indic-computing-users — Discussing the usage of indian language capable tools

[Indic-computing-users] Tamil [GNU] Linux World: 2003-India paves road...

[Frederick N. (FN) <fr...@by...>]

------------------------------------------------------------------
TAMIL LINUX WORLD: 2003-INDIA PAVES ROAD FOR THE LINUX DESKTOP

"That perennial question of Linux On The Desktop (LOTD) dangles
at the end of 2002. Who is going to break the ice? 2002 saw
several Open Source companies getting ready for it... But, which
is going to be the first major company to sell and support a
Linux based personal computers...?"

COMPLETE STORY:
http://tamil.homelinux.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=
article&sid=33&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

------------------------------------------------------------------

[Indic-computing-users] Malayalam GNU/Linux screenshots

[Frederick N. (FN) <fr...@by...>]

________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Message: 1
   Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2003 12:12:58 -0000
   From: "Baiju M" <mal...@ya...>
Subject: Malayalam GNU/Linux Screenshots

Hi,
Here is a small collection of Malayalam GNU/Linux Screenshots.
http://www.keralaindustry.org/malayalam/screenshots/screenshots.html
If you inerested to join with this effort, please contact me at
bai...@ly...

Baiju M



________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Re: [Indic-computing-users] A Site for Tutorials in Hindi

[Tapan S. P. <ta...@ya...>]

Looks like someone trying to parlay a MS high paying job to me.  Good
luck Prabudh!  ;)

[Indic-computing-users] A Site for Tutorials in Hindi

[Dr. U.B. P. <pav...@vi...>]

From VOLT discussions group
When Ichecked the webs-site, I found nothing in it -Pavanaja
-----------------------------------------
             Lets Prepare Ourselves For Indic Windows. 
Computers, Is it a thing which only people with fluent English are able 
                              to work. 
I think its scope today is not limited to just english with so much of 
localization 
done on it. 
As per news spread in last two months, Windows in hindi is do 
scheduled 
sometime later this year,or may be a year later, Its the need for 
overtaking the 
Linux Localization taking lead all over. 
I Consider Every User/Developer can do contribute a visible Amount of 
Information which would certainly help the Novice Indian User to work 
and 
learn through windows based machine, and its time to provide 
information in all leading Indian Language. 
Iam soon to start a Site to fulfil needs of indian users 
www.hindixp.com
People will have chance to get:- 
1).Tutorials in Hindi 
2).Articles In Hindi
3).News About Softwares.
4).Discussion Forum in Hindi 
5).People would also be able to Upload their articles/Tutorials in hindi 
which after 
proper screening will be published along with credits. 
6).A Developers' Section to promote efforts from individuals. 
7).A Support forum for Helping people with troubleshooting the 
Windows based 
machines.
8).Links and information about latest downloads along with its review. 
I would welcome any of your suggestions and queries at 
in...@hi... 
Oops i forgot to tell this site will be in Unicode Ready Fonts. 
Apart and before this I'll be also Introducing a Pro-Indic Hosting 
Service within a week where people will get Free Indian Language 
Fonts in both TTF and Dynamic 
Format. This would help all indian languages spread with ease over 
internet. Along with Free Consultation for indian language fonts. 
There's a possiblity to provide assistance for people in converting their 
data 
from Hacked Encoded fonts to unicode encoded ones.
Will link the URL later. 
Its my Request to all Indian Developers to update their contact 
information,services they provide to my mailling list at 
in...@hi... 
Can any one show me links where one can get information about 
linking to downloads at Microsoft.com. 
Do Send your Suggestions, 
See ya,
Prabudh
------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------
Dr. U.B. Pavanaja
Editor, Vishva Kannada
World's first Internet magazine in Kannada
http://www.vishvakannada.com/

Note: I don't worry about pselling mixtakes

[Indic-computing-users] FW: Displaying the languages of the Indian subcontinent. (derives from Re: Please see my latest proposal)

[Andy W. <And...@bt...>]

I am Forwarding this from the 'Unicode list':

[from William Overington]

Firstly, I mention that I am not a linguist and do not write to make a
linguistic comment at all.

