[Libreoffice] libicudata ICU data info

[Mike Whiteley]

The current libicudata is about 15MB, but it doesn't need
to be that large.  We can probably get it down to 5MB
or less. I took a bit of time on this.

1) The configuration files needed to modify what is actually
in icudata are NOT included in the package in libreoffice's repository.
A real "source" package can be downloaded, which is what we'll
need to do if we want to customize this library.

2) The bulk of the data in (our non-source package) icudata
comes from an input file ./source/data/in/icudt44l.dat.  This
file can be removed which causes the resulting icudata library to
go from 15MB to 4.4MB.  Reading the ICU data web page leads
me to believe this 4.4MB file has enough to handle most stuff,
but I'm not sure.
HELP:  We should try this solution first.  Will someone please
who knows more about icudata see if a library build this way
is enough for what libreoffice needs?

3) There are two icudata packages in my repository.  Probably
one of them can be deleted (also, these are not pure source
packages anyways).

4) I downloaded a real source package from ICU, and can build
a custom library where we can do whatever we want. I can build
a custom version of libicudata using version 4.8 which results
in about a 7MB library, which I believe has all of the basic
conversion tables, but again I'm not sure and someone who knows
more than I do regarding the needs of libreoffice needs to test
this.

5) Keep in mind my knowledge of icudata is still very limited,
and this information is only from me reading their web pages for
20 min, and me messing with code for another 20 minutes.

Anyways, I just thought this would be helpful.

Mike

Michael Whiteley
Engineer/Law Student