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> I've been saying that all text input should go through OS-level IMEs This is so true, all commercial OSes that take i18n seriously do this, while most open s

> I've been saying that all text input should go through OS-level IMEs This is so true, all commercial OSes that take i18n seriously do this, while most open source OSes' community (which communication revolves around English) decided that IMEs are an add-on for CJK people. It's a pity, and this one reason is enough for Linux to be never adopted for ordinary users in the non-western world.

mikekchar 7y ago
That's not really fair, though. Linux users still overwhelmingly use X windows. There is no standard IME for X. This is just a historical issue. X Windows is OLD -- far older that Windows or Mac (even the old Mac), for instance. My biggest problem with IMEs in free software land is that we've had groups like Gnome lean on IME developers and push through their vision of how it should work -- even though the people pushing their vision don't use IMEs. I ended up migrating to FCITX just because it was the last hold out not to cave to pressure.
- efdee 7y ago
  That's not really fair either. X Windows might be older, but neither Mac OS nor Windows had anything like this in their older versions. Some things evolved, some things didn't. O hi X Windows!
  - rmah 7y ago
    MacOS had rather robust internationalization support 25 years ago. Non-standard, but still.
- shadowgovt 7y ago
  Old really means there's been more time to identify and solve the problem, and the fact it hasn't been cleanly solved is a lot more indicative of priorities than time or tech. Microsoft and Apple have the incentive of selling to billion-user markets. The open source community, on average, appears to have demonstrated a lack of interest in opening up the user-base further (and expecting that user-base to just roll their own solution creates multiple catch-22 and tragedy of the commons problems). Why one of the commercial open-source vendors hasn't taken this on as a core challenge, I do not know.
- pvg 7y ago
  far older that Windows or Mac (even the old Mac) They are all very nearly the same age.
  - musicale 7y ago
    Pretty much. The W window system for the V distributed system predates the Macintosh (as does the Apple Lisa/1983), and W was ported to Unix in 1983. Their immediate successors - X and the Macintosh - came out in 1984, and Windows 1.0 in 1985. Windows 1.0 was fairly primitive, but Windows 2.0 supported overlapping windows (!) in 1987, coincidentally the year that X11 was released.
- hsivonen 7y ago
  > There is no standard IME for X. Technically true, but for practical purposes IBus is the standard. That's what Fedora and Ubuntu use out of the box. Firefox beta telemetry shows about 89% IBus vs. 11% FCITX. > My biggest problem with IMEs in free software land is that we've had groups like Gnome lean on IME developers and push through their vision of how it should work -- even though the people pushing their vision don't use IMEs. I ended up migrating to FCITX just because it was the last hold out not to cave to pressure. What wrong thing did the Gnome folks push for?
  - mikekchar 7y ago
    Insisting that there can only be one input type for the entire session rather than one per window. If you are using multiple languages which each require an IME, Gnome's interpretation is completely broken. I had to stop using IBus because of it. It is possible they have changed their mind since then (several years back), but I haven't followed it. Incidentally, it was also the thing that meant I had to stop using Gnome. Before that I was a happy Gnome Shell user :-(
    - hsivonen 7y ago
      Gnome appears to have fixed this.
- rodgerd 7y ago
  > That's not really fair, though It's completely fair. Most of the developer community just doesn't care.
hsivonen 7y ago
> This is so true, all commercial OSes that take i18n seriously do this, Does Windows really? > while most open source OSes' community (which communication revolves around English) decided that IMEs are an add-on for CJK people. IIRC, Fedora ships an iOS/Android like Latin-script IME with autocomplete. It's not mandatory, though. > It's a pity, and this one reason is enough for Linux to be never adopted for ordinary users in the non-western world. The Korean situation doesn't really generalize. Among CJK, AFAICT, the Korean IBus IME on Ubuntu 18.04 is pretty broken but the Japanese IME and the various Chinese IMEs appear to be at least OK. (It's a rather surprising situation considering that the Hangul part of a Korean IME should be much simpler than the Japanese and Chinese IMEs.)
- munmaek 7y ago
  On debian 9/10 ibus works for the Korean IME (both Hangeul and Hanja input). Windows (10 at least) has native support for these IMEs; setting it up on Windows was much easier than on Linux (which doesn't even have a standard IME). Windows also comes with basic CJK fonts, which different distros may or may not have. On Debian I have to install noto-cjk or Adobe's source han fonts. I originally tried fcitx but had to switch to ibus. Definitely not a great experience.
  - hsivonen 7y ago
    There isn't a single IME setup experience on Linux. In my experience, Debian is worse than Fedora, Ubuntu, and openSUSE. Fedora is better than Windows 10 when it comes to IMEs: Fedora installs the IMEs by default. Ubuntu, like Windows 10, installs IMEs when you request the addition of an IME-requiring language. OpenSUSE gives you an IME for the language you use at install time if you install openSUSE using an IME-requiring language. I haven't tried Debian 10, but when I installed Debian 9 _in Japanese_ with a _Japanese keyboard layout_ chosen, the installer didn't bother to set up a Japanese IME! Fedora comes with an OK set of Noto CJK fonts by default. Ubuntu comes with a minimal set of Noto CJK fonts by default, but when enabling Chinese, Japanese, or Korean, Ubuntu drops more language-appropriate fonts on the system, like Windows 10.
  - munmaek 7y ago

mikekchar 7y ago

That's not really fair, though. Linux users still overwhelmingly use X windows. There is no standard IME for X. This is just a historical issue. X Windows is OLD -- far older that Windows or Mac (even the old Mac), for instance. My biggest problem with IMEs in free software land is that we've had groups like Gnome lean on IME developers and push through their vision of how it should work -- even though the people pushing their vision don't use IMEs. I ended up migrating to FCITX just because it was the last hold out not to cave to pressure.

