Plagiarists of Ethiopic

By Aberra Molla

(c) 1996, 1997 Ethiopian Computers & Software

The following is a list of those plagiarizing our work.

Ato Yitna Firdyiwek

• Copied ModEth
• Modified ModEth to GohaTibeb
• Ato Yitna and many others have been publishing our work as their own since 1992. Click here to read one of these illegal Internet documents on Ethiopic.

Mr. Daniel Yacob - Indiana University

• Ethiopic is Ethiopic; not Latin or Japanese.

• Bitmap fonts are obsolete.

• Too many errors in a 1996 graphics below by the SERA/GohaTibeb group.

• The character set by the SERA/GohaTibeb group (above) is not compatible with that of the Ato Abass Alamneh/Washera group (below). Mr. Yacob is another enemy of Ethiopic trying to destroy it by illegally promoting multiple, incomplete and incompatible Ethiopic character sets. Click here for more and here for some phony recommendations.  

• Mr. Yacob wants Ethiopians to use Latin characters, instead of Ethiopic, on the Internet. We have described elsewhere our reasons for keeping Ethiopic as Ethiopic. Searching for the Ethiopic documents may be impossible for him or require the use of only Latin characters.

• Ethiopic can be typed just like the Latin, with a maximum of two keystrokes per character. Multiple keystrokes or illegal copying of our methods as advocated by Mr. Yacob is unacceptable.

• We standardized Ethiopic using one font. Mr. Yacob is one of the new copycats (who has been publishing our work as his) while soliciting for Ethiopic fonts. Unless Mr. Yacob stops discrediting us and undermining our work, we may have to start calling him a liar.

• SERA was introduced in 1993 supposedly to be a transliteration of Ethiopic script into Latin. The so-called SERA can not translate to ModEth, EthioWord and our other products since it is an incomplete system. In the mean time the people behind SERA have encouraged the appearance of numerous incomplete and incompatible character sets by copycats. The purpose behind such activities was to make a SERA program which was supposed to create compatibility for the incompatibility they deliberately encouraged. Such gimmicks are not in the best interest of Ethiopic and are unacceptable. Furthermore, our super editor (EthioWord, GeezEdit, etc.) uses any font making all copycat programs, fonts and SERA unnecessary. This is also because all copycat programs are reduced versions of our products and there is nothing copycats do which we can not do. Reduced Ethiopic sets can or will do everything Latin sets do with computers.

• The original claim was supposedly the facilitation of Ethiopic e-mail by what is referred to as SERA. All Ethiopian mailing lists, including EEDN are still using Latin e-mail. The Ethiopian mailing lists continue to use Latin characters for Ethiopic. Our Ethiopic e-mail, for complete sets plus other characters such as Latin, has been available for years. Hiding behind University departments and denying facts would not change anything other than the credibility of institutions such as Addis Abeba University.

• Ethiopian Computers & Software of Colorado was established to create Ethiopian computers and software since there were none. ModEth is one of our best products and it is not our company name. We are mentioning this trivia since Mr. Yacob continues to refer to our company as ModEth. (Note: ModEth has been corrected to Ethiopian Computers & Software since January 1997.) It was probably not by accident that EthioWord and GeezEdit were never mentioned while these programs have laid better rules for Geez than those presented as new publications.

• Every Ethiopic character can be represented with a maximum of two characters. The use of three or more characters to represent a character was for the sake of reading the Ethiopic using Latin characters. Unnecessary new rules and avoidable multiple keystrokes were introduced, as improvement over our methods, while these could have been adopted without problems using our standard two-key methods. Representation should not have been associated with input methods.

• Mr. Yacob and many others have been publishing our work as their own since 1992 or 1993. Click here to read some of these illegal Internet documents on Ethiopic

• We have managed to code each Ethiopic character on one space. SERA is using double spaces for each and every character. This is unacceptable and unnecessary waste.

