The character below is correct the above character is the strings of the input

    This is what the unicode consortium is worried
    http://www.unicode.org/review/pr-96.html

    quote
    To make matters worse, it’s possible to misapply format characters such that users can create strings that look the same but actually contain different characters, which can create security problems
    Unquote

    This is one of the reasons that I say the SLSI 1134 and Sinhala unicode are wrong need to be corrected

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  146. There was a very good article in Sinhala Sunday Diwaina29 july 2007) News paper Page 3 (Kalina) written by one Chales Dayananda

    It is a full page write up.

    I will scan it and upload to Akuru soon and let you know

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  147. http://www.akuru.org/images/diwaine_July29.jpg

    Please visit above link
    The content is in Sinhala

    This is the situation in our country without the use of computer
    We have registered an incomplete Sinhala in the SLSI 1134

    Where are we heading!!! we are heading for a disaster!!!!!!!!

    Help to save the Language Sinhala

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  148. මිතුරු මිතුරියනි,
    සියබස් හි “නිති අසන පැන” http://www.siyabas.lk/faq පිටුව සඳහා ප්‍රශ්න
    හා පිළිතුරු අවශ්‍ය කර තිබේ.
    කරුණාකර මෙය ගොඩ නැගීමට ඔබේ සහය දෙන්න.
    ආරම්භයක් ලෙස ආදර්ශ පැන හා පිළිතුරු කිහිපයක් යෙදු මුත් එය කිසිසේත්
    ප්‍රමාණවත් නොවේ.
    තරුණාකර ඔබ සිංහල යුනිකෝඩ් භාවිතය ආරම්භ කළ අවස්ථාවේ දී ඔබ මුහුණ පෑ
    ගැටළු ගැන ද දැන් නවකයෙකු සිංහල යුනිකෝඩ් භාවිතයට එළඹෙන විට මතු වන ගැටළු
    ගැන ද සිතා එම “පැන හා පිළිතුරු” ඉහත පළ කිරීමට අපට (siyabas-
    feedback@icta.lk, wasantha@icta.lk හෝ wasanthadeshapriya@gmail.com) ලියා
    එවන්න.

    සියබස් සිංහල යුනිකෝඩ් ප්‍රජාවේ වෙබ් අඩවියයි! එහි දියුණුව අප සැමගේ
    දායකත්වය මත රඳා පවතී!

    ස්තුතියි!

    වසන්ත

  149. Dear Wasantha

    See the following link

    http://www.akuru.org/images/garbagesinhala2.jpg

    You can clearly see that the “SHAPER” is working but when you copy the text into the Word it reads as garbage

    So your Sinhala unicode is an incorrect solution.

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  150. Please visit the
    http://www.akuru.org/images/vikalpa1.jpg

    We need not download a font to read a PDF document?
    Any computer running on any OS can read the PDF Vikalpa News letter without downloading any kind of font.

    If we have correct Sinhala unicode why do we have to make a document in pdf format?

    This is because the SINHALA UNICODE is incomplete solution

    Please stop fooling the public.

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  151. More Vikalpa Sinhala from Vikalpa web site

    see

    http://www.akuru.org/images/srimaha.jpg

    and

    http://www.akuru.org/images/pradana1.jpg

    Sinhala unicode unable to render “Sri Ma” and the simple word “Pra”

    Is this the workable solution of Mr Harsha Purasinghe (see above 143) had made for ICTA?

    This is not only an incomplete solution but also an inferior solution for the country

    You guys incl Wasantha will have to take the responsibility for Maiming my Language Sinhala.

    Donald Gaminitillake

  152. UCSC Technical Report 03/01 – page4

    http://www.ucsc.cmb.ac.lk/ltrl/publications/uni_sin.pdf

    “”The UNICODE standard is an attempt to get out of the chaos thus caused, and assigns a unique number (code point) for every character of every conceivable language independent of the application and the computer platform on which such textual data is to be stored””

    “”UNICODE provides for both ‘precomposed characters’ AND ‘composite character sequences’ for representing characters.””

    “”Owing to its 16-bit encoding, UNICODE is theoretically able to support over 65,000 unique character code points. In fact, since this may be not enough at some point, there is UTF-16 extension mechanism in UNICODE that will allow almost 1 million character code points to be assigned for future expansion.””

    We have gone the wrong way by using the ‘composite character sequences’

    Now we have to change over to the ‘precomposed characters’

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  153. Visit

    http://www.akuru.org/images/differentbrowser.jpg

    This is a IT security threat. Unicode consortium accept this error.

    Only correction is my ‘precomposed characters’ system

    SLSI1134 and Unicode Sinhala is a incorrect and inferior product

    Unicode consortium is correct by saying — http://www.unicode.org/review/pr-96.html

    quote To make matters worse, it’s possible to misapply format characters such that users can create strings that look the same but actually contain different characters, which can create security problems unquote

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  154. Mr Gaminitillaka,

    Over the past year I have been asked by many people to shut down this thread or to exert editorial control over it. I have declined to do so for reasons that are in the public domain.

    I said a thread will not be closed down as long as there is an ongoing dialogue. You will agree with me that the dialogue has stopped on this thread and you are now the only participant, placing comments under various names (but to your lasting credit, always signing off with your own name).

    This is to inform you and other readers that “Software issues in Sri Lanka Part 8” will be the last one in this series. There will be no Part 9.

    You can continue to engage in monologue until this reaches 200 comments and is closed off, or you can consider this shut down as from now. Thank you for your contributions to advancing the discussion and for writing without the cover of anonymity or pseudonimity.

  155. Dear Dr Rohan

    I want to continue until we have a solution. Readable Sinhala text across all Platforms like English.

    Visit

    http://www.akuru.org/images/pariganakaaugust2007.jpg

    I have proved that the present solution is inferior, incomplete and incorrect.

