AIST and Free Standards Group Release Multilingual Library for C Programming Language; ''m17n'' Library Cuts Cost of Multilingualization of Software, Reduces Language Barriers.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

TOKYO & OAKLAND, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 1, 2004

The National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) of Japan and the Free Standards Group, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the use of free and open source software, today announced the release of a new library for the multilingualization of software written in the C programming language.

The new library, known as m17n, reduces the cost of internationalization and multilingualization in software development by providing various functions for handling multilingual text. These functions include file I/O (input/output), as well as displaying, inputting and editing text. The m17n library also provides a common interface for users in any written language, common or rare.

The new library has been released under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL). The m17n library development team is a member of OpenI18N, the Open Internationalization Initiative of the Free Standards Group, and is working to promote the m17n library as a global standard.

Most of the functions provided in the m17n library are realized as modifications or expansions of the C library and the X library, making it easy for users to add multilingual capabilities to existing software. The C programming language is used widely in Unix/Linux environments for both systems and applications development. The m17n library will help to cut the cost of multilingualization of software written in the C programming language and reduce the language barriers in its user interface.

About Multilingualization

When working with computers, the use of text (written languages, characters and scripts) is a significant means for conveying information. Every language in the world, however, is not equally supported. Users of predominant languages, such as English, enjoy all sorts of convenient tools at low cost, while users of less common languages have difficulty making text of their language appear on the computer display -- creating another form of "digital divide."

Multilingualization means making software handle multiple cultural conventions, such as characters, scripts, languages and orthographies. Software developers are typically not too concerned about multilingualization. When they finally do have to build a multilingual/international version of their software, developers tend to write their own code for multilingualization from scratch -- in effect, reinventing the wheel. A general multilingualization library solves this problem, because most software interfaces with written languages in a similar way.

The word "multilingualization" is sometimes abbreviated to "m17n", that is, 'm' followed by 17 letters followed by 'n.'

About Software Libraries

In software, a library is a collection of reusable programming routines that a programmer can use when writing code, so that the programmer does not have to write it.

About AIST

AIST, the largest public research organization in Japan, has more than ten years of experience in multilingual information processing. It has released various multilingual tools including a multilingual editor Mule (later merged into GNU Emacs).

Acknowledgment

Writing the document of the m17n library is partially funded by Information-technology Promotion Agency (IPA), Japan.

About the m17n library

Release Site http://www.m17n.org/m17n-lib

Release Date March 1st, 2004

Release Terms GNU Lesser General Public License

Credit

Copyright (C) 2003, 2004

National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) Registration Number H15PRO112