As some readers of this mailing list may know, I am very interested in
interactive television, in particular the DVB-MHP (Digital Video
Broadcasting - Multimedia Home Platform) system, which uses Unicode.

Now, from the specification for the DVB-MHP system, which can be
downloaded from the http://www.mhp.org website, it appears that fonts
for the DVB-MHP system, which can be broadcast, are to be in the PFR0
system, Portable Font Resource version 0.  I have some time ago obtained
some details of that system and looked through them, but did not follow
all of the details, yet, as the system seemed to date from the early
1990s it seems entirely possible that the PFR0 system does not support
the mechanism which allows a font to substitute a particular glyph for a
sequence such as the  U+0985 U+09CD
U+09AF which Michael mentioned in his reply to Andy, quoted above. [A
Bengali unicode sequence]

It would therefore seem that the DVB-MHP interactive television system,
which is a system for worldwide use, may come up against considerable
rendering problems when it comes to making broadcasts using the
languages of the Indian subcontinent.  I am seeking to resolve that
problem by devising an infrastructural tool to program round the problem
by preprocessing received Unicode text in the television receiver before
it is passed to the font, so that facilities for quality typography for
the languages of the Indian subcontinent exist with the DVB-MHP
platform.

Is this a problem particular just to interactive television or is it a
wider problem?

I made a suggestion for a eutocode typography file in the following web
page.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/ast03300.htm

Now whether that use of some of the code points of the Private Use Area
by a user community were used in some scenarios (for example with PFR0
fonts in interactive broadcasting) or whether the glyphs would be
numbered in some other sequence of numbering within a font, I am putting
forward for discussion the question as to whether it might be useful for
there to be produced a list of ligatures for the languages of the Indian
subcontinent such that each ligature has an index number in an ordered
sequence from 1 upwards, so that those code numbers can be a standard
way of accessing glyphs within fonts or within systems such as a
eutocode typography file. It may be that any particular application of
such a list would add an offset constant to the list number during
processing, for example hexadecimal EC00 for a eutocode typography file,
or maybe 500 for an advanced format font, yet the idea would be that
some particular glyph for a particular ligature glyph, for, say, Tamil,
would always be at position XYZ relative to the start of the list.  This
would mean that substitution tables for rendering from a Unicode
sequence to a displayable glyph could become portable rather than font
specific, so there might, in time, be a great saving of duplicated
effort in having such a numbered list of ligature glyphs.

I emphasise that I am not in any way suggesting using Private Use Area
codes for (italics) interchange (/italics) of text in these languages, I
am simply suggesting that there seems to be the possibility that the
process of producing fonts and other software systems for the carrying
out of the task of glyph substitution for particular Unicode sequences
could be made a more portable process if such a list were to exist.

Is there interest in such a list of ligature characters in a numbered
list being produced?  As I say, I am not a linguist so I could not carry
out the task, yet perhaps the task might be fairly straightforward,
though necessarily taking a substantial amount of effort, for some of
the readers of this mailing list, if there is interest in such a list
being produced. Once done, the list would have long term usefulness.
Spaces for the numbering could perhaps be allocated in the same order as
the various languages of the Indian subcontinent are encoded within the
Unicode Standard.  Clearly expert guidance is needed as to how many
ligatures exist for any particular language.

The list would also be a useful index for glyphs in a "glyph library" of
designs.

I was interested to read in a recent thread in this forum of the
founding of the International Font Technology Association (IFTA) and
wonder whether that organization would be an appropriate body to produce
such a list, if there should be interest in the production of such a
list.

I would be pleased to know the views of people within this group as to
whether such a list would be of advantage to typographers and others
involved in computerized typography. . William Overington

3 March 2003

[Indic-computing-users] Vernacular SMS on its way

[Ashish K. <as...@mi...>]

Vernacular SMS on its way
Vivek Shankar, ZDNet India,
March 04, 2003
(http://www.zdnetindia.com/news/features/stories/77297.html)

 11 million mobile phone users SMS primarily in English. A Canadian company,
Zi Corporation, has introduced predictive text input for SMS in Hindi.

