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+This is GNU FriBidi
+The Free Implementation of the Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm.
+
+Background
+==========
+
+One of the missing links stopping the penetration of free software in Middle
+East is the lack of support for the Arabic and Hebrew alphabets. In order to
+have proper Arabic and Hebrew support, the BiDi algorithm should have been
+implemented. It is our hope that this library will stimulate more free
+software in the Middle Eastern countries.
+
+Audience
+========
+
+It is our hope that this library will stimulate the implementation of Hebrew
+and Arabic in lots of free software. Here is a small list of projects that
+would benefit from the use of the GNU FriBidi library, but of course there are
+many more: Wine, Mozilla, Qt, KDE, lynx, OpenOffice.
+
+GNU FriBidi is already being used in projects like Pango (resulting in GTK+
+and GNOME using GNU FriBidi), AbiWord, MLTerm, MPlayer, and BiCon.
+
+Dependencies
+============
+
+Currently GNU FriBidi does not depend on any other library.  It uses GNU Build
+System for build and installation on POSIX systems.  There are some files to
+assist you creating a w32 DLL in the w32/ folder.
+
+Downloading
+===========
+
+The latest version of GNU FriBidi may be found at:
+
+   http://www.freedesktop.org/Software/FriBidi
+
+Building
+========
+
+See INSTALL for a description of how to build and install this library.
+
+License
+=========
+
+This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
+modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
+License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
+version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
+
+This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
+but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
+Lesser General Public License for more details.
+
+You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License
+along with this library, in a file named COPYING; if not, write to the
+Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330,
+Boston, MA  02111-1307  USA
+
+Implementation
+==============
+
+The library implements the algorithm described in the "Unicode Standard
+Annex #9, The Bidirectional Algorithm", available at
+http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr9/. GNU Fribidi has been tested
+exhaustively against the Unicode Reference Code, and to the best of our
+knowledge, it completely conforms to the specification, always producing
+the same result as the Reference Code.
+
+The library uses Unicode (UTF32) entirely. The character properties are
+automatically extracted from the Unicode data files, available from:
+
+	http://www.unicode.org/Public/UNIDATA/
+
+This means that every Unicode character is treated in strict accordance
+with the Unicode specification.
+
+There is a limited support for character set conversion from/to the UTF32
+encoding.  Data in these character sets must be converted into UTF32 before
+the library may be used.  iconv(3) can always do a better job on that, so you
+may find that the character sets conversion code is typically turned off on
+POSIX machines.
+
+The reordering of characters is typically done through the function:
+      
+     fribidi_boolean
+     fribidi_log2vis(/* input */
+		     FriBidiChar *str,
+		     FriBidiStrIndex len,
+		     FriBidiCharType *pbase_dir,
+		     /* output */
+		     FriBidiChar *visual_str,
+		     FriBidiStrIndex *position_L_to_V_list,
+		     FriBidiStrIndex *position_V_to_L_list,
+		     FriBidiLevel    *embedding_level_list
+		     )
+    
+
+where
+     str                    is the Unicode input string
+     len                    is the length of the unicode string
+     pbase_dir              is the input and output base direction. If 
+                            base == FRIBIDI_TYPE_ON then fribidi_log2vis 
+                            calculates the base direction on its own
+                            according to the BiDi algorithm.
+     visual_str             The reordered output unicode string.
+     position_L_to_V_list   Maps the positions in the logical string to 
+                            positions in the visual string.
+     position_V_to_L_list   Maps the positions in the visual string to 
+                            the positions in the logical string.
+     embedding_level_list   Returns the classification of each character. Even
+                            levels indicate LTR characters, and odd levels
+                            indicate RTL characters. The main use of this
+                            list is in interactive applications when the
+                            embedding e.g. level determines cursor display.
+
+In any of the output pointers == NULL, then that information is not 
+calculated.
+
+How it looks like
+=================
+
+Have a look at tests directory, to see some input and outputs, which
+CapRTL charset means that CAPITAL letters are right to left, and digits
+6, 7, 8, 9 are Arabic digits, try 'fribidi --charsetdesc CapRTL' for the
+full description.
+
+Executable
+==========
+
+There is also a command-line utilitity called fribidi that loops over
+the text of a file and performs the BiDi algorithm on each line, also
+used for testing the algorithm. Run fribidi with the --help option to
+learn about usage.  The command-line utility is known to have problems
+with line-breaking and ltov/vtol lists.
+
+Bugs and comments
+=================
+
+Report GNU FriBidi bugs at:
+
+	http://freedesktop.org/cgi-bin/bugzilla/enter_bug.cgi?product=FriBidi
+
+And send your comments to:
+
+	fribidi-discuss@lists.sourceforge.net
+
+
+Behdad Esfahbod
+behdad@gnu.org
+10 April 2004