• We have managed to type each Ethiopic character with a maximum of two keystrokes each. SERA uses three or more keystrokes for some Ethiopic characters. The purpose behind using many keystrokes was supposedly to differentiate the Ethiopic characters as they were represented by the relatively fewer Latin letters. It seems Mr. Yacob has missed our basic principles, since our Ethiopic has always appeared as Ethiopic and there is no need to represent Ethiopic by Latin or any other alphabet. Click here to see a SERA Latin version of an Ethiopic ModEth document from the March 1994 issue of Ethiopian Review. If Mr. Yacob had it his way, there will be numerous incompatible versions of Ethiopic or non-Ethiopic characters and sets and the only way to salvage the Ethiopic from the chaos will be to use his Latin method or abandon the Ethiopic. Click here to read the actual Ethiopian Review Amharic article as well as our Ethiopic HTML and other formats of the same article.

• Our passive as well as active typing methods were developed with consideration for the relationships to Latin typing, the keyboard layouts and the character sets. People behind the so-called SERA have failed to realize our basic principles and the standards we have been developing for Geez. As a result, our standard Ethiopic Unicode character map is different from those of the copycats.

• Mr. Yacob is one of those who has been using graphics of Ethiopic letters instead of the characters. Representation of Ethiopic characters by graphics is an insult to Geez. This is because each and every character can be represented by Ethiopic character. It is high time that all copycats work on their ideas with us rather than destroy our Ethiopic standards. See the code for the picture of the Amharic Geez word below. Also note how Amharic or Amarigna ia spelled as amarNa.

• 

• The statement, in the graphics above, "August 12th 1996 - Fidel Accepted In Unicode!!" is untrue. Unicode has not accepted Fidel or any Ethiopic.

• 

• More fiction by Mr. Daniel Yacob, who is also known as Mr. Daniel Mulholland. 

Prof. Amha Asfaw - University of Missouri

Article 1 of 5 Subject: Amharic From: aesamha@mizzou1.missouri.edu (Amha Asfaw) Date: 1996/10/07 Message-Id: Organization: University of Missouri Newsgroups: soc.culture.african " # $ % & ' * + <=> @ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z [ \ ] ^ _ ` a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z { | } ~ Æ Æ Æ Æ Æ ... Æ Æ Æ Æ Æ Æ OE Æ Æ Æ Æ ` ' " " · &endash; &emdash; Æ TM Æ Æ oe Æ Æ Æ ¡ ¢ £ ¥ ¦ § ¨ © ª ¬ ­ ® ¯ ° ± ² ³ ´ µ ¸ ¹ º ¼ ½ ¾ ¿ À Á Â Ã Ä Å Æ Ç È É Ê Ë Ì Í Î Ï Ð Ñ Ò Ó Ô Õ Ö Æ Ø Ù Ú Û Ü Ý Þ ß à á â ã ä å æ ç è é ê ë ì í î ï ð ñ ò ó ô õ ö Æ ø ù ú û ü ý þ

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• Not Amharic.

Ato Fekade Mesfin - Feedel Software, Los Angeles, California

The use of fake letters as Ethiopic is a disgrace to Ethiopic specially after we have described about the issue many times. We went out of our way to introduce and describe GeezCyber for the sake of discouraging the introduction of such methods as something new. With the implementation of the Unicode standards, character parts should be history. It is probably because they knew this fact that the GohaTibeb/SERA group continued to copy our methods in spite of being stuck on WordPerfect 5.1. It was probably because Washera and friends knew we were right all along that they tried to get ahead of us with incomplete Ethiopic characters. Fekade should have at least realized by now that he is not dealing with Feedel.  

Fekade has just advertised (November 1996) his usual fiction about software for Ethiopic languages and the first advertisement about his fonts on the Internet. In the advertisement Feedel falsely brags about how it has taken the computer from the word processing job to being an Ethiopic publisher. The purpose of the advertisement with a picture of a web document which does not exist is also to cheat the consumer with new lies.

Fekade has done a good job in trying to destroy Ethiopic. Feedel has no Geez or Ethiopic fonts. What Feedel refers to as Ethiopic are typewriter fonts which are not Ethiopic. Fekade is deliberately misuses the Geez or Ethiopic word for the sake of embezzling gullible users. The advertisement mentions on how Feedel has taken the Geez alphabet to a higher level while Feedel and its friends have been busy for years to take it to the lowest possible level. Fekade is one of the copycats who gave out fake fonts and programs without protection and pretended to be selling when they knew very well that they would not make money. The purpose of giving out such fonts and programs was to destroy Ethiopic while replacing it with non-Ethiopic fonts. It was an unsuccessful desperate attempt to destroy our Ethiopic fonts and programs by displacing them with free phony characters, character parts and programs. One of the programs which was freely distributed was a product of Digital Equipment Corporation of Alabama.

