From Chile to Cambodia ... via South Africa

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [bytesforall_readers] From Chile to Cambodia ... via South Africa
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2005 01:21:55 +0530
From: Frederick Noronha <fred@sancharnet.in>
Reply-To: bytesforall_readers@yahoogroups.com
Organization: BytesForAll.org
To: bytesforall_readers@yahoogroups.com

FROM CHILE TO KHMER, WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM SOUTH AFRICA
Localisation proves to be an challenging job for FLOSS

By Frederick Noronha * Reporting from Bangalore
Blog: http://www.tacticaltech.org/asiasource/blog

Javier Sola was just "passing by" Cambodia, when he decided to take a u-turn
in his life. It was there that he decided to stay on, Now he believes he can
help localise the language of the region which he can sketch the characters
of, to explain its complexity.

This 43-year-old Chilean-born Spaniard was the director of the Spanish
Internet Users' Association. For seven years, he had pushed for the
development of the Internet in Spain. In that time, he had actively
participated in the creation of ICANN, the Internet's central management
body. He was chair of the working group that decided the creation of new
Internet top-level domains (like .info, .biz and so on).

But in 2003, he quit his job. Says he: "We created a working group to see
what has to be the future of the management of the Internet, something which
would be legally secure and yet affordable, and efficient. But then the US
intervened to say the Internet belonged to them."

Subsequently, Javier sees ICANN as becoming weak, with the levers of power
in the hands of dominant countries. "I was not at all happy. I had helped to
create this structure, and within a year, I got out," he says. By 2003,
people lost interest in the Internet. It became a commodity. "So I lost
interest and quit."

Life is, they way, what happens when you're making other plans. Javier had
been scouting around the Far East, lookin gfor a venue for an international
conference. He thought that he would love to spend his life writing -- he
had already done a small travel book on India. That's when he decided to
visit Cambodia, a place he had never been to.

There, he met a Spanish bishop who ran a handicapped children's home. After
staying there for eight months, he loved the place "because it was a very
happy place and there weren't too many computers around".

But things changed. Teaching the children computing was impossible. All were
in English, a language they didn't know. "I thought maybe I could do
something here. What would it take to get computers working in the Khmer
language?"

Then his search began. By 2003, he started looking at Open Source. "I
decided my social goals, and, based on social goals, looked for software,"
he said.

What were these goals? Reducing training time. Allowing people of a young
age to strart with computers. Reaching out to rural areas with computers.
Separating the skills of English and computing, so both not bundled.
("Someone who finishes high school in Cabmodia is usually very poor. They
need to find a job. If they can learn computers in two months, they can find
a job and, then, probably learn English. If you bundle the two, they will
take two years and probably find a job which doesn't need English.")

Also, the country was in an odd situation where the administration could not
work in its own language on computers. Says Javier: "When you transliterate
the language into English characters, there are different ways of spelling."

The Khmer scrip, is an Indic-based script, based on Brahmi. But it is
probably more complicated than some Indian scripts. Cambodia has some more
vowels. It has several split matras (vowel signs that Indian languages
have). It also has sub-script consonants like the Indian language of
Kannada, but you could have two consonants on a single letter, says Javier.

So Javier and his team started writing project proposals, looking at the
software needed, and sought to pick up the right multi-platform software
tools they could work on.

Javier explains the relevance of computerisation to Cambodian computing.
"Civil servants don't know English. There are a lot of small computer
training places in Cambodia. We want to retrain all these people. Ours is a
two stage plan. First develop and distribute applications. Simultaneously
develop Linux user interface, where it will work with the same."

Says he: "I will give them Word in English, and Open Office in Khmer, and
they can choose. I'm sure in a month they'll take the latter. You don't
confront the the existing status. You don't make anybody afraid."

How much has the team done so far?

Says Javier: "We have translated Internet tools, and we've translated Open
Office. ThunderBird, FireFox, IMP -- the last being a webmail programme,
needed since many users don't have their own computers on which to download
mail to. In terms of Open Office, we will be ready for distribution in
April. Open Office is translated. We're working on the help-section, and
hope to finish in a month."

What are their goals? Basic Internet applications, basic office
applications, and training material and documentation. They also hope to
introduce a training program that offers 'pyramidal' certification for those
who learn sections of the course, as they keep getting familiarised with
parts that lead up to the whole.

Currently, the project has six translators and one typographer. It hopes to
have a total of 14 persons -- including eight translators, and two
installers going round the country of 13 million and 181,000 sq kilometres,
installing the localised software in places where it matters. Three will be
'trainers of trainers'.

Large firms like Microsoft haven't yet come in to Cambodia with local
solutions. "It hasn't come. So far. Maybe the market is uninteresting. Maybe
after seeing what we're doing, they will come. That too will make me happy,
because they are social goals. It would help the Khmer language."

Javier says their project is "working really well". They believe the best
advangate of using Free/Libre and Open Source Software is language. "If
Microsoft isn't supporting your language yet, you have infinite
possibilities. If Microsoft is in your language, you have a requirement of
localising. Otherwise you can't compete," he points out.

Localisation is more important when it comes to spreading FLOSS, compared to
other advantages like the cost of the software, he believes. So, they went
about creating a master plan to computerise the private sector and those
beyond the government sector. "I think, at some point of time, we could
become the first country that manages to get wider Linux utilisation (based
largely on localisation)," he believes.

Javier has put his dreams on paper. He located the 70-year-old Nobert Klein,
who ran the Open Forum of Cambodia, and was, like him, involved in the
Internet in the mid-nineties. Ironically, the hike in the Euro value helped
that body to put aside some money and launch their localisation plans. Now
they've approached APDIP (the UNDP's Asia-Pacific Development Information
Programme) with plans to create a manual on how-to do a localisation
project.

>From South Africa, they've learnt what should be avoided. There, a major
localisation project to translate free software into 11 national languages
is being undertaken by Dwayne Bailey and team of translate.org.za "This is
really an exciting project," adds Javier. (ENDS)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frederick Noronha 784 Near Convent, Sonarbhat SALIGAO GOA India
Freelance Journalist TEL: +91-832-2409490 MOBILE: 9822122436
http://fn.swiki.net http://www.livejournal.com/users/goalinks
fred at bytesforall.org http://www.bytesforall.org

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