أخيراً أنجب عالم المصادر المفتوحة على يد الدكتور خالد حسني الخط العربي الذي طالما افتقده المستخدم العربي في واحة لينكس. فعلى الرغم من توفر نموذجين في بيئة لينكس حتى الآن للخط النسخي الطباعي الذي لا غنى عنه لكل (طابعة عربية)، وهما خط KacstBook من تطوير مدينة الملك عبد العزيز للعلوم والتقنية، وشهرزاد من معهد SIL، إلا أنهما ظلا دون طموحات رواد الطباعة والخط العربي، نظراً لافتقارهما للتراكبات الغنية التي طالما تغنت بها يد الخطاط العربي.

فيما يلي مقارنة بين الخطوط الثلاثة إلى جانب خط Traditional Arabic المعروف من مايكروسوفت فيما يتعلق بالتراكبات.

تراكبات الخط الأميري

بقي أن أشير إلى أن هذا الخط لا ينطوي على أي محارف لاتينية، وهو ما يقد يربك المستخدم عند إدراج نصوص لاتينية في سياق نص عربي كتب بالخط الأميري.

لوحة فنية هادئة، متناسقة العناصر والألوان، صادفتني في مكتب أحد العاملين في حقل التصميم الفني والإعلاني، ردت إلي – على تواضعها – شيئاً من الإحساس برونق الخط العربي البديع وسحره، والذي تبدد أو كاد مع زخم التيار التقني الجارف الذي حصد فيما حصد روح الفن البشري في كثير من مناحي الحياة.

الخط العربي…

فن خلدته أوابد الحضارة الإسلامية، وازينت به جنبات المتاحف الغربية، لينتهي به المطاف أسير قوالب تقنية صماء لا روح فيها ولا حياة، تصلبت فيها شرايينه وتيبست فيها أوصاله، فغدا هو الآخر عليلاً بدائها… صورة ميتة لا نبض فيها ولا حياة!

لكن صاحبنا استدرك مشيراً إلى أن هذه اللوحة ليست نتاج عمل يدوي أبدعته ريشة خطاط ماهر كما ظننت، بل هو برنامج حاسوبي متخصص بمعالجة الخط العربي.

إذن دعوني أوضح أمراً. لست هنا بصدد تجريم التقنية بذاتها، وهي التي كانت ولا تزال صنيعة الإنسان وأداته في ذات الوقت أولاً وأخيراً، وإنما أعتقد أننا أمام مشكلة تتعلق بالتوظيف السليم والحكيم للتقنية وأدواتها.

الخط العربي، ريشة في مهب الريح!

بداية، ومن واقع ما يبديه الحاسوب من قدرة في التعاطي مع الخط العربي بأشكاله التقليدية، أعتقد أنه يمكن فرز الخطوط العربية التقليدية إلى فئتين:

• خطوط ثابتة الأبعاد والتراكيب، يتخذ الحرف فيها شكلاً ثابتاً أو أشكالاً محدودة لا يحيد عنها،
• وأخرى غنية بالتراكيب المتغيرة والمتباينة، يمكن للحرف فيها أن يخضع للكثير من التصرف والتغيير وفقاً لموضعه في السياق وماهية الأحرف السابقة واللاحقة، فضلاً عن اللمسات الفنية التي يمكن ابتكارها وإضافتها من قبل هذا الخطاط أو ذاك.

وفقاً لهذا التصنيف يندرج في الفئة الأولى كل من الكوفي والنسخي الطباعي، ويندرج في الفئة الثانية كل من الثلث والديواني والفارسي. ويبقى كل من النسخي القديم (اليدوي) والرقعة في حالةٍ وسط بين الفئتين.

تشير التجارب حتى الآن إلى أن ملفات خطوط الحاسب (كـ TTF وغيرها)، أعطت نتائج طيبة فيما يتعلق بالفئة الأولى من الخطوط، في حين لم تبدِ مرونة كافية في التعامل مع الفئة الثانية، أي أن صلاحية هذه الملفات حتى الآن لا تزال محصورة في كل من الكوفي والنسخي فقط، ولا يمكن التعويل عليها في الخطوط ذات التراكيب الغنية والمتنوعة.

وقد حاولت مايكروسوفت بمجموعة خطوطها “آرابيسك” الالتفاف على هذه المشكلة ، حيث احتلت كلََّ (خانة حرفية) فيها جملةٌ شائعة الاستخدام في عناوين الكتب والمطبوعات – بدلاً من حرف واحد، كالبسملة و (تمهيد) و (مقدمة) و (كل عام وأنتم يخير)، (مرسومة) بأعلى درجات الإتقان. إلا أن حلاً كهذا سيبقى محدوداً بنصوص معينة وجاهزة.