According to the Cellular Operators Association of India, COAI, the country
had 11,163,141 mobile phone users in January 2003. That's a healthy 6.5 per
cent increase from the December '02 figure. The COAI does not give any
statistics relating to SMS or text messages sent by these 11 million users.
Nevertheless, it's a given that the number of text messages sent is mammoth
figure.

Taking a cue from a mobile carrier: how about adding SMS to the list of
"roti, kapda, makan aur Mobile"? For the moment, however, the millions of
messages sent by Indians have largely been in the English alphabet. And it's
an acknowledged fact that the English-speaking are a minority in India.
Ironically, a firm from Canada, a bilingual country using English and
French, is bringing SMS to the masses in India.

Zi Corporation has announced what it claims to be the first predictive text
input (also referred to as dictionary mode) for mobile phones in Hindi. The
Devnagari script is complex unlike the English alphabet. Hindi alone has 33
consonants and 11 vowels. Add ligature - combinations of letters to form new
letters of new shape, to these 44 characters and you have a horrid
experience of creating text; even with a keyboard equipped with more than
one hundred keys.

eZiText Hindi, Zi's offering, uses an innovative keyboard layout - vowels
are clustered on the 3 and 9 keys of the keypad. The predictive text input
is similar to that used in phones today; multiple key taps are not necessary
for character selection. Company officials also claim that once a user
inputs a word, it is predicted faster the next time. Trevor Sponagle,
Product Marketing Manager, told ZDNet India, "Zi has designed a learning
feature we call the Used Word Dictionary (UWD). The UWD stores words the
user employs often and predicts them faster during the next time they
write."

The software includes 'personal vocabulary', which predicts customised words
from a personal dictionary. Responding to a question on how much this
feature depends on the memory of a handset Sponagle said, "Yes, this feature
employs device memory; but very efficiently. Devices can store 100''s of
Hindi words for several KB. This feature is scalable for the manufacturer."

Zi was recently awarded a Chinese patent for its eZiText Chinese offering.
Commenting on the difference between Mandarin text input and Hindi input
Sponagle averred, "Our eZiText Hindi solution is very different from eZiText
Chinese. Chinese is an ideograghic language comprised of characters.
Characters can themselves comprise a word or combine with other characters
to form a word. For Chinese input, our solution is based on either
''building'' the character with stroke elements, or inputting the phonetic
pronunication, then converting to characters. From our beginnings with this
very difficult language, we developed solutions for alphabetic languages
like English. We now offer solutions for 100 alphabetic languages. Hindi is
similar to these solutions, except for the keypad layout - Hindi has more
letters - and the behaviour of ligatures letters joining to form shapes."

Another plus for eZiText is that it does not limit the user to a single
language. Sponagle clarified that it uses the same core engine for all
alphabetical languages. Accordingly, most eZiText implementations have at
least two languages, generally a regional language, say Hindi, and English.
He added, "Language input in the same message can be mixed, as well."

Regional language text input is handset dependent because the input software
is embedded in the handset. Sponagle said that carriers also play a part by
specifying that manufacturers include predictive text input for regional
languages in their products.

Zi also offers another product - eZiTap, a predictive multi-tap system,
which is language independent. eZiTap has a predictive engine but no word
database. The engine 'learns' words, which are multi-tapped the first time,
and predicts these words later on. This offering has the potential to take
SMS to every dialect spoken in India. However, one must note that a handset
needs to support the font/script of the language in question.

eZiText Hindi was launched in January this year and answering to a question
on the possibility of eZiText in other Indian languages Sponagle said, "We
develop languages based on our licensee demand; so we expect to provide more
solutions as the Indian mobile market grows and manufacturers see increased
demand for more localised handsets."

Hindi SMS should be a reality very soon - according to the company - Zi
licensees have already embedded eZiText for upcoming India models. Sponagle
was optimistic, "We hope to see the phones launched very soon."