It was when these efforts to destroy the Ethiopic failed that Fekade decided to protect a program with dongles, copied our layouts (see the graphics below) and resorted to false advertisements in December 1994. Something unusual about the parasitic Feedel was the vicious cycle it created by attracting new parasites of Ethiopic. (Even Phonetics of Houston had to abandon copying ModEth and came up with a typewriter Gateway program.) In 1985 Dashen Engineering released its computerized Amharic typewriter program and font. By the time we computerized Ethiopic for the first time and used the standard Ethiopic printing press characters, the typewriter layout, typing methods and fonts became obsolete. By 1994 Fekade made typewriter fonts out of the standard printing press characters and was simulating our keyboards, typing methods and fonts. In other words, he was cheating the gullible users who bought the software on the assumption that it was like our ModEth/EthioWord products which use the real Ethiopic or printing press characters. Many who rejected the Dashen typewriter program were taken by Feedel only because the font and the layouts looked like those of our products. Many still do not know that Dashen and Feedel are two of the numerous computerized typewriters on the market. The most recent (typewriter) addition is a program called EthioSoft.

The new Feedel advertisement of November 1996 about the Geez Internet fonts in Amharic is part of the same pattern. This time Fekade wants to use the typewriter font he made out of the second Ethiopian printing press typeface for cheating the customers while figuring out how we took the typewriter fonts and Ethiopic to the Internet. Another emerging pattern seems to be that Feedel, like Washera, is sticking to the lies in Amharic probably because of the need to concentrate on the more gullible audience.  

ModEth/EthioWord/GeezEdit

Compare our English-Ethiopian (overlay) above with that of a Feedel layout below.

A Feedel Layout (1994)

Feedel was introduced through Ethiopian Register magazine in 1994. Prior to copying our layouts, Feedel was one of the Amharic typewriter font utilities for a Macintosh program which we have mentioned in our 1991 review. By 1994 Feedel has been transformed into a copycat which was destroying Ethiopic while taking advantage of our standardized keyboard layouts and our various methods.

We do not want Feedel or anybody to copy our methods and follow us into the Internet for the following reasons.