ويقدم برنامج (كلك) التجاري حلاً في هذا الميدان، حيث يتيح لك الكتابة بكل من الفارسي والثلث بصورة رئيسية. يعامل البرنامج كل مقطع من الكلمة الواحدة كوحدة مستقلة، يمكن تغييرها وانتقاء أشكال أخرى منها. حيث تجد طيفاً واسعاً من الأشكال والأنماط المتنوعة لكل من (بر) و (نا) و (مج) على حدة في كلمة (برنامج) على سبيل المثال. إلا أن الذوق الرفيع والخبرة المعمقة بالخط العربي لدى المستخدم هنا تلعب دوراً حيوياً في تكوين نص ناجح فنياً، وذلك من خلال الانتقاء الحكيم للتراكيب المتاحة لكل مقطع من هذه المقاطع من جهة، وإزاحة هذه المقاطع وتحريكها، ورصها ورصفها جنباً إلى جنب بدقة وعناية من جهة أخرى، وهو ما لا يتعهد لك البرنامج بالقيام به عنك من تلقاء نفسه.

الخط الفارسي نتاج جهد بشري وحاسوبي

بعبارة موجزة، بقدر ما تتسع دائرة متطلبات الخط من مرونة وخيال، بقدر ما تضيق الخطوط الحاسوبية عن استيعابها والإحاطة بكل متطلباتها.

هذا فيما يتعلق بميدان الطباعة، أما…

على شاشة الحاسوب

فعلى الرغم من أن الحاسوب لم يبد حتى الآن قدرة على احتواء الخط العربي بكل ثرائه وغناه، إلا أن العكس يبدو صحيحاً، إذ يبدو أن تقنيات الحوسبة ومتطلباتها ستشكل دافعاً ملهماً لإثراء الخط العربي بخطوط جديدة.

فقد كان الخط Tahoma على سبيل المثال، منذ فجر ظهوره مع مجموعة تطبيقات أوفيس 95 من مايكروسوفت، وليد الحاجة إلى خط عالمي جديد واضح المعالم على شاشة الحاسوب، يحقق مستوىً من التناغم والانسجام بين أطقم الأحرف لمختلف اللغات فيه، على تباينها الشديد أصلاً.

وتسعى عائلة خطوط أوبونتو Ubuntu Font Family لسد هذه الثغرة في عالم لينكس حالياً.

وظيفياً، يمكن تقسيم خطوط الحاسوب عموماً إلى:

1. خطوط لبيئة سطر الأوامر
2. خطوط للواجهة الرسومية
3. خطوط ثابتة العرض Monospace (للنصوص البرمجية)
4. خطوط طباعية

خطوط بيئة سطر الأوامر

الخط المستخدم في بيئة الأوامر في مختلف أنظمة التشغيل هو عادة خط البيوس نفسه، إلا أن أنظمة التشغيل الحالية دأبت على استبداله بخط ثابت العرض من خطوطها، وهو ما أعتقد أنه يفسد بيئة الأوامر وسحرها الخاص!

أما إقدام أنظمة التشغيل على هذه الخطوة فمرده فيما أحسب إلى افتقار خط البيوس عادة إلى المحارف غير اللاتينية، إلا أن فكرة غزو نواة لينكس للبيوس التي يعد بها مشروع CoreBoot ـ (LinuxBIOS سابقاً) قد تكون كفيلةً بحل هذه المشكلة مستقبلاً.

خطوط الواجهة الرسومية GUI:

هي الأكثر أهمية نظراً لارتباطها الوثيق والدائم بنشاط المستخدم اليومي على الحاسوب.

وقد كان لإحلال خط Tahoma محل خط MS Sans Serif في إصدارات ويندوز 2000/XP دور ملحوظ في صقل واجهة الاستخدام العربية في بيئة ويندوز مقارنة بإصداراته السابقة.

في حين لا تزال بيئة سطح المكتب في لينكس مفتقرة لخط عربي من هذا القبيل يوازي خط Tahoma في ويندوز، إلا أن شركة كانونيكال Canonical التي تقف وراء إصدارة أوبونتو الشهيرة تعكف الآن على تطوير الحرف العربي لعائلة خطوطها Ubuntu Font Family التي صممت خصيصاً لهذا الغرض.

كل ما تقدم ينطبق على خطوط صفحات الوب أيضاً، خاصة إذا علمت أن تقنية CSS المستخدمة في تنسيق صفحات وب تسمح بتخصيص خط معين لكل وسط من أوساط النشر على حدة، فخط للشاشة وآخر للطباعة وثالث لجهاز العرض projector… الخ.

خطوط ثابتة العرض Monospace

هي الخطوط المستخدمة في كتابة النصوص البرمجية، والمحبذة أيضاً في محررات النصوص البسيطة. تتخذ كافة الأحرف في هذا الخط عرضاً ثابتاً موحداً،

يمثله في بيئة ويندوز Courier New، وفي بيئة لينكس كل من Ubuntu Mono الذي تعكف شركة Canonical على تطوير أحرفه العربية حالياً كما أسلفنا و Libration Mono وهو من عائلة خطوط Liberation من إنتاج RedHat والتي لا يبدو أنها معنية حالياً بتطوير طقم المحارف العربية فيه.