    Choice is yours

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  156. Have you ever read about QR coding or 2d bar codes developed by Denso Wave Inc

    QR code data capacity is 7089 numeric characters or 4296 Alphanumeric or Dinary (8 bits) 2953 or Full width kanji type 1817 characters

    Today Camera phones are moving towards the scanning world
    Nokia N93 is capable of using QR codes

    All Sinhala characters are not registered in the unicode consortium and we are going to left behind this race

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  157. I have written another news paper article

    http://www.akuru.org/images/lakbima_Oct_4_2007_web.jpg

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Consultant
    Ingrin Institute of Printing and Graphic Sri Lanka Ltd

  158. Quote
    There is a standard extant for Sinhala described in A Standard Code for
    Information Interchange in Sinhalese by V.K. Samaranayake and S.T. Nandasara
    (ISO-IEC JTC1/SCL/WG2 N 673, Oct. 1990). The coding proposed in it was found
    to be an inadequate basis for a modern, computer-based interchange code,
    though it is adequate to handle the capabilities of a Sinhala typewriter for
    representing contemporary colloquial Sinhala. In addition, the document is
    ambiguous as to coding order — presumably, given the graphic decomposition
    in the code set, the text stream is to be coded in visual, not phonetic order.
    An additional problem is that there is no provision to handle exceptional
    cases. For example, RA U/UU is, as is common in the Brahmi family, written in
    a non-standard way.
    Unquote

    Above is from

    http://www.unicode.org/Public/TEXT/UTR-2.TXT

    When I do more research these things props up.

    Donald Gaminitillake

  159. Lakbima Article by Donald G

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    – »h£pz‰H [£ñÚÜzY

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  160. Dear Lalith,

    The Sinhala Unicode standard was not developed in Sri Lanka. It was designed by an American called Daniels and then picked up by a font maker called Everson. The proposal of the Unicode standard for Sri Lanka was proposed by Everson and endorsed by Camillus Jayewardena Ven. Mettavihari who is a Dane. As usual do not expect a University don inn Lanka to think. They are robots. You and I know it.

    Do you know that Everson is proposing new amendments for Sinhala? Whose language is Sinhala, Lalith?

    http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n3195.pdf

    What do you have to say about it?

    ICTA mutts and university of Sri Lanka is deaf & dumb as ever.

    Unicode standard for Sinhala was made in America and will be extended in America.

    The frogs in the well croak and croak. That’s it.

    Give me the credentials to save the Sinhala language from all these vultures

    Truly

    Donald Gaminitillake
    258-8893
    0777-601-373

  161. Hey Man Donald Gaminitillake

    Lets start..new discussion

    What happend to your application for ICTA.

  162. New discussion is talk about Everson and his sinhala unicode

    Where is Helaya and the rest. The pro sinhala group!!!

    That is why I said all are deaf and dumb

    Now no head and all of them are devil dancing
    Everson is going to mess up the balance sinhala

    We got to face the truth and solve the problem

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  163. Hey Donald.. I dont know your this MAKKA discussion always.
    Can you tell me where is the problem in Unicode.

    we can see lot of websites in Unicode in sinhala without any problem.

    For exampale

    This one of the best exmaple.
    http://www.vfmlanka.com
    Reason I love this site.

    We can hear to real sinhala, and read sinhala with unicode write sinhala with unicode.

    What the problem with YOU
    Poor man …i cant undustnatd…

  164. To see your vfmlanka one need to install additional software
    It will only work with windows XP and linux
    It will not work on Windows Professional version or on any other Microsoft OS (incl Apple)

    Quote from Unicode Consortium
    “What is Unicode?
    Unicode provides a unique number for every character,
    no matter what the platform,
    no matter what the program,
    no matter what the language.”
    Unquote

    Therefore all Sinhala characters should be registered with Unicode Consortium.

    Read 160 and 161 on this blog

    If you need more please contact me and meet me at Ingrin

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  165. ඔයගොල්ලෝ දන්නවාද මේ ඩොනල්ඩ් ගාමිනීතිලක කියන මහත්මයා. එයා, එළදෙනගේ අඟින් කිරි දොවන්න හදනවා. මං මේ කියන්නේ අලුතින් එන සමහරු මේ ගොල්ලෝ කියන දේවල් පිලිගනියි (ඇත්තටම පිලිගන්න අය ඉන්නවා). ඊට පස්සේ කොහොම හරි ඒගොල්ලන්ගෙම යුනිකේත ක්රමයක් හදාගත්තොත් රි මේව වෙනස් කරන්න ගියොත් හරි, හරිම ජංජාල වෙයි.
    එයාගේ සිංහල හෝඩියේ අකුරු 1660 කටත් වැඩිය තියනවාලු. එහෙම වුනොත් programming කරන්න හරිම අමාරුනේ. හුඟාක් ලොකූ key board එකක් හෙමත් ඕනෑ වේවි!
    එයාගේ එකම තර්කය මේ යංසය හා රේපය ට වෙනම code point දෙන්න ඕනෑලු. එහෙම නැතිව යුනිකේත සම්පූර්ණ නැහැලු, ඒක නිසා ඒක අසම්පූර්ණයිලු.
    අපේ කැම්පස් එකේ කිහිප දෙනෙකුත් මේ කතාව ඉහලින්ම විශ්වාස කරනවා (අදහනවා) [ඩොනල්ඩ් ඇදහීම]. මම ඉතින් එක් එක්කෙනාට වෙනම පැහැදිලි කරලා දුන්නා.
    අර, “එක අකුරක් අඩු වීම පුත්ර ලාභයක් වගේ” කියලා කිව්වේ කවුද? ඒකේ සංස්කෘත ශ්ලෝකය කවුරු හරි දන්නවාද?
    එයා කියන විදිහට යුනිකේතයේ ඔච්චර ඉඩ තියන එකේ සිංහලට 1660 ක් ඉඩ දෙන්න බැරිද, ලු? O.o එතකොට සිංහලට වෙනම font එකක් හැදුනොත් ඉතින් යුනිකේතයෙන් වැඩක් නැහැනේ!
    මම එතනදී හර්ශුලගේත් අනුරාධගේත් වතුර = හයිඩ්රජන් ඔක්සිජන් උදාහරණය දැක්කා. ඒක ඉතාම හොඳ උදාහරනයක්.
    අපි මේ තර්ක වලට ඒගොල්ලන්ටම උත්තර දීලා හරියන්නේ නැහැ නේද. මහජනතාව දැනුවත් කරන්න ඕනැ නේද. මොකද අන්තර්ජාලය ඔස්සේ ලඟා වෙන්න බැරි බොහෝ දෙනා පරිගනක පාවිච්චි කරනවා, සිංහල භාවිතා කිරීමට කැමැතෙන් ඉන්නවාත් ඇති.

