CSUR help

FYI, got this reply from John about the CSUR.


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: John Cowan <cowan@...>
Date: Feb 4, 2008 12:17 PM
Subject: Re: CSUR help
To: "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...>
Cc: cowan@ccil.org


Mark J. Reed scripsit:

> Sorry to bug you about something you no longer maintain, but folks on
> CONLANG-L are saying they submitted scripts months ago and got no
> response. Nor did emailing Mr. Everson directly yield one.  So I
> thought you might have some insight into what's going on behind the
> scenes there?
Michael is a busy, busy, busy man.  He runs around the world trying
to get enough information to encode scripts for minority languages
on a shoestring budget while typesetting books in Irish to pay his
personal bills.  Hobbyist stuff, however entrancing, goes to the bottom
of the list.

Furthermore, he's on a deadline, even if a soft one: eventually the PHBs
are going to decide that Unicode has "enough" characters -- already it
can handle all the commercially important writing systems -- and shrink,
then cut off, funding.  Whatever is not encoded by then will have to
wait, potentially forever.  Plus there is no one who can do what he does,
and he has no logical successor with the necessary combination of skill,
expertise, and bloody-mindedness.

Feel free to publish this on conlang or elsewhere.

--
John Cowan   cowan@ccil.org    http://ccil.org/~cowan
The known is finite, the unknown infinite; intellectually we stand
on an islet in the midst of an illimitable ocean of inexplicability.
Our business in every generation is to reclaim a little more land,
to add something to the extent and the solidity of our possessions.
        --Thomas Henry Huxley



--
Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>

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