خطوط طباعية

وهي الخطوط الأكثر وفرةً وتداولاً، ولا تعاني أنظمة التشغيل نقصاً منها عربياً أو لاتينياً. يعد هذا النمط من الخطوط غنياً نسبياً بالزخارف والزوائد Serifs والمنحنيات، ولا يمكن تكوين معالمه بنقاط محددة وبسيطة على الشاشة، الأمر الذي يتطلب إخضاعه افتراضياً لخاصية التنعيم Smoothing.

عربياً، تتوزع الخطوط الطباعية المقبولة بين النسخ والكوفي كما أسلفنا، إضافة لبعض الخطوط المستحدثة. فيما يلي قائمة بأهم تلك الخطوط في عالم لينكس مقارنة بالخطوط العربية المعهودة في ويندوز.

الخطوط العربية في لينكس

إلا أن فئة النسخ التقليدي في بيئة لينكس، ممثلة بخط KacstBook من مدينة الملك عبد العزيز للعلوم والتقنية، وشهرزاد من المعهد الصيفي للغويات SIL، تفتقر، مقارنة بخط Traditional Arabic من مايكروسوفت، إلى التراكبات المدعومة من قبل Unicode.

تراكبات خط النسخ

هذه القراءة الأولية لتجربة الخط العربي على الحاسوب، تضعني أمام صورة مفادها، أنه وعلى الرغم من أن الإفراط في استخدام وتوظيف الخطوط الحاسوبية وحلولها البسيطة والمتقدمة حالياً يوحي بأن الخط العربي بات واحداً من ضحايا التقنية المعاصرة، إلا أن غياب الإحساس بجماليات الخط العربي والافتقار إلى ذوق سليم أولاً، وتغليب الخيارات الاقتصادية ذات النتائج المتواضعة على اللجوء ليد خطاط ماهر وهو الخيار الأكثر تكلفة والأفضل جودة ثانياً، هما العاملان الحقيقيان اللذان يقفا وراء الحالة المؤسفة التي انتهى إليها الخط العربي هذه الأيام.

فالعمل الفني ليس نتاج عملية حسابية أو صناعية بسيطة، بمدخلات ومخرجات مادية صماء، يسري عليها كل ما يسري على صناعة المنتجات المادية، بل هي نتاج خيال بشري خصب، وحس إنساني مرهف، وما ينبغي للعاملين في هذا الميدان التضحية بمبدأ الاحتكام إلى معايير الفن والذوق السليم، والانجراف أمام مغريات الكفاية الإنتاجية العالية التي تعد بها الوسائل التقنية، والتعويل عليها بهذه البساطة لإخراج مواد فنية وإعلانية تفتقر في نهاية المطاف للكثير من معالم الإبداع الإنساني الحر.

A Unified Label Attribute

Think of using label="" as a unified naming attribute; as an alternative to all naming tags and attribute:

<caption> , <label>, <legend>, alt="", for="", title="", summary="".

Tile text (the mouseover-text) could be displayed using a CSS rule like this:

{ title: attr(label) | attr(accesskey) | attr(label) attr(accesskey) | none }

The standard way for label presentation is to use :before and :after pseudo elements.

Command Representation

<command> should have an href="" attribute (link attribute) as an optional attribute, since a command could be simply a link.

icon="" attribute should be deprecated in favor of CSS icon attribute, which , in turn, should have an additional value called glyph(), e.g.:

command.go_up {icon: glyph(↑)}

And just like <input>, command should accept text as a type beside “command”, “checkbox”, and “radio”:

<command type="text">

Think of “search” and “zoom” fields in a toolbar.

Time Representation

Time, as a tag, should be used as a part of a context in an article or so on, the purpose here is to give the developer enough flexibility in time presentation (time-zone, time format) using CSS.

For articles’ time-stamp, and any other embedded content like
audio, video, or image, there should be two attributes: published, and
modified (last-modification date).

time,
article:time {
	time-format: dd-mm-yyyy;
	time-zone: +5;
}

A “Window” Tag

Unlike Window object used in JavaScript, such a tag might be easily maintained and customized using CSS like this:

window {
	position: fixed;
	left: 50%;
	top: 50%;
	buttons: close || maximize || minimize;
}

Standardizing jQuery

jQuery is the most popular alternative to JavaScript, it’s a powerful “meta-language” tries to circumvent the raw-javascript limitations. I think this language should be standardized.

Isolating events from the the HTML code the way CSS does regarding presentation attributes should be enough reason for W3C to adopt it.

Abstract

According to ISO, in order to produce a high quality product, organization needs a high quality producing process, which means a well defined and organized process. Generally speaking, this is true in variant industries, but not in software industry, since production process in software industry is a creative process, not an industrial process, so that one can’t imagine that there are a list of input items from one side, that could produce a software product out of the other one, automatically, without any human factor involvement.

Software Engineering tries to convert software process from a creative process to an industrial process.