  166. විශ්ව කුමාර,

    සි.යුත වල එකම දෙයක් වත් 100% ක් හරි නැති කථාව ටිකක් පැහැදිලි කරනවද?
    මම තාක්ෂණිකයෙක් (techy කෙනෙක්) නම් නෙවෙයි. ඒත් සියබස්වලත් දක්වපු විදියට මූලික කටයුතු (උදා: XP, Vista, Linux සියල්ල, MS Office, Open Office, IE) ආදියේ ගැටළු නැහැ නේද? තවත් මෘදුකාංග වේදිකා හා නිපැයුම් රාශියක අපේ සමූහයේ මිතුරන් දැනට කටයුතු කරගෙන යනවා. රෝමයත් හැදුවෙ එක
    දවසින් නෙවෙයිනෙ. පසුගිය වසරේ සි.යු. දියුණුව ඝාතීය හෙවත් exponential. එයට ඉතා විශාල දායකත්වයක් සමූහයෙන් ලැබුනා. මම අපේ සි.යු. තාක්ෂණික නියමුවන්ගෙන් රේපය හා යන්සය ගැන විමසූ විට ලැබුනු පිළිතුර නම් ඒ දෙකට ම විශේෂ වූ codepoints තිබුනා නම් වඩාත් හොඳයි නමුත් නැති වීම නිසා සි.යු. වල කිසිදු අඩුවක් නැති බවයි. තාක්ෂණික ව එයින්
    සි.යු. පරිගණක කටයුතු දේශීයකරණය සඳහා කිසිදු බාධාවක් නොමැති බවයි. මම හිතන්නෙ අපි කවුරුත් සි.යු. හි නිවැරදිතාවය ගැන අප දරණ මතය පතළ කරලා අනෙක් අය දිනා ගැනීමට උත්සාහ කළ යුතුයි. මෙය ට විරුද්ධ අයට හර්ෂුළ හා අනුරාධ ලියපු තාක්ෂණික පිළිතුරු හොඳට ම ප්රදමාණවත්. ඒවා පහත සබඳිවලින් ලබා ගන්න පුළුවන්.
    http://anuradha-ratnaweera.blogspot.com/2007/05/unicode-and-sinhala-a
    http://anuradha-ratnaweera.blogspot.com/2006/03/is-sinhala-unicode-in
    http://anuradha-ratnaweera.blogspot.com/2006/03/sinhala-unicode-on-gn
    http://sinhala.sourceforge.net/archive/akuru.org/0024.html
    වසන්ත

  167. Donald Duck,

    One of your competirot, Mr Tamil Selvan is now rest in peace. You too should be careful. How many bottles of arrack you offered to the writer who wrote on behalf of you to Lakbima paper?

    What are the positions you held in press industry in Japan. Do you think Jpanese people are crazy to recruit a person like you for a press. How much you spent on developing you Akuru set ? Dont worry you cant get the patent for that within this life. Go to a temple and do some meditation. May be you will get something in your next life.

  168. I am happy that there are several in the blog after a long time

    About the “Janjalaya”

    Yes there will be a “BIG Janjalaya” if you don’t change the coding according to my instructions. I have asked Wasantha to come for a public debate where I will show he is wrong. Not with words but by examples using computers.

    Second
    The myth about a large keyboard for Sinhala

    NO — the approved Wijesekera keyboard or QWERTY keyboard or any future develop key board can be used in my proposed system. Irrespective to the use of the keyboard you will get the same character in all applications and on any Operating system.

    The problem of Vishva kumara is he has not seen the full unicode character set. Or the Unicode matrix for all characters registered in the consortium. One can access all these characters using the qwerty keyboard, except Sinhala.

    To get at Sinhala you need a additional software called the “Language KIT” this will work only on XP not in any other OS.

    Just because you have “H” and “O” you will not get water. To get water you need to satisfy certain conditions. You need “Language KIT” to do this

    To get “Ø” there is a sequence but Ø is registered as a one character in unicode all of us will be able to read it on any OS. This will not happen with Sinhala. This is the problem I am addressing.

    I am happy to hear that some in the university has open their eyes and thinking beyond a typewriter.

    Come for a public debate — “Are you ready”

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  169. To the writer “Green” 170

    Why not answer the contents of the article? Place some answers in the blog
    I wish you have some upstairs to read sinhala and make a comment relating to the content.

    Donald

  170. Visit http://icta.lk/insidepages/ICTA/BOFD.asp Can people still say that ICTA board is a Jurassic Park? Now there are people to represent minorities as well. Since there are no links to any of these people’s personal/academic information, we don’t know whther they are too old like the previous lot.

    Professor P. W. Epasinghe Acting Chairman
    Mr. Chandima Rasaputra CEO/Board Director
    Dr. Vinya Ariyaratne Board Director
    Mr. R. B. Ekanayake Board Director
    Mr. M. D. R. Senanayake Board Director
    Mr. A. E. Z. Fernando Board Director
    Dr. Vijaya Kumar Board Director
    Mr. Neil Umagiliya Board Director

  171. Donald Uncle

    Can you make baby unicode for us. Then i can play like my dady. We like to know your latest baby joke.

    dont forget to answer with your baby joke.

    We love you because you like mad cow

    Bye bye for now.. write me…OK uncle

  172. To the writer ICTA Board

    I want to be in that list. But I don’t know why Sri Lanka government not think about me

    I Hope new list like

    Donald Gaminitillake Chairman
    Mr. Chandima Rasaputra CEO/Board Director
    Dr. Vinya Ariyaratne Board Director
    Mr. R. B. Ekanayake Board Director
    Mr. M. D. R. Senanayake Board Director
    Mr. A. E. Z. Fernando Board Director
    Dr. Vijaya Kumar Board Director
    Mr. Neil Umagiliya Board Director

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  173. We can see http://www.bbc.co.uk/tamil/ well in Tamil characters. Why can’t we see http://www.bbc.co.uk/sinhala/ in Sinhala Characters. The site is in English

  174. This is a good question posted to be answered by people like Wasantha or University guys

    My answer is Sinhala unicode is incomplete and incorrect cannot be used across all platforms without additional software.

    quote
    it is adequate to handle the capabilities of a Sinhala typewriter for representing contemporary colloquial Sinhala.
    unquote

    http://www.unicode.org/Public/TEXT/UTR-2.TXT

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  175. I am sad to say this but archaic government officers like Mr. Wasantha will never understand the true needs of the people. They will never give what the people ask for. When public asks for bread they plates! (After so many years in government service, their brains are too rusted – malakada kaalaa.)