efdee 7y ago
That's not really fair either. X Windows might be older, but neither Mac OS nor Windows had anything like this in their older versions. Some things evolved, some things didn't. O hi X Windows!
- rmah 7y ago
  MacOS had rather robust internationalization support 25 years ago. Non-standard, but still.
shadowgovt 7y ago
Old really means there's been more time to identify and solve the problem, and the fact it hasn't been cleanly solved is a lot more indicative of priorities than time or tech. Microsoft and Apple have the incentive of selling to billion-user markets. The open source community, on average, appears to have demonstrated a lack of interest in opening up the user-base further (and expecting that user-base to just roll their own solution creates multiple catch-22 and tragedy of the commons problems). Why one of the commercial open-source vendors hasn't taken this on as a core challenge, I do not know.
pvg 7y ago
far older that Windows or Mac (even the old Mac) They are all very nearly the same age.
- musicale 7y ago
  Pretty much. The W window system for the V distributed system predates the Macintosh (as does the Apple Lisa/1983), and W was ported to Unix in 1983. Their immediate successors - X and the Macintosh - came out in 1984, and Windows 1.0 in 1985. Windows 1.0 was fairly primitive, but Windows 2.0 supported overlapping windows (!) in 1987, coincidentally the year that X11 was released.
hsivonen 7y ago
> There is no standard IME for X. Technically true, but for practical purposes IBus is the standard. That's what Fedora and Ubuntu use out of the box. Firefox beta telemetry shows about 89% IBus vs. 11% FCITX. > My biggest problem with IMEs in free software land is that we've had groups like Gnome lean on IME developers and push through their vision of how it should work -- even though the people pushing their vision don't use IMEs. I ended up migrating to FCITX just because it was the last hold out not to cave to pressure. What wrong thing did the Gnome folks push for?
- mikekchar 7y ago
  Insisting that there can only be one input type for the entire session rather than one per window. If you are using multiple languages which each require an IME, Gnome's interpretation is completely broken. I had to stop using IBus because of it. It is possible they have changed their mind since then (several years back), but I haven't followed it. Incidentally, it was also the thing that meant I had to stop using Gnome. Before that I was a happy Gnome Shell user :-(
  - hsivonen 7y ago
    Gnome appears to have fixed this.
rodgerd 7y ago
> That's not really fair, though It's completely fair. Most of the developer community just doesn't care.

hsivonen 7y ago

> This is so true, all commercial OSes that take i18n seriously do this, Does Windows really? > while most open source OSes' community (which communication revolves around English) decided that IMEs are an add-on for CJK people. IIRC, Fedora ships an iOS/Android like Latin-script IME with autocomplete. It's not mandatory, though. > It's a pity, and this one reason is enough for Linux to be never adopted for ordinary users in the non-western world. The Korean situation doesn't really generalize. Among CJK, AFAICT, the Korean IBus IME on Ubuntu 18.04 is pretty broken but the Japanese IME and the various Chinese IMEs appear to be at least OK. (It's a rather surprising situation considering that the Hangul part of a Korean IME should be much simpler than the Japanese and Chinese IMEs.)

munmaek 7y ago
On debian 9/10 ibus works for the Korean IME (both Hangeul and Hanja input). Windows (10 at least) has native support for these IMEs; setting it up on Windows was much easier than on Linux (which doesn't even have a standard IME). Windows also comes with basic CJK fonts, which different distros may or may not have. On Debian I have to install noto-cjk or Adobe's source han fonts. I originally tried fcitx but had to switch to ibus. Definitely not a great experience.
- hsivonen 7y ago
  There isn't a single IME setup experience on Linux. In my experience, Debian is worse than Fedora, Ubuntu, and openSUSE. Fedora is better than Windows 10 when it comes to IMEs: Fedora installs the IMEs by default. Ubuntu, like Windows 10, installs IMEs when you request the addition of an IME-requiring language. OpenSUSE gives you an IME for the language you use at install time if you install openSUSE using an IME-requiring language. I haven't tried Debian 10, but when I installed Debian 9 _in Japanese_ with a _Japanese keyboard layout_ chosen, the installer didn't bother to set up a Japanese IME! Fedora comes with an OK set of Noto CJK fonts by default. Ubuntu comes with a minimal set of Noto CJK fonts by default, but when enabling Chinese, Japanese, or Korean, Ubuntu drops more language-appropriate fonts on the system, like Windows 10.
- munmaek 7y ago