A flash demo of eZiText Hindi is available at www.zicorp.com

===========================================================
Ashish Kotamkar (as...@mi...)
Mithi Software Technologies Pvt. Ltd., Pune. India.
Web: http://www.mithi.com
===========================================================
Communicate in your own language. Log onto www.mailjol.com.
===========================================================

[Indic-computing-users] Bangla...some other views

[FN <fr...@by...>]

Taneem Ahmed <ta...@ey...> in a personal email dated January 25, 2003
says his team's goal is "to support Bengali at X server's application level".
This solution could benefit speakers of the Bangla language both in India
and Bangladesh. (Bangla, or Bengali, is the fifth-largest language in the
world, with a total of some 207 million speakers -- ahead of Portuguese, and
behind Spanish.)

"The only difference I see between our group and most of the other groups is
that we are following the mainstream development, and we use what is
available (or will be available soon) to support Bengali. We want people to
be able to install any Linux distro of their choice, and use Bengali on it
with out recompiling anything," says Ahmed. 

He contrasts this with the Indix project, which he says has done an "amazing
job" which he greatly appreciates. But, he argues: "However, how many
average user would actually download the modified X server, gtk, etc.
libraries and recompile them? Also users will be limited to library version
provided by Indix, and every day we are seeing new programs using newer
versions of these libraries."

Ahmed says they have focused their development efforts to create programs
for end users, for example a transliteration program 'Lekho' based on QT, a
Bengali spell checker program bspeller based on aspell and gtk, or a hack
version of xdiary called xponjika which a Bengali calendar with a daily
diary. 

"I should mention that Lekho is actually a multi-platform program and it can
produce html or latex files and has limited spell checking capability.
Bspeller is a light weight text editor with aspell's powerful spell checking
and suggestion capability. It is also capable of printing/generating ps
files using Open Type fonts, a feature missing in even all the main stream
text editors," says he. 

Free Bangla Font, a sister project of bengalinux.org, has created Open Type
Bangla fonts (four differect font faces by early 2003). Currently they have
started doing the GNOME translation, and their own web site. "One of our
more ambitious project is a Bengali dictionary project. Under the documents
section we also have few mini-howtos about how to setup a Linux box for
Bengali," says Ahmed.

Ahmed says they are also trying to work out an understanding with BornoSoft,
to help create a Bengali XIM for GNU/Linux using BornoSoft's writing scheme,
which would then be made free for Linux. "Personally I think this would be a
great step towards using Bengali in Linux, but we will see what happens,"
says Ahmed with cautious optimism. 

-- 
 _____             _           _      _
|  ___| __ ___  __| | ___ _ __(_) ___| | __  Freelance Journo, Goa India
| |_ | '__/ _ \/ _` |/ _ \ '__| |/ __| |/ /  http://linuxinindia.pitas.com
|  _|| | |  __/ (_| |  __/ |  | | (__|   <   http://www.bytesforall.org
|_|  |_|  \___|\__,_|\___|_|  |_|\___|_|\_\  http://opennews.indianissues.org
--
Frederick Noronha * Freelance Journalist * Goa * India 832.409490 / 409783
Writing with a difference... on what makes *the* difference

[Indic-computing-users] All Tamil (ECommerce/DB Site) in the building

[FN <fr...@by...>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------

anbudaiyeer

I am in the process of building an all Tamil Secured
Members pages.  

These page uses the concepts of E-Commerce with a
Backend-DB. 

https://members.itcusa.org/thamiz/tlogin.htm

Any comments on the improvement of the Tamil contents
is appreciated. Please copy the mail to
ka...@it... as the replies may *NOT* of interest
to some groups.

Also, please let me know if you know of (or) have
worked on any 'All Tamil ' implementation of an
'E-Commerce / DB' site

I am trying to use all data input in Tamil.
Key-in mechanism is through any TAB Keyboard driver,
if TAB key board driver is *NOT* present then use our
conventional CUT&PASTE technique.

P.S. : Page is still in production testing

A request :  This site uses TAB encdoing, please
direct any comments about this encoding to
tab...@ya... 

anbudan

kavi

---------------------------------------------------------------------~->

To subscribe to this group, send an email to:
tam...@eg...