    The entire e-government programme in the e-Sri Lanka is aimed at *empowering the bureaucrats* and *not* the people like you and me. I challenge Mr. Wasantha to prove that his work is for the people and not to further enhance the state machinery so they can harass the people in a more efficient manner.

    E-government systems have failed to deliver in so many places, not just in Sri Lanka. See I have heard it is the same with Bhoomi in Karnataka. Before the system a farmer has to wait for so many weeks to get his land certificate. After the system also it is the same. The computer takes only few minutes to generate it but the officers do not input the data till the farmer bribes him. So from the farmer’s angle this is not an improvement. Wasantha uncle’s e-government solutions too are like that. They will only open new avenues for Wasantha uncle’s government colleagues to take more and more bribes from the people.

    ICTA boasts they issue birth certificates in 10 minutes at Thimbirigasyaya. A friend of mine had to waste a half day to get a copy of a birth certificate. When asked about 10 minutes, they have said it is only the time to digitise the document! That does not include the time to find the certificate or the time the applicant has to wait in the queue. That is the type of e-government Wasantha uncle is talking about. Such systems will never make the life easy for poor people. Only good for politicians to boast and bureaucrats to earn some extra money.

    Now, as if he has no other work to do this Wasantha uncle has started fighting with Mr. Donald Gaminitilake over something not even within his mandate. Is this for what Wasantha uncle is paid for by the people’s money? Why he is so worried about unicode?

  176. What Wasantha is worried is if my system is implemented within 3 years one will be able to get the documents done even from a super market. Similar to e payment for Dialog phones.

    First they will have to accept my system then with my advise there will be lots of activity in regarding data entry. At least they can start from 2010 and move backwards by every 5 years. Once it is formatted could speed up the data entry process.

    Lots of work for unemployed graduates and Rana Viru personals. I need at least over 50,000 to 100,000 to work on data entry 24/7 basis.

    All this is blocked for personal gains of few individuals

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  177. ඒකම තමයි මමත් කියන්නේ.

    අපි කිසිම ප්‍රශ්ණයක් නැතිව සි.යු. පාවිච්චි කරනවා. ඒත් තවම ඒ ගැන
    අවොබෝධයක් නැති අය බොහෝ ඉන්නවා. ඒ අය මුලින්ම ඔය ඩොනල්ඩ් වගේ අය ගෙන් බණ
    අහලා එනවා ඊට පස්සේ ඇවිත් නිතරම කියනවා මේක වැරදියි කියලා. මේ සම්බන්ධව
    වැඩ කල හැකි හැකියාවක් තියන අය පවා සි.යු. ගැන ටිකක් පසුගාමී මත දරනවා.

    මේවගේ දුර්මත අලුතින් එන අයගේ අවබෝධයට බාධාවක් නේද.

    යංසය රේපය විතරක් නෙමෙයි රකාරාංශයට වුනත් වෙනම code points අවශ්‍ය නැහැ.
    මොකද ඒවා නිතර භාවිතා වන අකුරු නෙමෙයි. කොහොම හරි අපි ඒවා ලියනවානේ.

    100% ක් හරි නැති කතාව මම කියපු දෙයක් නෙමෙයි.
    තියන දෙයින් මම සතුටු වෙනවා. එහෙම නැතිනම් මමම හදාගන්නවා, ඒත් සම්මතයක්
    තියනවානම් ඒකට අනුගත වීම නුවණට හුරුයි. ඒකයි මගේ ධර්මය…

    ඕනෑ කෙනෙක්ට තමාගේම මතයක් තියාගන්න අයිතියක් තියනවා. ඒකට මම ගරු කරනවා.
    අපිට කාවවත් convert කරන්න ඕනෑ නැහැනේ. ඒත් දුර්මතයේ සිටිනවාට වඩා ඒක
    සමාජයේ පතුරවන එක අපරාධයක්!

  178. Vishva kumara

    Why dont you come to my office and see your own comment 183 on two different operating systems. One Windows XP other one on Windows XP Professional

    XP will see correct sinhala with the language KIT XP professional will see garbage sinhala even with the language KIT rest of the operatings systems other than Linux will also see garbage or rubbish Sinhala.

    I talk not only on yansaya or repaya but we have to add all the sinhala characters into the unicode

    Donald Gaminitillake
    290 D R Wijewardena Mawatha Colombo 10

  179. I totaly agree with Vishva Kumara

    Donald Gaminitillake has to go to Angoda

  180. The reality is given in 181, why don’t you comment on 181.
    Have you ever tried a different OS to see Sinhala?

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  181. According to what I have heard when a mistake is done one has to do three A’s. Admit, Apologise and Address.

    Unfortunately this is not forthcoming from ICTA.

    Everybody, including Wasantha, Vishva Kumara and Ananadawardena responded in this thread earlier admit that (finally) Donald Gaminitilake is correct is saying Sinhala Unicode is incomplete because they acknowledge the absence of individual code points for yansaya, repaya etc and joint characters. However, instead of addressing the issue (forget apologising) they suggest to forget those ‘rarely used’ characters. Is this the approach we should take?

    Why this reluctance to correct a simple mistake?

    This approach is seen even in the other projects of ICTA. Take Nanasala for example. Everyone knows Nanasalas are not sustainable and the day the project money drains all of them will be history. (Some are already closed) However, instead of addressing this issue of un-sustainability even at this later stage, ICTA further burdens Nanasala with more unsustainable modules like ‘Shilpa Sayura’. Why build houses on temporary foundations?

    Come on, everyone does mistakes. Nobody makes things perfect first time. Why cannot we simply admit that and correct ourselves rather than ridiculing people who point out those mistakes?

  182. Thank you positive thinker for writing truth. At last I found a correct comment in this blog. If you read the sinhala divaina news paper you would see the public voice is coming out
    http://www.divaina.com/2007/11/13/news04.html
    (you will need special fonts to read it)
    (I will try to purchase a news paper and scan the text.)

    They talk of the Language Sinhala I talk about the sinhala characters. We need both hand in hand to move this country foward.