As a solution, an ISO-alternative standard emerged for software industry, called CMM, developed by Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute (SEI). Later on it has developed and expanded its scope and cover other industries, it is called now CMMI.

Since 1987, when CMM emerged, CMM/CMMI has been always focusing on documentation. The reason is that organization doesn’t have an automated process, so, all it can do is to organize process using documents.

In fact, as one can see, CMM emerged before web era; the era in which database systems weren’t mature enough and used widely like nowadays, client/server architecture wasn’t common in business world. That’s why CMM/CMMI was always focusing on documents.

The objective of this paper is to build a software process using database, rather than document a software process using documents.

Keywords

Software Engineering, Software Process, ISO, CMMI, UML, XML, HTML, XHTML, CSS, RichStyle, PAD file, ASP, Debian, Debian Package, DEB.

Methodology

Modeling configuration management process area in a database model using UML.

The Association of Software Professionals (ASP) provides a standard XML-based document called PAD file, the Portable Application Description. ASP represents the best practice in software industry regarding software publishing.

I’ll compare this standard to Debian control file, the file stored in the Debian package file (DEB), and stores in turn the package’s meta-data.

Debian package system represents also the best practice in open source community regarding software publishing, and Debian and Debian-based Linux distributions are the most popular distributions in open source community according to DistroWatch.com.

Introduction

The following table illustrates the main CMMI concepts, including Process Areas, Capability Levels and Maturity Levels, and the relationship between each other.

A Comparison between PAD file and Debian control file

Those two standard files represent the best practice in commercial software industry and open source community, regarding software publishing.

PAD file structure

Debian Control file structure

Although The PAD file is richer than
the Debian Control file, the Debian Control file is used for
functional purposes, rather than providing meta-data about the
software package. It’s used by the dependency-check function to ensure
the compatibility of the package with the target platform.

Use-Case Diagram

SDLC Diagram

This model illustrates the main activities that is performed by the variant project stakeholders.

The dependency arrows between use-cases show the entire software development life cycle (SDLC).

Notice that the sequence direction of the life cycle is the opposite of dependency arrows direction.

Actors represent stakeholders.

Figure 1 – Use-Case Diagram of SDLC

Actor Specification

Analyst

Analyst is responsible for refining requests and making designs.

Customer

A subset of stakeholders (individual, project, or organization), responsible for accepting the product or for authorizing payment. The customer is usually external to the project, but not necessarily external to the organization (SEI, 2006).

Customer here is supposed to be the end-user himself or herself.

Developer

Developer is responsible for developing code according to the tasks that are generated by the Project Manager.

Also he or she has to review a code developed by another developer along with a third developer.

Project Manager

The person responsible for planning, directing, controlling, structuring, and motivating the project. The project manager is responsible for satisfying the customer (SEI, 2006).

Project Manager is responsible for refining designs, and generating tasks, and assigning them to developers, and release a new build of the software product.

Support

The staff that is responsible for communication with costumer.

Tester

Tester is responsible for unit and acceptance tests.

Use-Case Specification

Buy a Release

This activity is usually performed by the customer, but particularly, it’s allowed to any stakeholder to perform this activity.

Design

This activity is the mission of the analyst.

Develop

This activity is the mission of the developer.

Download a Release

This activity is usually performed by the customer, but particularly, it’s allowed to any stakeholder to perform this activity.

Filter Customer Requests

This activity is the mission of the support staff. This means that support staff can’t filter requests came from any project member (internal stakeholder).

Generate Tasks

This activity is one of the project manager’s missions.

Peer Review

This activity is the mission of the developer. Two developers should review a code of a third developer.

Refine Designs

This activity is one of the project manager missions.

Refine Requests

This activity is the mission of the analyst.

Release

This activity is one of the project manager missions.

Request a Change

This activity is usually performed by the customer, but particularly, it’s allowed to any stakeholder to perform this activity.

Test

This activity is the mission of the tester.

Accepting test should be done before unit test.

Class Diagram

Database Diagram

This diagram represents the data structure required for the whole software development process.

It’s based on an improved version of PAD file, supplied and associated with ‘back-end’ classes used by the organization.

Figure 2 – Class Diagram of Database

User Interface Diagram

It illustrates the structure of the web interface that web developer should be committed to, in order to guarantee the compatibility with RichStyle© library.

Figure 3 – Class Diagram of User Interface

Component Diagram

User Interface Diagram

This model illustrates the set of software libraries that are used in RichStyle© package.

Tango Icons package offers a standard structure for icon naming, i.e. it offers a standard interface to communicate with other software components.

Figure 4 – Component Diagram of User Interface

Component Specification

RichStyle.js.php

A PHP-powered JavaScript file, stores the events’ functions of the entire RichStyle framework. It also checks the browser compatibility, and returns a list of the compatible browsers if false.

Richstyle PHP Templates

It typically includes: header.php, footer.php,/data/data.php, /data/footer.php, /data/advert.php.

