Re: [OSS] Re: Knowledge of CVS systems

At 22:47 2003.03.03, you wrote:
>Thanh, Andi,
>
>My impression is admittedly a while old.
>Some time back, I saw a number of Vietnamese FLOSS pieces in Vietnam (e.g.
>publishing systems similar to Nuke), but pretty much nothing when I went
>to the corresponding websites. It has changed meanwhile.
>I found the following websites mentioning a Vietnamese section:
>- Gnome
>- KDE
>- Mozilla
>- Mandrake
>- phpNuke
>I did not find anything, although it is available of:
>- OpenOffice
>- RedHat

I'm pretty sure RedHat (or any other distro -- such as SlackWare or LFS
(Linux From Scratch) for *educational* purposes -- normally means "command
line" usage plus x-windows, and that just entails using locales environment
variables, unicode and xvnkb. Re xvnkb, see ba'c Larry Nguyen's
presentation at http://www.vnlinux.org/presentation/xvnkb/xvnkb.html

Try "ls /usr/share/locale/" on any Linux system and you'll see the global
files involved. If there's a "/usr/share/locale/vi", that's where the
system-wide Vietnamese localization files are.

pclouds knows much more about this than i do. i usually don't install most
of the locales.

>To contribute to those projects, one does not need to be a great SW
>project manager, but only a reasonable programmer, no?

No, just a very good translation team with a project manager highly fluent
in both languages who can authoritatively choose between different
expressions of the similar application functions.

The coding is actually minimal. It's basically just translating
ui/gui-strings and plugging them into menuing/system-message databases
(whose structures are generally pre-defined per version).

In terms of CVS, a Vietnamese version of any s/w, it's basically just new
branches in the CVS menuing, system-message and documentation branches of
the CVS tree.

>One reads always how good programmers the Vietnamese are. I just wonder,
>why not more people contribute (although it has improved obviously).

Vietnam has many good programmers, but few who can communicate sufficiently
with non-Vietnamese project managers or work systematically in project
teams under systems development conventions, such as CMM (Capability
Maturity Model), etc. And Vietnamese-speaking project managers are even
more rare than Vietnamese coders who can communicate effectively on
projects involving international team members.

>Cheers,
>Stefan
>
>
>At 14:21 03.03.2003 +0000, you wrote:
>-------------------------
>>At 21:31 2003.02.28, Thanh Nguyen wrote:
>>>Hi Stefan,
>>>
>>>At 03:09 AM 2/28/2003 +0000, you wrote:
>>>>Right now it seems, that there is a number of individuals, companies and
>>>>institutions /taking/ from the FLOSS sources, but it seems to me, that
>>>>nearly nobody in Vietnam /contributes back/ to it. Free Software is about
>>>>"Sharing", which means not only "taking", but also "giving".
>>>
>>>It's not exactly to say that nobody in Vietnam contributes to the FLOSS. At
>>>least some of us and few people I know in VietLug did that.
>>
>>Yet the numbers are still very low. Cf. the Linux User Counter VietNam,
>>where only 81 Linux users are currently registered for VietNam:
>>
>>*--------------- Country Maintainer ---------------*
>>*--- Linux Users Counter - VietNam (Vie^.t Nam) ---*
>>*---- http://counter.li.org/bycountry/VN.html -----*
>>*-------------- Count Your Self *IN* --------------*
>>
>>(Notably, VietNam's may be the only bilingual Linux Counter page -- or at
>>least one of a very select few.)
>>
>>Though the Linux Counter grossly underestimates the actual number of Linux
>>Users, it can be used as part of a basis for estimating actual numbers. See
>>http://counter.li.org/estimates.php or
>>http://counter.li.org/reports/short.php
>>(where VietNam is now ranked No. 157 out of 191, in terms of Linux users per
>>capita -- between Kenya and Papua New Guinea ;))))
>>
>>>>If a lack of familiarity with the CVS system is really a reason, then I
>>>>would propose to work with the "education subgroup" of this list on how to
>>>>overcome that problem, e.g. by inviting somebody to travel to some
>>>>Universities etc., stay there for a few days, and teach lecturers and
>>>>students the "HOWTO"...
>>>
>>>It seems that using CVS is a basic skill of EU/US computer science students
>>>(please correct me if I'm wrong). CVS system is used in our company for all
>>>projects. However, I don't think that CVS is a really reason. Usually
>>>people who can contribute to FLOSS community know how to use CVS or can
>>>learn it in a short time. IMHO, the most important reason is that most of
>>>Vietnamese people aren't familiar with FLOSS and/or do not work with/use
>>>FLOSS much.
>>
>>I'd have to agree with ba'c Thanh. Learning CVS is pretty trivial. A good
>>set of courses in Project Management and Collaboration in general might
>>provide more significant benefits/cost.
>>
>>*--------------------------------------------------*
>> AD Marshall, VietInfoComm&Edu [VICE]-8 Consulting
>> * CompTIA Linux+, Linux Registered User 251932 *
>> Vietnam Information Communications & Education
>> ParadoxCafe-VietNamAsia HTTP://ParadoxCafe.Com
>> eM00: MailTo:AD.Marshall@VICEConsulting.Com
>> Post: 8A/G8 Don Dat, Q.1, TpHCM, VietNam
>> eM01: MailTo:AD.VICE@ParadoxCafe.Net
>>*--------------------------------------------------*
>> GPG/PGP Public Keys & Fingerprints:
>> http://h0lug.sourceforge.net/gpgpgp.html
>>*--------------------------------------------------*
>>*--------------- Country Maintainer ---------------*
>>*--- Linux Users Counter - VietNam (Vie^.t Nam) ---*
>>*---- http://counter.li.org/bycountry/VN.html -----*
>>*-------------- Count Your Self *IN* --------------*
>>*--------------------------------------------------*
>>
>>
>>

To facilitate co-ordination regarding the introduction of OSS SW in Vietnam

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