[HOT] Name tag in non-latin script - hindrance for NGOs/aid agencies?

[John Whelan]

The way I would approach this professionally would be to define the 
requirements first.

In this case we have a requirement to display the name in the language 
of choice.

We also have a requirement to be compatible with existing software.

Pragmatically I would recommend changing the name field to use only an 8 
bit Latin alphabet character set recognizing that not all systems can 
handle more complex character sets.  Which precise character set should 
be chosen would a be subject for discussion but either ISO-8859-1 or 
Windows-1252 would be contenders.  My personal preference would be the 
ISO standard.

Unicode is nice but we managed with 6 bit character sets for many years 
when I started with computers.  Even accented characters were a major 
problem.  Also remember that .OSM data is in XML format and XML came out 
of SGML which was first used to transmit documents over modems so only 7 
bits where available for encoding characters.  The extended characters 
use a special escape code sequence to hold the unicode characters.

Realistically software never wears out but source code gets lost. 
Compilers and operating systems get updated.  It may not be possible to 
modify existing software to handle unicode characters.  I have a 
perfectly good scanner sitting in the corner that no long can be used 
with Win 10 because of a new and improved driver.  With the 
OpenStreetMap environment there isn't even a way to get a complete list 
of software that uses the OpenStreetMap data so it can be tested.

The local language can be added in a name:  then software that can 
handle the local names can pick it up.  Osmand etc. can be configured to 
use the local name transparently so the local population can use it in 
the language of their choice.

This approach would appear to meet the requirements.  The argument that 
we should change all the existing software to meet a requirement that 
was not clearly defined when the software was written doesn't make sense 
to me.

Cheerio John

Frederik Ramm wrote on 2019-11-28 3:25 AM:
> John,
>
> On 28.11.19 01:40, John Whelan wrote:
>> Is there any reason why name:en could not be used?
> The country's official language requires a "non-standard" font to be
> available which does not seem to be a given on all platforms. Like if
> you set up a standard tile server and don't install extra fonts you will
> see little squares instead of place names all over China.
>
> Apparently not all applications are as good in name:xx handling as
> OsmAnd. A recurring point in the discussion is that the proponents of
> using the official language say "we shouldn't fall back to English name
> tags just because some apps/web sites are broken, we should file bug
> reports with them instead", and the proponents of using English say
> "let's be pragmatic, there's no way all these apps/sites will be fixed
> within a short time, so we should use English".
>
> Bye
> Frederik
>

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