[Indic-computing-users] [digilib_india] Library automation in Hindi

[FN <fr...@by...>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------

National Workshop on Library Automation in Hindi

 

Organised by INFLIBNET Centre, Ahmedabad

7 to 11th April, 2003

 

Information and Library network (INFLIBNET) Centre, An IUC of University Grants Commission, Ahmedabad, Organising second time National Workshop on Library Automation in Hindi "Granthalaya Swachalan par Hindi men Rastriya Karyashala" . This Workshop will provide an opportunity to the working Library professional to understand and learn different aspects of Library Automation in Hindi medium.  

Who can attend the workshop?
Professionals in the field of Library Information Science with basic knowledge of computer can attend the Workshop.

Fee Structure:
Rupees 1000.00 (thousand) per person with boarding & lodging and 700.00 without boarding lodging. The fee is to be paid 
by Demand Draft in favor of "Director, INFLIBNET Centre" Payable at "Ahmedabad".

Course Contents:
Workshop will cover the Topics related to Library Automation, Networking, Standards related to Library Automation, Software for Library Automation etc. Special focus will be given on hands on practice. The entire lecture as well as practical sessions will be in Hindi.

Number of Participants:
A Maximum of 20 candidates will be selected for the course. It will be first come first basis.

Period:
The duration of the course is 5 days, from 7-11th April, 2003 

Venue:
Information and Library Network (INFLIBNET), Centre, Near Gujarat University Guest House,
Gujarat University Campus, Navrangpura, Ahmedabad - 380009
 
Resource Persons:
The resource persons are professionals and experts actually involved in this field and
having practical experience.
 
For more details about the workshop, please visit  http://web.inflibnet.ac.in/info/NWLAH.pdf
 
 
or Mail to
 
Dr TAV Murthy, Director
Mail: ta...@in...
 
Or
Shri Shivpal Singh Kushwah, Sci/Tech Officer-I
Mail Sh...@in...
 
Or
Shri H G Hosamani
Scientist-B
Mail: hos...@in...
 
Or Write to

Dr. T A V Murthy, Director
Information and Library Network (INFLIBNET) Centre, An IUC of University Grants Commission 
Gujarat University Campus, P.B.No.4116, Navrangpura, Ahmedabad-380009  
Gujarat State, INDIA 
 
http://web.inflibnet.ac.in

With best wishes/regards.
 
Bye.

Shivpal Singh Kushwah
Scientific/Technical Officer-I
INFLIBNET Centre
An IUC of University Grants Commission
Near Gujarat University Guest House
Navrangapura, PB No.4116
AHMEDABAD-380009
 
# Tel.: 079-630 5971/630 4695/630 8528(Off.);  Fax: 630 0990(Off.)
Email: sh...@in...;  
URL: http://www.inflibnet.ac.in/ ; 
=============================================================================

[Indic-computing-users] Tamil debate...

[FN <fr...@by...>]

________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Message: 1
   Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2003 09:59:45 -0000 (UTC)
   From: "V Suresh" <sur...@sd...>
Subject: Re: Tamil Version of Mozilla: TAMIZHA browser

Same here.

> Dear Pandian,
> the below mentioned site is not reachable.
> -t
>
>> Did I answered you, what you have expected. for more
>> information, you can go
>> through the site http://tamiZha.com
>>
>> Have a nice day!
>>
>> Anbudan,
>> Pandian

[Indic-computing-users] Re: [bytesforall_readers] English to Bangla Translator Source code is now Available

[FN <fr...@by...>]

What do you make of this? Your evaluation would be appreciated... FN

On Sun, 2 Mar 2003, hasin_raj <has...@ya...> wrote:

> dear Guys,
> me Hasin Hayder has uploaded my English To Bangla Translator Source 
> Code to Bangla Open Source Community Site
> 
> at : www.banglaosc.tk
> mirror : www.banglaosc.cjb.net
> 
> Also you can get Anti REDLOF.A antiVirus Source Code here
> 
> Download. The translator is easy for simple sentence conversion
> Please make comment at Has...@ya...
> 
> Hasin Hayder
> administrator
> www.evelindev.tk
> www.banglaosc.tk

> ---------------------------------------------------------------------~->
> 
> To subscribe from this group, send an email to:
> byt...@ya...
> 
>  
> 
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ 
> 
> 

-- 
Frederick Noronha    : http://www.bytesforall.org : When we speak of free
Freelance Journalist : Goa India 403511           : software we refer to
Ph 0091.832.409490   : Cell 0 9822 122436         : freedom, not price.