RichStyle CSSs

It’s a set of CSS files designed for web pages and HTML documents that might include lists, tables, images, codes, preformatted texts, notes, and quotes, in content area.

Actually, web page usually differs from document in two main aspects:

• It contains user interface elements, like banner, footer, and menus.
• Content area is usually dealt as either poor plain text, or messy rich text, making it misses balance between richness and consistency.

CSS specifications allow web developer to build more than one kind of layout template for a web page, depending on the used media, i.e. one for the screen, and another one for printing media (paper).

As an implantation solution, RichStyle© package offers:

• Content area maintain the balance between richness and consistency.
• No classes as much as possible, HTML tags should be enough.
• No attributes as much as possible, unless they were representing content, not format instruction, ie. the source of an image, or the destination of a link.

RichStyle HTML Template

A template file called Web-Document.web added to the Nautilus file manager, which is an empty HTML5 file linked to the CSS files.

Tango Icons

A cross-platform icon theme follows the FreeDesktop.org guidelines, such as the Standard Icon Naming Specification, and the Standard Icon Theming Specification.

jQuery.js

A JavaScript library designed to simplify the client-side scripting of HTML.

It simplifies the way developer handles events, Ajax interactions, and perform animations.

rsBobb’s File List System

It’s a PHP library used to generate an HTML list of files and subdirectories located in a specific directory.

rsTinyMCE

It’s a restricted version of TinyMCE, a web-based WYSIWYG HTML editor. It’s customized here to prevent user to insert messy format instructions, and deviate the common look and feel of the web page. i.e. user can’t change fonts or colors in text area.

Technically, It converts HTML text-area field to an editor instance.

rsjQuery Date Picker

It’s a JavaScript library used to generate a client-side calendar. It’s based on jQuery.

Deployment Diagram

SDLC Diagram

It’s a simple client-server architecture. This means that all the project stockholders will deal with the same user interface, but with variant permissions.

Figure 5 – Deployment Diagram of SDLC

Node Specification

Client PC

RichStyle library requires one of the following web browsers:

• Chrome 1.0.154.65
• Chromium 1.0.154.65
• Epiphany 2.30.2
• Firefox 3.6.12
• Galeon 2.0.6
• Konqueror 4.4
• Midori 0.2.2
• Opera 10.10
• Safari 4.0.3

Regardless the used platform.

Database Server

Since the components are based on PHP, it’s recommended to use LAMP platform (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP), although PHP, MySQL, and Apache can be used under Windows platform.

Web Server

Since the components are based on PHP, it’s recommended to use LAMP platform (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP), although PHP, MySQL, and Apache can be used under Windows platform.

Glossary

Appraisal

An examination of one or more processes by a trained team of professionals using an appraisal reference model as the basis for determining, at a minimum, strengths and weaknesses.

Capability Level

Achievement of process improvement within an individual process area. A capability level is defined by the appropriate specific and generic practices for a process area.

CMM

A methodology for the development and improvement of an organization’s software development process. The model describes a five-stage evolutionary path of an increasingly organized process (Cadle & Yeates, 2004).

CMMI

An integrated approach to process capability maturity modeling. It supports discrete and continuous maturity modeling and integrates systems and software engineering process maturity models (Sommarville, 2007).

A process improvement approach that helps organizations improve their performance. CMMI can be used to guide process improvement across a project, a division, or an entire organization (Wikipedia.org, 2010). 

According to the Software Engineering Institute (SEI, 2008), CMMI helps integrate traditionally separate organizational functions, set process improvement goals and priorities, provide guidance for quality processes, and provide a point of reference for appraising current processes.

CMMI Framework

The basic structure that organizes CMMI components, including common elements of the current CMMI models as well as rules and methods for generating models, appraisal methods (including associated artifacts), and training materials. The framework enables new disciplines to be added to CMMI so that the new disciplines will integrate with the existing ones.

CMMI Model

One from the entire collection of possible models that can be generated from the CMMI Framework. Since the CMMI Framework can generate different models based on the needs of the organization using it, there are multiple CMMI models.

CMMI Model Component

Any of the main architectural elements that compose a CMMI model. Some of the main elements of a CMMI model include: 

• Process Areas
• and

CMMI Component	Expected	Required
Specific	Specific Practices	Specific Goals
Generic	Generic Practices	Generic Goals
	Capability Levels	Maturity Levels

CMMI Product Suite

The complete set of products developed around the CMMI concept. These products include: 

• The framework itself
• Models
• Appraisal methods
• Appraisal materials
• and various types of training

Configuration Management

A discipline applying technical and administrative direction and surveillance to: 

1. identify and document the functional and physical characteristics of a configuration item,
2. control changes to those characteristics,
3. record and report change processing and implementation status, and
4. verify compliance with specified requirements.

See also:
configuration audit,
configuration control,
configuration identification, and
configuration status accounting.