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  183. මම දකින හැටියට සර්වත්‍ර කේතන ක්‍රමයක් හඳුනවා දී එය ක්‍රියාත්මක කිරීමේ
    පහසුකම ලබා දෙන ආයතනයයි යුනිකෝඩ් කොන්සෝටියම. එය සුදුසු යතුරු පුවරුවකට අනුගත කොට ශ්‍රී ලංකා ප්‍රමිතියක් ලෙස තනා ගත්තෙ ශ්‍රී ලංකිකයො වන අපි. යුනිකෝඩ් කේතන ක්‍රමය වෙනස් කිරීමේ අයිතිය ඇත්තේ යුනිකෝඩ් කොන්සෝටියමටයි.

    ඒත් ඒ වෙනස් කිරීම් සඳහා යෝජනා කිරීමට අයිතිය ඇත්තේ කාටද යන්නයි පැනය!
    මේ දක්වා සි.යු. හා අදාළ ප්‍රතිපත්තිමය තීරණ ගත්‎තේ දේශීය භාෂා මධ්‍ය
    කණ්ඩායමයි- Local Languages Core Group. (එය විසුරුවා හැර දේශීය භාෂා වැඩ
    කණ්ඩායමක් – Local Languages Work Group තැනීමටයි දැන් තීරණය.) මධ්‍ය
    කණ්ඩායම ගත් එක් අවසන් තීරණයක් වූයේ සිංහල යුනිකෝඩ් ගැන යෝජනා ඉදිරිපත්
    කිරීමේ මූලික අයිතිය ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ තො. තා. පිළිබඳ රාජය ආයතනය වන ඉක්ටා
    සතු විය යුතු බවත් හා සිංහල යුනිකෝඩ් වෙනස් කම් කිරීමේ දී ඉක්ටා සමග
    සාකච්ඡා තළ යුතු බවත් යුනිකෝඩ් කොන්සෝටියමට යෝජනා කල යුතු බව හා එය
    ක්‍රියාත්මක කිරීමට කටයුතු කල යුතු බවත්ය. තවද යුනිකෝඩ් කොන්සෝටියමේ
    මාසික රැස්වීම් තැබෙනුයේ ඇමෙරිකාවේ බටහිර වෙරළ ආශ්‍රිත ප්‍රදේශයක හෙයින් ඒ හා සමීප සරසවියක සේවයේ නියුතු සි.යු. ගැන මනා වැටහීමක් ඇති ශ්‍රී
    ලාංකිකයෙකු සහභාගි කරවිය යුතු බවත් තීරණය විය.
    මෙය ක්‍රියාත්මක කිරීමේ ඉක්ටා දැන් යෙදී සිටී.

    වසන්ත

  184. Wasantha you are wrong and misguiding the public.

    First read 161 and 163.

    The Sinhala Unicode standard was not developed in Sri Lanka. It was designed by an American called Daniels and then picked up by a font maker called Everson.

    I quote from unicode consortium
    Unicode Technical Report #2 The Sinhala proposal was written by Andy Daniels.
    Status of this document
    This document has been considered and approved by the Unicode Technical Committee for publication as a Technical Report. At the current time, the specifications in this technical report are provided as information and guidance to implementers of the Unicode Standard,

    http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr2.html

    quote
    There is a standard extant for Sinhala described in A Standard Code for
    Information Interchange in Sinhalese by V.K. Samaranayake and S.T. Nandasara
    (ISO-IEC JTC1/SCL/WG2 N 673, Oct. 1990). The coding proposed in it was found
    to be an inadequate basis for a modern, computer-based interchange code,
    though it is adequate to handle the capabilities of a Sinhala typewriter for
    representing contemporary colloquial Sinhala.
    Unquote

    Now download following and read it yourself

    http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n3195.pdf

    quote from above

    ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2 N3195R

    Doc Type: Working Group Document
    Title: Proposal to add archaic numbers for Sinhala to the BMP of the UCS
    Source: Michael Everson
    Status: Individual Contribution
    Action: For consideration by JTC1/SC2/WG2 and UTC
    Replaces: N1473R
    Date: 2007-02-08
    This document requests twenty additional characters to be added to the UCS and contains the proposal

    Unquote

    Michael Everson will change the unicode sinhala as and he wish. ICTA has no say with these guys.

    We need not honour these changes nor accept it but change the SLSI 1134 as per my instructions
    This is the only path to save the Sinhala language.

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  185. Vishva Kumara (168),

    H2 O2 = H2O is a weak example because H2O is not the only compound formed by H2 and O2. You have forgotten H2O2. (Hydrogen Peroxide)

    In a standard, the codes have to be unique. When not properly defined and there is room for ambiguity how do you guarantee a developer tomorrow would not use the same combination of code points to develop and entirely different character? That is why we need a Character Allocation Table defined.

    Till we do that Sinhala Unicode is incomplete.

  186. Chintaka you are perfect. ICTA is going to have a discussion and I wanted to participate in that. They had declined my participation.

    I am publishing that mail for records.

    Donald Gaminitillake

    Dear Mr. Gaminitilake,
    We regret to inform you that the review committee has decided that the work you have presented does not meet the required criteria relevant for inclusion in the Sinhala / Tamil Unicode application localization meeting.
    Regards,
    Aruni Goonetilleke,
    Program Manager

    ICT Agency of Sri Lanka
    160/24, Kirimandala Mawatha, Colombo-5
    Phone: 94 11 2369099 to 100, ext 98
    http://www.icta.lk

  187. Donald,

    From the above posts of yours (188) and Wasantha’s (187) it is evident that ICTA currently has no control over Sinhala Unicode. ICTA and UCSC always implied their control over the Sinhala character set, but now it looks like Unicode consortium treats them only like any another interested party, and not as the authority on these matters. (That is why Wasantha crying in 187)

    So if they can why not you? Why do you waste time fighting with ICTA when they have no control? Why not directly approach Unicode consortium and market your solution to them?

    That is what Mr. Michael Everson seemed to have done. Now he will change Sinhala Unicode while you waste your time locking horns with ICTA.

    Change your approach man! There is no point wasting your time over methods proven ineffective repeatedly.

  188. What we have to do is change the SLSI 1134
    Sinhala belongs to Sri Lanka we have to a\manage our language

    We need unicode only of we write engish or Swahili using sinhala characters IF not we can do without unicode.