• The names of the Latin computer keyboard keys are equivalent to the Ethiopic first order characters or the Geez series of glyphs. In other words, the "B" key is the same with the Ethiopic first order "B" character. Our standard keyboard was built by assigning the Ethiopic "B" character to the computer "B" key.  Thus the Ethiopic "B" character was assigned to the "Shift B" typing position. This is based on history, science and logic as well as insight into the future. Feedel is taking advantage of years of our works and mapping its characters to our overlays illegally while distorting the map. Feedel either deliberately moved its first order characters to the lower case positions or had no idea about our principles behind key assignments. (It may have been a problem associated with ignorance of what we have accomplished rather than misunderstanding the overlay layout and we are thus making ourselves clear about it.) In other words, Feedel assigned the Ethiopic "B" character to the "b" position. This is because the Feedel product is based on taking advantage of our established keyboards, overlays and customers while destroying the Ethiopic. We strongly suggest that Feedel and its supporters (and all copycats) concentrate on building Ethiopic properly and legally rather than ignorantly destroy what we built and Ethiopic. This is because it is very shameful to take advantage of the trust of the consumers and make money while destroying the Ethiopic and our computer keyboard keys.
• Feedel and the typewriter crew are foolish enemies of Ethiopic. Ethiopic has only about half a dozen typefaces. Fekade and the like have been busy over the years making thousands of fake structures out of the scanned standard Geez font. Fekade has announced that a font will be distributed for Internet use in the near future. This, of course, will be one of the non-Ethiopic typewriter fonts made out of one of the scanned Ethiopian printing press typefaces. At the time Ethiopians are expected to be making thousands of new typefaces, some have been busy making thousands of non-Ethiopic fake structures out of one typeface. We thus disagree with the use of high technology to drag Ethiopic backwards. This is because it is a waste of time to make new Ethiopic typefaces when the consumers are not ready to use them while the typewriter crews are eagerly waiting to take them apart. Fekade and friends are not playing with the typewriter fonts they made since they can not make one. They are good only for destroying the printing press characters others made to be used without mutilation. Fekade managed to fool only the gullible and Ethiopian Register is the only magazine in the USA that uses this fake typewriter font. As if Ethiopians have not seen what a typewriter font on the Internet looks like, Fekade is now also falsely claiming that there is nothing the Feedel software can not do. He has started selling the mutilated second Ethiopian font as a new Internet font and layout when it will not be any different other than a modification of one of our methods or rejects.
• Feedel fonts are distributed on two typefaces. As a result, they share the advantages and disadvantages of what we have described for Ethio Systems/Washera. Feedel has replaced our Ethiopic keyboard with an Amharic keyboard. Yet, it does not even have all the Amharic character parts and this computer gimmick is no good even as an Amharic typewriter. We have made the Amharic typewriter obsolete with computers. As a result, the typewriter has no place on the Internet specially when it is pushed by those who are dishonestly using it for destroying the Ethiopic. This is because the Amaharic typewriter characters were never competition for the printing press characters. Feedel should not have mutilated a second Ethiopic typeface, when it could not use the first one, specially after we replaced them by the complete GeezEdit font. Only an enemy of Ethiopic would do such a thing. A fragmented typewriter font on computers is a poor substitute of the real Ethiopic. Fekade could not defend his typewriter modifications of our computer keyboards from other copycats since his keyboards were illegal copies of ours. Different typewriter copycat programs which used the same typeface were unable to destroy or replace the Ethiopic. Now that we mentioned that more than one Ethiopic typeface can be used at a time on the Internet, the enemies of Ethiopic must be unhappy. The use of two typefaces of fragmented typewriter fonts are deliberate attempts to invite other irresponsible copycats to the Internet. Feedel and friends are now into a second round of hit and run activities and when that happens, the shame will not be on Ethiopic. It will also be on those who did not heed our repeated warnings and cooperated in the mutilation and partition of Ethiopic.
• Fekade continues to use the "B" character to describe a two-keystrokes typing method when he has actually introduced a three-keystrokes typing method. Unlike Washera which was imagining a two-keystrokes typing method, Fekade does not say anything about the three keystrokes he uses on the vowel keys. We reject Feedel's typewriter due to its distortion of our two-keystrokes typing methods.
• We do not like typewriter modifications of Ethiopic characters for the following reasons 
  • Typewriter fonts are not Ethiopic or Geez.
  • Type styles of such fonts (bold, italic, etc.) are difficult to make.
  • Most of the typewriter font characters need two or more character spaces. (Ethiopic characters use only one space per character.)
  • Typewriter characters need two or more codes per character. (Ethiopic-ASCII or ESCII uses one code per character.)
  • One can not make and can not thus use fixed size Ethiopian typewriter fonts.
• Ethiopic documents posted on the Internet should be searchable using the alphabet. This is because we surf the cyber space using Ethiopic and many other language alphabets. Currently, only our products have such capabilities. At no time should Ethiopic documents that can not be retrieved by the search engines be posted on the WWW. Retrieval of Ethiopic documents should not depend on Latin or other alphabets. Ethiopic search should not interfere with the search using other alphabets such as Latin. An Ethiopic Internet document which can not utilize the search programs is very difficult to find. Finding an Ethiopic document which is not recognized by the search engines is more difficult than searching for a needle in a hay stack.
• Our programs (ModEth, EthioWord and GeezEdit) type the complete Ethiopic or incomplete Ethiopic and parts with a maximum of two keystrokes per character. Typing of the 480+ Ethiopic characters is similar to typing Latin characters. In fact, we have even improved on the Latin since we type the extended characters with a maximum of two keystrokes per character. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to improve on our two-keystrokes typing methods. In spite of the availability of different keyboard designs and layouts, many who type a lot suffer from repetitive stress or fatigue of the hands which often lead to Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. This is because of repeated movements of the hands and the fingers during typing. The less the number of keystrokes the better, provided the work is done. None of the numerous copycats copying our methods type even their incomplete Ethiopic or typewriter characters with a maximum of two-keystrokes. They use three to five keystrokes for some characters while some toggle through the font menu to switch from one typeface to another. Fekade uses three keystrokes for some characters while he toggles through the font menu using many keystrokes to get to other characters. Ethiopians should not be victimized with an avoidable and unnecessary extra risk to the syndrome because of the incompetence of the copycats. This is because many more people who use three to five keystrokes per character will be sick when compared to the ones who use only two keystrokes per character. This foolish and careless mentality is shared by Washera, GohaTibeb/SERA, AcuWORK, etc. and their supporters who think their multiple keystrokes are better than our two keystrokes.
• One of the nice features of our EthioEdit program is the simplicity of our editing method. Editing of the Ethiopic characters is by just clicking on the order command and/or striking a key. Ethiopic editing is not as simple as editing a Latin document. The less the number of keystrokes the better. None of the numerous copycats copying our methods edit their incomplete Ethiopic or typewriter characters with a maximum of two-keystrokes per character. They use three to five keystrokes for most of the characters while some toggle through the font menu to switch from one typeface to another. (In one copycat program, one has to select a font and type the ASCII number.) The users should not be victims of avoidable, unnecessary and inefficient keystrokes because of the incompetence of the copycats. This carelessness is shared by all copycats; though the causes of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome are the keyboards. Feedel requires additional keystrokes to delete separate arbitrary pieces of unwanted character parts when some of the characters require deletion.
• Switching between fonts is essential if a document has to use the proper characters. Feedel has to manually switch between fonts. On the other hand, Washera falsely claimed the use of two keystrokes while even that was only half the story. Ethiopic editing using Washera is as difficult as typing with it and may involve up to seven keystrokes per character.
• TrueType typewriter fonts are like bitmaps designed for specified criteria such as sizes, resolutions and dimensions. A font manipulated to look good at twelve points looks good at that size while the parts get lost as the size is lowered or come apart and may even wrap around as the size is increased. In programs such as CorelDRAW and PowerPoint, the parts come apart when the dimension is changed defeating one of the powerful features of the programs. Yet, the beautiful 480 Ethiopic characters have no problem using the features of these and many other excellent programs.
• An Ethiopic typeface family must have all the four styles or a total of 480 times four or 1,920 characters. Copycats do not have a single style or can not even handle one with 480 glyphs. They should not thus rush to introduce new incomplete typefaces. (This is also because poor options should be introduced as supplement rather than replacement of the real thing.) Ethiopic users should not miss even a single character on computers because of the arrogance or greed of copycats.