The process of managing the changes to an evolving software product. It involves (Sommarville, 2007): 

1. configuration planning,
2. version management,
3. system building, and
4. change management.

Configuration Item

An aggregation of work products that is designated for configuration management and treated as a single entity in the configuration management process.

A machine-readable unit, such as a document or a source code file, that is subject to change and where the change has to be controlled by a configuration management system (Sommarville, 2007).

Customer

A subset of stakeholders (individual, project, or organization), responsible for accepting the product or for authorizing payment. The customer is usually external to the project, but not necessarily external to the organization.

Customer Requirement

The result of eliciting, consolidating, and resolving conflicts among the needs, expectations, constraints, and interfaces of the product‘s relevant stakeholders in a way that is acceptable to the customer.

CSS

A style sheet language used to describe the presentation semantics (that is, the look and formatting) of a document written in a markup language. Its most common application is to style web pages written in HTML and XHTML, but the language can also be applied to any kind of XML document, including SVG and XUL (Wikipedia.org, 2010).

Data

Recorded information, regardless of the form or method of recording, including technical data, computer software documents, financial information, management information, representation of facts, numbers, or datum of any nature that can be communicated, stored, and processed.

Debian

Voluntary organization that produces distributions of Free Software operating systems, including Linux. Because it is a nonprofit organization run by passionate Free Software advocates, it is considered the most ethically sound of all Linux outfits. Many distributions, including Ubuntu, use Debian as the basis for their software because of its claimed reliability and relative simplicity (Thomas, 2007).

Dependency

A way of referring to system files that a program requires in order to run. If the dependencies are not present during program installation, a program might refuse to install (Thomas, 2007).

Development

Not only development activities but also maintenance activities may be included.
Projects that benefit from the best practices of CMMI can focus on development, maintenance, or both.

Document

A collection of data, regardless of the medium on which it is recorded, that generally has permanence and can be read by humans or machines. So, documents include both paper and electronic documents.

Discipline

The bodies of knowledge available to you when selecting a CMMI model (e.g., systems engineering). The CMMI Product Team envisions that other bodies of knowledge will be integrated into the CMMI Framework in the future.

Enterprise

The full composition of companies. Companies may consist of many organizations in many locations with different customers.

Expected CMMI Components

CMMI components that explain what may be done to satisfy a required CMMI component. Model users can implement the expected components explicitly or implement equivalent alternative practices to these components.
These are expected model components: 

• Specific Practices
• Generic Practices

Generic Goal

A required CMMI component that describes the characteristics that must be present to institutionalize the processes that implement a process area.

Generic Practice

An expected model component that is considered important in achieving the associated generic goal. The generic practices associated with a generic goal describe the activities that are expected to result in achievement of the generic goal and contribute to the Institutionalization of the processes associated with a process area.

Goal

A required CMMI component that can be either: 

• a generic goal
• or a specific goal.

When you see the word goal in a CMMI model, it always refers to a model component (e.g., generic goal and specific goal).

See also: objective.

HTML

A publishing language; set by W3 Consortium; used by the World Wide Web (W3C, 2003).

Institutionalization

The ingrained way of doing business that an organization follows routinely as part of its corporate culture.

Maturity Level

Degree of process improvement across a predefined set of process areas in which all goals in the set are attained.

Objective

When used as a noun, the term objective replaces the word goal as used in its common everyday sense since the word goal is reserved for use when referring to the CMMI model components called specific goals and generic goals.

Organization

An administrative structure in which people collectively manage one or more projects as a whole, and whose projects share a senior manager and operate under the same policies. However, the word organization as used throughout CMMI models can also apply to one person who performs a function in a small organization that might be performed by a group of people in a large organization. 

See also: enterprise and organizational unit.

Organizational Policy

A guiding principle typically established by senior management that is adopted by an organization to influence and determine decisions.

PAD

PAD is an XML-based description file for Portable Applications, aims to help authors provide product descriptions and specifications to online sources in a standard way, using a standard data format that will allow web masters and program librarians to automate program listings (pad.asp-software.org, 2010).

Peer Review

The review of work products performed by peers during development of the work products to identify defects for removal. The term peer review is used in the CMMI Product Suite instead of the term work product inspection.

Process

Activities that can be recognized as implementations of practices in a CMMI model. These activities can be mapped to one or more practices in CMMI process areas to allow a model to be useful for process improvement and process appraisal.

Process Area

A cluster of related practices in an area that, when implemented collectively, satisfy a set of goals considered important for making improvement in that area.

Process Improvement

A program of activities designed to improve the performance and maturity of the organization’s processes and the results of such a program.

The process of making change to a process with the aim of making that process more predictable or to improve the quality of its output. 

For example, if your aim is to reduce the number of defects in the delivered software, you might improve the process by adding new validation activities (Sommarville, 2007).

Product

A work product that is intended for delivery to a customer or end user. The form of a product can vary in different contexts.

Product Component

A work product that is a lower level component of the product. Product components are integrated to produce the product. There may be multiple levels of product components.