[Indic-computing-users] Rabindranath Tagore... online?

[FN <fr...@by...>]

Sankarshan, Everyone is welcome to post to 
byt...@ya... -- as long as the issues are in some 
way connected to the IT-for-development debate.

This is an informal, non-hierarchical group., Feel free to send in your 
posts to the list in text-only format... You're more than welcome. Post 
to byt...@ya...  

FN

On Sat, 1 Mar 2003, Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay wrote:

> dear frederick,
>
> thanks for the incorporation of the news from the eastern zone. there is
> more and i received that only 'cause my e-id was there in your post.
> somendra nath bhattacharjee from the inst. of physics bhubaneshwar is
> attempting to take gitobitan [rabindranath tagore's] online using bangtex
> and LaTex. check the URL out :  http://www.iopb.res.in/~somen/gitobitan.html
> 
> there are a few articles of mine that i'd like on bytes for all site. can it
> be done ?...
-- 
Frederick Noronha    : http://www.bytesforall.org : When we speak of free
Freelance Journalist : Goa India 403511           : software we refer to
Ph 0091.832.409490   : Cell 0 9822 122436         : freedom, not price.

Re: [Indic-computing-users] Hindi distro debate...

[Venky H. <ve...@vs...>]

Dear Ritesh,

See www.indlinux.org. A Hindi interface to GNU/Linux is downloadable from
the site and you can also sign up as a volunteer to help us with the
translations and technical work that still remains to be done.

Venky


----- Original Message -----
From: FN <fr...@by...>
To: <Ind...@li...>
Sent: Saturday, March 01, 2003 10:12 PM
Subject: [Indic-computing-users] Hindi distro debate...


> >From the LINUX-INDIA-HELP list...
>
> I would say, it is a very good idea and it has the potential of taking
> Linux to masses. There are a few other initiatives like indlinuux etc.
> going on and it may be a good idea to collaborate in what is going on
> (if you find it good from your point of view) as that can speed-up the
> progress towards a final usable product.
> A Hindi distro could be the beginning of other products coming into
> indian languages.
>
> On Fri, 2003-02-28 at 20:24, Ritesh H Shukla wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > As a summer project me and a few friends of mine were
> > hoping that we can implement a complete distro in
> > Hindi.
> > We have not done any work in thi direction and
> > knowledge wise we are blank.
> > I was wondering...
> >
> > 1) The Merit if the idea?
> > 2) Status of such project (yes i have done a few
> > google searches), does any one have any experience in
> > getting hindi support
> > 3) Will it be used? (considering we start using a
> > popular distro such as mandrake which is more suitable
> > for desktop and get hindi support, ie repackage it)
> > 4) Any other ideas?
> >
> > With Regards,
> > Ritesh
> >
> > __________________________________________________
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> >
> >
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> > linux-india-help mailing list
> > lin...@li...
> > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linux-india-help
> --
> Peace, Force & Joy!                         Sudhir Gandotra.
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> Indic-computing-users mailing list http://indic-computing.sourceforge.net/
> Ind...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/indic-computing-users
> [Other Indic-Computing mailing lists: -devel, -standards, -announce]
>

[Indic-computing-users] Tamil... and Mozilla

[FN <fr...@by...>]

________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Message: 6
   Date: Fri, 28 Feb 2003 18:41:05 +0530 (India Standard Time)
   From: Murugapandian <pa...@pu...>
Subject: Re: Tamil Version of Mozilla: TAMIZHA browser

Dear friend Krishna!
sorry i couldnt follow the link you have given. It gives site not found
error. So I cannot judge which project did you mention.
Any way, From Mozilla web site, I got the address of the chaps working on
Tamil Mozilla browser. Few weeks before, A guy named Senthil nathan, replied
that he is not with that project currently. There is no reply for my mail
from mozilla people, yet. 
 