    But we need a proper character allocation table for Sinhala for the software developes to develop content

    ICTA was given enough funding to do this job that is why I point my fingers at them. They should stop all the work and redo it using a proper character allocation table for sinhala which was design by non other than myself

    Donald Gaminitillake

  189. Dhammika,

    Donald is not interested in Sinhala language.

    If he is, he will not have waited this long. He would have implemented his system without wasting time.

    He spends time to write articles and blog posts bashing Sinhala Unicode.

    For all these years, he never spent time to write a single line of code to prove his point.

    Those who are promoting Unicode are doing a lot of projects and most of them are publically available for people to use for free of charge.

    Donald is dreaming of:

    – Getting a patent for his so called system and earn royalties

    – Becoming the chairman of ICTA

    – Getting lots of funded projects

    His love is with money and fame, not language!

  190. I have done the research and published my character allocation table

    ISBN 955-98975-0-0

    First you got to accept your error in the SLSI 1134 then either you solve it by yourself or invite me to solve the problem

    When ICTA enjoys funded projects which is useless to the Sinhala community Why cant I do a proper job and earn a fee.

    Why cant I be the chairman or the CEO of the ICTA? I have applied and I do have the qualifications and proved success better than a security person.

    I P R is given by the law of the country. If Adobe , Microsoft ,Apple or any software or hardware maker can have their systems and processes patented why cant I ?

    When Unicode Technical Committee says “”The coding proposed in it was found to be an inadequate basis for a modern, computer-based interchange code,””

    You guys have made him a hero of Sinhala unicode and give a state funeral!!!!
    Today you all can have one with the “SInhala unicode” for yourselves

    What a beautiful country we live, enjoy it

    Donald Gaminitillake

  191. Behold! The cat is out of the bag!

    Donald says: “When ICTA enjoys funded projects which is useless to the Sinhala community Why cant I do a proper job and earn a fee.”

    By saying so, Donald admits that he is after a “proper job” and “earning a fee”.

    Donald says: “Why cant I be the chairman or the CEO of the ICTA? I have applied and I do have the qualifications and proved success better than a security person.”

    By saying so, Donald admits that he is after the Chairman/CEO position of the ICTA. It’s a “proper job” and then he can influence getting pet projects for himself and “earn a fee”.

    Donald says: “P R is given by the law of the country. If Adobe , Microsoft ,Apple or any software or hardware maker can have their systems and processes patented why cant I ?”

    By saying so, Donald admits that he is after collecting royalties for his system. Sinhala Unicode is the only thing between him and his cunning goal.

    Donald says: “You guys have made him a hero of Sinhala unicode and give a state funeral!!!!”

    By saying so, not only that Donald shows that he is jealous of Prof Sam, but also shows his third class ways and means by just insulting a dead person.

  192. This is outrageous. I have never posted on this blog before. But I found some text I have posted to some other blog. This is called plagiarism.
    It seems obvious that the Donald duck is up to mischief on the dire intension of destroying Sinhala Unicode just because he does not get a stake of it.

    The mistake.
    Dear free thinker. Do you know the story of the Father the son and the donkey? The father and son went to sell a donkey, and people said various things about their use of donkey. They did everything whatever everyone said and finally threw away the donkey, and went home.
    Now various people say various things as mistakes or something else about Sinhala Unicode. We are using it right, and supporting to not change any thing of it, or else it will be some කැඳ හැලිය (Kaenda Haeliya) and we will have to abandon it later.
    Now don’t misunderstand and compare the Sinhala to Donkey. K…
    [Donkey = Donald]

  193. Oh! Sorry, I have posted it that way, not considering other possibilities of that text appearing here. o.O
    Maybe someone on good side has posted my comment on this thread. If so, please disregard the first paragraph of my previous post. Even so, I would have appreciated if s/he has asked me first… Anyway, it is ok (If the intension of copying that comment was good)! >.

  194. There is no intention to distroy the Sinhala unicode it should be corrected with the SLSI 1134 else thrash both to the Kalanigaga.

    Either you all admit the error made by the person who moved to a different planet and correct it or send the SLSI 1134 with the sinhala unicode too to the same planet.

    Regarding fees — why cant I do a proper job and get a proper fee?

    Donald Gaminitillake

  195. Vishva Kumara,

    (Your mail is not directed at me but I take the liberty of responding)

    Sinhala or Sinhala Unicode is not anyone’s ancestral property. It belongs to all. When a country take a decision that affects its citizens it has to consider the view of citizens.

    Unfortunately ICTA had this bad habit of treating Sinhala Unicode as their personal property. ICTA now wants to prevent even anybody else making suggestions to modify it. This is nothing but E-DICTATORSHIP. It is sad that ICTA, and organisation initially planned to promote use of ICT for democracy has finally ended up a mini dictator.

    It is even sadder that the brother of Sunanda Deshapriya who talks so much about democratic values of civil society behaves as a complete dictator.

    If I cannot even make a suggestion for modification of a standard, (whether right or worng) am I a citizen of this society? Is this how ICTA thinking of empowering people?

    However, we can have the last laugh because in spite of all attempts of ICTA to behave as a complete dictator now a ‘para sudda’ called Michael Everson is going to change the Sinhala Unicode. He is a practical man, unlike Donald and I am sure he will achieve it. (I do not approve his changes, but I am happy if that happens because that will be a good lesson for ICTA)

    I guess more will get heart attacks the day this happens.

  196. Since Sri Lanka has not placed any objections to Eversons proposal nor represented in the Unicode recent seminar within few months that proposal will be registered in Unicode Consortium.

    Even I have enclosed the “Lith Akuru” in my proposed published character allocation table.

    Everson is not a problem for me. With this ICTA will end up in more problems than before.
    I was kept out of the yesterdays meeting. Now they will have to face the ill effects of Unicode Sinhala.

    Sri Lanka has its own SLSI 1134 using this we can go beyond the Unicode Consortium

    Donald Gaminitillake

  197. Sorry, bit off the topic.

    I think all these issues is an outcome of the politicisation of ICTA. I know Manju made a genuine effort to keep ICTA out from politics (perhaps that was why he had to go) but things have changes drastically after he was chased off.

    ICTA is now more like the Nawala branch of SLFP.

    Take the list of Nanasala owners. How many of them were selected by interview process? Most of them were ‘parachuttas’ brought form nowhere who had no experience in ICT or business. To cut the story short they were village level organisers of SLFP and Nanasala licenses and money was given to them as a political bribe.