Project

A managed set of interrelated resources which delivers one or more products to a customer or end user. A project has a definite beginning (i.e., project startup) and typically operates according to a plan. Such a plan is frequently documented and specifies what is to be delivered or implemented, the resources and funds to be used, the work to be done, and a schedule for doing the work. A project can be composed of projects.

Project Manager

The person responsible for planning, directing, controlling, structuring, and motivating the project. The project manager is responsible for satisfying the customer.

The person given day-to-day control of a project under the delegated authority of the sponsor (Cadle & Yeates, 2004).

Release

Release is a type of Version

A version of a software system that is made available to system customers (Sommarville, 2007).

Relevant Stakeholder

A stakeholder that is identified for involvement in specified activities and is included in a plan.

Required CMMI Components

CMMI components that are essential to achieving process improvement in a given process area. These components are used in appraisals to determine process capability. These are required model components:
 

• Specific Goals
• Generic Goals

Service

A service is a product that is intangible and non-storable.

Software Engineering

1. The application of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation, and maintenance of software.
2. The study of approaches as in (1).

Software Life Cycle

Often used as another name for the software process. Originally coined to refer to the waterfall model of the software process (Sommarville, 2007).

Software Process

The related set of activities and processes that are involved in developing and evolving a software system (Sommarville, 2007).

Specific Goal

A required CMMI component that describes the unique characteristics that must be present to satisfy the process area.

Specific Practice

An expected model component that is considered important in achieving the associated specific goal. The specific practices describe the activities expected to result in achievement of the specific goals of a process area.

Sponsor

An integrated team sponsor is a manager (individual or team) who is responsible for establishing and providing resources to an integrated team, monitoring its activities and progress, and taking corrective action when needed. A sponsor may manage one or many teams. Team sponsors can be project managers.

The person who ‘owns’ a project from a business perspective and who is usually responsible to the organization for the achievement of the project’s business case (Cadle & Yeates, 2004).

Stakeholder

An
individual or group that is affected by the activities and/or the outcome of a project or an organization (Cadle & Yeates, 2004). Stakeholders may include: 

• Project members
  • e.g. Project Manager
• Suppliers
• Customers
• End users
• Relevant Stakeholders
  • e.g. Sponsor

Standard

When you see the word standard used as a noun in a CMMI model, it refers to the formal mandatory requirements developed and used to prescribe consistent approaches to development (e.g., ISO/IEC standards, IEEE standards, and organizational standards). Instead of using standard in its common everyday sense, we use another term that means the same thing (e.g., typical, traditional, usual, or customary).

Standard Process

An operational definition of the basic process that guides the establishment of a common process in an organization.

Training

Formal and informal learning options, which may include in-class training, informal mentoring, Web-based training, guided self-study, and formalized on-the-job training programs. The learning options selected for each situation are based on an assessment of the need for training and the performance gap to be addressed.

UML

The leader in modeling languages used for specifying and documenting the artifacts of software development process and has become the de facto standard (Deek & McHugh Eljabiri, 2005).

Work Product

Product is a type of Work Product, and consist of Product Components

a useful result of a process. This can include:
 

• Files
• Documents
• Products
• Product Components
• Services
• Process descriptions
• Specifications
• Invoices

A key distinction between a work product and a product component is that a work product is not necessarily part of the product.

XHTML

An improved version of HTML; committed to XML standard; set by W3 Consortium.

XML

Standard (and its variants) used to improve compatibility between the disparate systems of business partners by defining the meaning of data in business documents (Truban, 2006).

Acronyms and Abbreviations

ASP

Association of Software Professionals

CSS

Cascading Style Sheets

CMM

Capability Maturity Model

CMMI

Capability Maturity Model Integration

DEB

Debian Package File

HTML

Hypertext Markup Language

ISO

International Standards Organization

LAMP

Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP

PAD

Portable Application Description

SEI

Software Engineering Institute

TinyMCE

Tiny Moxiecode Content Editor

UML

Unified Modeling Language

WYSIWYG

What You See Is What You Get

XHTML

Extensible Hypertext Markup Language

XML

Extensible Markup Language

References

• CMMI Product Team, CMMI for Development v1.2, Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute (SEI), 2006
• Sommarville I, Software Engineering 8e, Addison Wesley, 2007
• Turban E, Electronic Commerce, Prentice Hall, 2006
• Cadle & Yeates, Project Management for Information Systems 4e, Prentice Hall, 2004
• Deek & McHugh Eljabiri, Strategic Software Engineering, Auerbach Publications, 2005
• Thomas K, Beginning Ubuntu Linux 2e, Apress, 2007

I believe that the weight of this conflict in Windows world, comparing to it in Linux world, is the critical factor that lays out the bright Linux future.

Imagine that user’s requirements are represented by just a hot-air-balloon, and developer’s requirements are represented by the basket’s content. Take a look!

Linux vs. Windows

Believe me, penguin, sometimes, can fly better than a flag!