So With respect to my correspondance, Tamizha will be opensource, going to
be released under MPL (Mozilla Public Licence). Basic features of Tamizha!
will be similar to Mozilla. Language specific customisations and few plugins
required for tamil typing and tamil spell check are going to be added with
that.

Did I answered you, what you have expected. for more information, you can go
through the site http://tamiZha.com

Have a nice day!
 
Anbudan,
Pandian

-------Original Message-------

From: Lin...@ya...
Date: Friday, 28 February 2003 01:34:54 PM
To: Lin...@ya...
Subject: Re: [LM] Tamil Version of Mozilla: TAMIZHA browser

Hi Pandian,

MLP(http://www.mozilla.org/projects/l10n/mlp_status.html)
has a tamil Mozilla project going on. Is Tamizha
related to that?. 

--- Murugapandian <pa...@pu...> wrote:
> Dear Enthu's!
> The next version of Mandrake (ver 9.1) is more
> personalised to Tamil. Here
> with I am sending one example. Mozilla is customised
> to Tamil; in which
> Tamil web pages can be browsed without much
> difficulty. its in alpha stage
> and that too available for download. here is the
> announcement from the site
> http:tamizha.com

The correct URL?.

regds,
krishna


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

[Indic-computing-users] Hindi distro debate...

[FN <fr...@by...>]

From the LINUX-INDIA-HELP list...

I would say, it is a very good idea and it has the potential of taking
Linux to masses. There are a few other initiatives like indlinuux etc.
going on and it may be a good idea to collaborate in what is going on
(if you find it good from your point of view) as that can speed-up the
progress towards a final usable product.
A Hindi distro could be the beginning of other products coming into
indian languages.

On Fri, 2003-02-28 at 20:24, Ritesh H Shukla wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> As a summer project me and a few friends of mine were
> hoping that we can implement a complete distro in
> Hindi.
> We have not done any work in thi direction and
> knowledge wise we are blank. 
> I was wondering...
> 
> 1) The Merit if the idea?
> 2) Status of such project (yes i have done a few
> google searches), does any one have any experience in
> getting hindi support
> 3) Will it be used? (considering we start using a
> popular distro such as mandrake which is more suitable
> for desktop and get hindi support, ie repackage it)
> 4) Any other ideas?
> 
> With Regards,
> Ritesh
> 
> __________________________________________________
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[Indic-computing-users] ISI-Kolkata hosts workshop on Indian languages

[FN <fr...@by...>]

ECTeam Kolkata (March 3, 2003 * Express Computer)

THE SECOND International Workshop on Technology Development in Indian 
Languages (IWTDIL 2003) was held in Kolkata recently. The three-day 
international workshop was organized by the Computer Vision and Pattern 
Recognition (CVPR) unit of the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI).

Eminent scientists from several countries like France, Germany, Japan and 
Canada spoke at the international workshop. Delegates consisting of 
research scientists, faculty members and scholars of premier institutes 
and universities from India and abroad participated in the three-day 
workshop.

CVPR came into existence in 1994 from the erstwhile Centre for 
Knowledge-Based Computing Sciences, funded by the Department of 
Electronics (DoE0 and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

It was formed to promote advanced research and development in the areas of 
computer vision, document processing, image processing and technology 
development in Indian languages.

The major activities of the unit are Optical Character Recognition, 
Natural Language Processing, Information Retrieval and Speech and Signal 
Processing as well as Bio Medical Image Processing.

Scientists urged industry captains to take initiatives of collaborating 
with the research institutes to make the technology available to the 
masses. They also called for the need to set up a dedicated body or single 
window to act as a interface between the industry and academia. (ENDS)

-- 
Frederick Noronha    : http://www.bytesforall.org : When we speak of free
Freelance Journalist : Goa India 403511           : software we refer to
Ph 0091.832.409490   : Cell 0 9822 122436         : freedom, not price.