    What will happen to all these Nanasalas after the donor money runs off in near future? Will not they die? Many of them are already closed down.

    ICTA also sponsors so many unsustainable projects for political reasons. These projects rarely do anything for development. Even ‘Silpa Sayura’ is just pure content development. If financial aid is given for content developers there are thousands of suitable people. But always these ‘grants’ are awarded to a mafia who plays to ICTA’s tune and write eulogies for them. This round too will be same. The same people get more money to waste for nothing. Sadly this is part of the Sri Lankan political culture.

    The pioneers of ICTA wanted to keep it away from politics as much as possible. That was why it was registered as a private company, and not placed under a ministry.

    Unfortunately in the course of its way ICTA has become politicised than most of the other government institutions.

    It’s just a matter of time ICTA will change its coulor from orange to blue.

  198. You are not off the topic

    Take the project “Silpa Sayura”
    Concept is acceptable but the written content and its presentation using wrong type of “AKURU” is not acceptable. I have taken screen shots and had sent to the university Sinhala department. They have the authority to comment on content and presented “akuru” .

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  199. How are we going o solve the problem given below when we are unable to use Sinhala across all platforms or in all applications. The So called Sinhala Unicode is incorrect solution
    Read 161 of this blog

    Donald Gaminitillake

    http://www.news.lk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4043&Itemid=44

    National Language Training Institute to help implement language policy Print E-mail
    Saturday, 24 November 2007

    The Constitutional Affairs and National Integration Ministry has taken steps to establish a National Language Training Institute. According to ministry sources, the new institute will become fully functional once the renovation of the building in Agalawatte where it is to be established is complete. The Ministry has appointed a Management Board and an Advisory Board to the institute with N. Bambarawanage as the Chairman of the Institute.

    Sinhala, Tamil and English will be taught at the Institute with a view to rectifying the problem of cadre inadequacy, which has been one of the biggest obstacles to implementing fully the language policy. This issue has been frequently cited as one of the main sources of discontent that provoked the insurgency in the North and East. Political analysts point out that while the legislation necessary to address such grievances has already been enacted to satisfaction, implementation has been slow. Ministry sources said, that the main aim of the institute is to create persons with trilingual skills to be absorbed in to the Public Service.

  200. Donald Still you cant sleep well.

    Go to to temple and attend for BAWANA panthi
    Then U can sleep well

    Koni from Japan

  201. Better read 188 and post some answers

    I am not sleeping, working day and night on this project how to save Sinhala from the vultures. Hopefully you will get some results in Feb 2008.

    I will post the results when achieved

    Merry Christmas to all readers

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  202. In the beginning of this New year 2008
    May you be blessed with the strength and serenity of Sri Pada
    The power and depth of our Indian Ocean
    May you welcome and enjoy every moment as the New Year unfolds its many Promises and will be a new beginning for all readers of this blog.
    A Happy New Year

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  203. W. Deshapriya (VKS2.0)

    Donald,

    Don’t ever think of getting your solution passed as long as I am here. Read my posts above. I am the boss now. I am carrying on what VKS1.0 did. So, go to Japan and find another job. When I leave, we will have VKS 3.0 and so on.

  204. Kavitha Amarasuriya

    ශ්‍රී ලංකා තොරතුරු හා සන්නිවේදන නියෝජිතායතනය මඟින් ක්‍රියාත්මක කරන ලද
    රාජ්‍ය තොරතුරු කේන්ද්‍රය (1919) සිංගප්පූරුවේ රාජ්‍ය අංශයේ තාක්ෂණ
    කළමනාකරණ සඟරාව මඟින් හොඳම අන්තර්ජාතික ඉ-රාජ්‍ය ව්‍යාපෘතිය තෝරා ගැනීම
    සඳහා පවත්වන ලද තරගයේ එක් අංශයක අනුශූරතාව දිනා ගෙන තිබේ. මෙම තරගයේ
    ව්‍යාපාර තොරතුරු කළමනාකරණ අංශය යටතේ රාජ්‍ය තොරතුරු කේන්ද්‍රය මෙහිදී
    අනුශූරතාව හිමිකර ගන්නා ලදී.

    වත්මන් ජනාධිපති ලේකම් ලලිත් වීරතුංග මහතාගේ අදහසක් ලෙස මෙම රාජ්‍ය
    තොරතුරු කේන්ද්‍රය බිහිවිණ. රාජ්‍ය තොරතුරු කේන්ද්‍රය නිල වශයෙන්
    ජනාධිපතිතුමා විසින් 2006 වසරේ අගෝස්තු මසදී දියත් කරන ලදී.

    විවිධ භාෂාවන් හා විවිධ මාධ්‍ය හරහා පුරවැසි සේවාවන් ලබා දීමට රාජ්‍ය
    තොරතුරු කේන්ද්‍රය සතු හැකියාව මෙම අනුශූරතාව දිනා ගැනීමට මූලිකවම හේතු
    විය. මෙමඟින් දළ වශයෙන් රාජ්‍ය සේවාවන් 1,500කට පමණ අදාළ තොරතුරු දුරකථන
    මාර්ගයෙන් දිනකට පැය 12ක් සතියේ දින 7 පුරාම ශ්‍රී ලංකා පුරවැසියන්ට ලබා
    දේ. ඕනෑම දුරකථන ජාලයකින් 1919 අංකය ඇමතීම මඟින් මෙහි සේවාවන් ජනතාවට ලබා
    ගත හැකිය. විදේශිකයන්ට හෝ විදේශයන්හි වෙසෙන ශ්‍රී ලාංකිකයන් හට 94 11 4
    707070 යන දුරකථන අංකය ඇමතීම තුළින් මෙහි සේවාවන් ලබා ගැනීමට ඉඩ සලසා
    තිබේ. තව ද මෙහි ත්‍රෛභාෂා වෙබ් අඩවිය අඅඅගටසජගටදඩගකන තුළින් ද එම
    සේවාවන් පිළිබඳව තොරතුරු ලබා ගත හැකිය.