I’ve developed a custom version of TinyMCE, called rsTinyMCE, as a prototype to illustrate this vision as much as possible.

Things that I couldn’t represent in this prototype, had drawn in the following fake screenshot.

rsTinyMCE: A GWrite prototype

The differences, as you see, are:

• “Active Languages” combo box: To add lang=”" attribute to any tag or string. RichStyle library will take care of the appropriate font and directionality of the selected language.
• Views: Screen, Print, Source, Split.

“Find and Replace” fields should appear as a tool bar, not as a pop-up window, just like Firefox.

There’s a discussion on Launchpad about GWrite as an alternative word processor for elementaryOS:
https://blueprints.launchpad.net/elementaryos/+spec/abiword-alternative

No doubt that HTML standards and tools at that time weren’t mature enough, they were very poor comparing to the exist office tools and applications that were, in turn, growing without disciplines or clear standards.

However, HTML5 and CSS3 nowadays offer very powerful standards, and implemented by very powerful user agents; standards and agents that merge office capabilities with multimedia capabilities arriving to an ultimate rich content experience.

Using CSS3, you are supposed to be able to display the same document in different “views” for different media, with no need to reproduce it for each media. A view for web pages, another for printing media (papers), a third one for projector, and so on.

My loyal to CSS led me to develop what I can call it a “Standard Implementation of the Standard Specifications”; a CSS library that represents, in my opinion at least, the best practice in its field.

I don’t claim that it’s a ready-to-use library. Instead, I try to keep it grow along with specifications, without tricks or twisted solutions, but with recommendations; recommendations that help specifications grow in turn. It aims to put HTML5/CSS3 standards in action, and send back feedback and recommendations. See: http://richstyle.org/todo.php.

On the other hand, I have a theory says that; for simplicity’s sake; user can outsource the document’s format-instructions to the entire-system’s theme, so that all documents around can comply the system’s theme, and have the same spirit of the whole system. However, there could be an option in the user-agent’s interface that gives user a chance to display the document the way the original author has wrote it. Technically, it’s a chance to activate the CSS instructions included in that document. This means that CSS instructions included in a document should be disabled by default. It seems to me that the CSS-powered GNOME 3 advances this theory.

Imagine that everything in your desktop complies with this central CSS file:

• Web pages
• Yelp pages
• Documents
• Emails
• DocBooks
• Spreadsheets
• UML diagrams
• GTK widgets
• SVG icons

Everything is powered by one theme.

Pure CSS GUI icons

This means two main advantages:

1. Significant reduction in HTTP requests. Your web page will be faster.
2. High-flexibility for modification. The icon colors – and the other attributes – can be simply modified using a one single CSS file.

I just have several notes:

• I think this set of icons misses a very important one: A print icon.
• Bug: Letters used in those icons are not zoom-able along with icons themselves.
• I wish if the class names used for these icons comply with the “Icon Naming Specifications” according to freedosktop.org.
• I believe that such a unique solution should be extended and cover the whole operating-system icons. Such icons could be used for the GNOME panel. Not to mention that GNOME3 adopts CSS3 for the desktop themes.

Light-on-dark colors

Finally, this work really deserves to be published as a Debian/RPM package.

أضع بين يدي القارئ العربي الكريم طائفة من تراخيص البرمجيات الحرة الأكثر أهمية وانتشاراً، مترجمة إلى العربية.

تشمل هذه التراخيص كلاً من:

• رخصة GPL2 من غنو
• رخصة AGPL1 من أفيرو
• رخصة BSD
• رخصة MIT
• بيان ورخصة W3C®
• عقد دبيان الاجتماعي

Back to the spreadsheet application issue, I decided to use Gnumeric rather than OpenOffice Calc. It’s my absolute commitment to GNOME.

So, the whole process had to pass through three conversion processes, and four file formats!

Gnumeric to PDF

In order to simplify this process, Gnumeric should testify more commitment to HTML standards as much as possible.

• TH cells: There should be a kind of cells called “title cell”, represented by TH tag.
• Improved links: Internal links should use ID attribute as the target’s address, exactly the way XHTML 1.1 does.
• Support CLASS attribute for cells, rows, and columns.
• Cell padding: Using CSS, user should be able to adjust a cell’s padding from the “Format cells” dialog.
• TBody for grouping.

Once user wants to export to HTML, Gnumeric should consider the following:

• Metadata: Metadata of the Gnumeric file should be resented by and exported to HTML metadata.
• Export printing area only.
• Except hidden sheets.

With the following options:

• Represent each sheet as: caption/h1/h2/h3/h4.
• Formulas: Dynamic/Static.
• Print a formula report: i.e. A5 = A1 * 2.

Finally, regardless HTML, I wish I could see the following:

• Rotate: A command under “Tool” menu to convert rows to columns and vice versa.
• Using “unit” instead of “currency”: i.e. I can use meter, pound, or any other unit; not just currency.
• An ability to distinguish formula cells (kind of conditional format).