Ato Abass Alamnehe -

• Click here for old and new incomplete Geez ideas.
• Reduced our Ethiopic set to tribal keyboard in 1995.
• Click here for an Amharic version (1995) of one of our numerous publications and why we are opposed to incomplete Geez characters and character parts. This publication now applies to the 1996 version of EthioSystems/Washera's incomplete concept.
• Ato Abass and his endorsers (EEDN/EthCITA) want Ethiopic users to use Latin characters or graphics of Ethiopic characters instead of Ethiopic since 1995.
• Ethio Systems incomplete Ethiopic by April, 1997. Guess how many of our predictions about this copycat have come to be true? Click here to read more about this and other 1997 plagiarists.
• 
• 
• Ylb ]yNDRq

Ato Daniel Admasse -

• Starting around 1990 this typewriter crew reduced the Ethiopic characters to less than 256 character limit of the set. Ato Daniel of the Ethiopian Science and Technology Commission subsequently used incomplete characters while the new Commission postponed our Ethiopian patent and copyright application for computerizing Ethiopic since Ethiopia had no patent laws.
• We recently came across an Internet document from Ethiopia which mentioned that Ato Daniel made the first Amharic word processor. That is not true. Ethiopian Computers & Software of Colorado made the first Ethiopic word processor and Ethiopic includes Amharic. At Daniel was the third copycat who reduced and copied our methods.

Ato (GeezFont)? - A New Copycat from Canada

• Click here to read about this one.  

(Under Construction)

Last Updated June 7, 1997

Copyright (c) 1985-1997 ABSHA/ECS (Aberra Molla)  

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