    පළමු වසර තුළදී මෙමඟින් තොරතුරු ලබා ගෙන ඇති පිරිස 285,500 පමණ බවට
    වාර්තා වී තිබේ. මෙමඟින් සේවය ලබා ගත් පිරිසෙන් 99%ක් පමණ මෙහි සේවාව
    සම්බන්ධයෙන් සෑහීමට පත් වන බව මෑතකදී කරන ලද සමීක්ෂණයකින් පෙනී ගොස් ඇත.
    විශේෂයෙන්ම දෙමළ භාෂාවෙන් පුරවැසියන්ට ප්‍රතිචාර දැක්වීමට රාජ්‍ය අංශයේ
    ඇති අපහසුතාව සඳහා මෙමඟින් සපයා ඇති විසඳුම අති සාර්ථක බව එයට ලැබෙන දමිළ
    ඇමතුම් මඟින් පෙනී යයි.

    රාජ්‍ය ආයතනවල දැකිය හැකි පොදු ලක්ෂණයක් නොවන ජනතාවට සුහදව අමන්ත්‍රණය
    කිරීම සහ ගරු කටයුතුව සලකමින් සේවා සැපයීම රාජ්‍ය තොරතුරු කේන්ද්‍රයෙන්
    ජනතාව ලබන නවතම අත්දැකීමක් බවට පත්වී තිබේ. මෙමඟින් රාජ්‍ය අංශයට නවමු
    ජනතා මිත්‍රශීලී මුහුණුවරක් ලබා දීමට රාජ්‍ය තොරතුරු කේන්ද්‍රය සමත්ව ඇත.

    ඉ-රාජ්‍ය ක්‍රමය යටතේ ඉදිරියෙන්ම සිටින රටවල් සහභාගි වූ කීර්තිමත්
    තරගාවලියකදී අනුශූරතාව දිනා ගැනීම විශිෂ්ට ජයග්‍රහණයක් ලෙස සැලකිය හැකි
    වෙයි. රාජ්‍ය තොරතුරු කේන්ද්‍ර ව්‍යාපෘති මූලික වැඩ සඳහා වැය වූ මුදල
    රුපියල් මිලියන 06ක් පමණ වන අතර මෙම තරගයේ ප්‍රථම ස්ථානය හිමි කර ගත් හොං
    කොං රට ඉදිරිපත් කරන ලද ව්‍යාපෘතියේ වටිනාකම ඇමරිකානු ඩොලර් මිලියන 122
    ක් වීම මෙම ජයග්‍රහණයේ වටිනාකම තවත් ඉහළ නංවයි.

  205. Donald uncle,

    I think 2008 would not be good for Praba uncle and Wasantha uncle.

    Prabha uncle is already feeling the heat when his commanders fell one by one after the able political leadership of President and the bravery shown by our heroes.

    Wasantha uncle will soon feel heat with the LGN failure. Without his boss now he has to take the full responsibility for that.

    Poor Wasantha uncle! I feel so sorry for him.

  206. re 208
    I called 1919 they can give information only to 59 govt institution not 1500 as mentioned
    I asked why cant I send an email in Sinhala from windows98 to Vista or Apple MAc
    They were unable to comment also they mentioned even the National Language Training Institute will not be able to answer my question. They have no idea to answer any question regarding using sinhala on a computer

    Further more When I requested to send these comment by email to me they told me that they have no facility to perform that task but direct people over a voice line.

    Why not we give them a “An Tattuwa”

    I invite Kavita to come over to my office to see his sinhala text.

    Donald Gaminitillake
    Colombo

  207. I am not a big fan of Donald G. I don’t know much about Unicode either. When we visit http://www.dailymirror.lk/DM_BLOG/Sections/frmHome.aspx it allows us to send comments in English below each news item. But Daily Mirror’s sister paper Lankadeepa http://www.lankadeepa.lk/ does not allow us to send any comments in Sinhala. If Unicode is perfect, why don’t they start comments feature in Lankadeepa? Lankadeepa too is being updated round the clock now. We only see some people ‘masturbating’ in few Sinhala unicode groups, etc. but Unicode is not being used in a wider range. Can someone explain? We have heard Donald’s explanations and don’t need his explanations anymore. Can we hear from Father(s) of Sinhala Unicode?

  208. Can Donald create a Sinhala version of Firefox with his solution? http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-beta.html

  209. First accepted the Standard
    Amend the SLSI 1134
    Then not only firefox so many sinhala software will be developed by the new software writers.
    For them to get active a correct standard has to be introduced

    Donald Gaminitillake
    I Set the Standard

  210. Quote
    21st February was proclaimed the International Mother Language Day by UNESCO on 17 November 1999. Its observance was also formally recognized by the United Nations General Assembly in its resolution establishing 2008 as the International Year of Languages.
    Unquote

    Where are we!!!!
    We ARE unable to use Sinhala across all computers, Sinhala characters registered in Unicode was not done by any Sri Lanka national or a person educated in Sinhala language. This was doe\one by foreigners and VKS group just copied it for the SLSI 1134 against my written objections.

    Donald Gaminitillake
    I Set the Standard

  211. http://www.lankadissent.com/sinhala/allnews/2008_02_24_3_news.htm

    Things are getting exposed, try to read the above link if you can

    Donald Gaminitillake
    I set the standard

  212. Can you answer the question why Sinhala SLSI 1134 is not compatible across all platforms Anuradha?

    Do you know it is just a type writer technique? not a computer base registration!!!

    By the way for IT guys who reads this blog but who are scared to write the truth.
    go and venture abroad.

    See Sunday Observer 19/03/2008

    There are vacancies in Shanghai.
    by Excelerate Technologies Limited

    CV to
    careers@excelerate-tech.com
    before 14 march with a copy to
    Chairman Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (mandatory requirment)

    If you need a copy of the ad send me an email.

    Donald Gaminitillake
    I set the standard

  213. Donald uncle is now going after Ranil uncle and UNP politicians probably to change that circular when the latter comes to power. :-)

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/8503406@N05/526292037
    http://bandaragama.wordpress.com/2008/01/30

  214. I have written to the President.
    It is up to him to listen to me.
    irrespective to the political party I will continue with objections to SLSI 1134.

    Donald Gaminitillake
    I set the standard

  215. re 220 flicker image
    I am not in that photograph sir
    Great!!! why not punchi putha Publish his own image!!!

    Donald Gaminitillake
    I Set the standard

  216. This thread has been closed off for comments.

    As stated in comment no 157 on this thread, ‘Software issues in Sri Lanka Part 8’ is the last one in this series. There will be no Part 9.