[Indic-computing-users] Re: GNOME translation...

[FN <fr...@by...>]

Thanks for your reply Christian. Let's take it forward. India deserves a=20
better deal. There's a lot of work going on in different institutions=20
here. What we need is a proper linking-up (we all seem to be working in=20
isolation from the global initiatives). FN

On Fri, 27 Feb 2003, Christian Rose wrote:


> s=F6n 2003-02-23 klockan 06.31 skrev FN:
> > Hi Christian, I came across a month-old page of stats from GNOME... of =
all
> > places, via a LUG from Bangladesh. In India, a number of diverse effort=
s
> > seem to be underway to localize GNU/Linux in the wide variety of region=
al
> > and non-English languages we have here. It would be great if you could
> > build closer links with groups working in this arena (particularly
> > accessible through networks like the Indic-Computing forum on
> > Sourceforge). I will share your stats with groups that could get furthe=
r
> > interested. Regards, FN
>=20
> Hi! Sorry for my late reply. I'm also cc:ing this reply to
> gno...@gn..., the GNOME translation mailing list.
>=20
> We certainly need help with improving language support in GNOME. Our
> current supported and partially supported languages are listed at
> http://www.gnome.org/i18n/, but also those language teams need help. And
> of course we want to be able to add lots of other languages as well!
>=20
> Our GNOME Translation Project homepage is at
> http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gtp/ and a page describing how to
> join our translation efforts is at
> http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gtp/join.html. We would encourage
> anyone wanting to improve the support for their language in GNOME to
> follow the instructions on that page. Or if you know some already
> existing localization efforts that may be interested in improving the
> language support in GNOME, please spread the information let them know.
> We can't do it without help! :-)
>=20
>=20
> Thanks,
> Christian
>=20

--=20
Frederick Noronha    : http://www.bytesforall.org : When we speak of free
Freelance Journalist : Goa India 403511           : software we refer to
Ph 0091.832.409490   : Cell 0 9822 122436         : freedom, not price.

[Indic-computing-users] Free software... Indic solutions... and the government

[FN <fr...@by...>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------

Source: blThe Hindu Business Line 
(http://www.blonnet.com/2003/02/28/stories/2003022802220300.htm)
 
Free software use can help in growth 
 
Our Bureau 
 
NEW DELHI, Feb. 27
 
ACKNOWLEDGING the virtues of free and open source software, the Economic Survey presented on Thursday says the Indian Government is actively exploring how such software can be fully utilised in the country.
 
"The use of free software reduces costs, computer security threats, puts full control in Indian hands and fosters the development of Indian skills in building new technology," the survey said.
 
The world over, the use of free software such as Linux is on the rise, giving intense competition to companies such as Microsoft whose proprietary software, Windows, today dominates the market.
 
The survey said many Government agencies and State Governments have started exploiting free software, particularly in the areas of national security, e-governance, Internet-related applications, research and development and for low-cost computing in schools and colleges.
 
Government agencies are also working towards ensuring that all Indian languages are properly supported in the area of IT, particularly with free software.
 
The survey has noted that software exports from the country have grown at over 50 per cent for the past five years to the current level of over $1 billion. Hardware exports have also grown sharply to reach Rs 5,871 crore in 2001-02.
 
The survey said that conducive Government policies have helped the industry achieve this growth, cutting barriers to imports. For instance, in the previous Budget, the peak rate of customs duty was slashed from 35 per cent to 30 per cent. 
 
The Government has also initiated steps such as setting up Controller of Certifying Authorities to facilitate secure digital signatures, a Centre for Information and Network Security in Pune University and an Indian Computer Emergency Response Team for fostering the growth of the IT sector. 

Re: [Indic-computing-users] Wikipedia in Indian languages

[Arun M <ar...@fr...>]

> > On Monday 24 Feb 2003 6:06 pm, Yann Forget wrote:
> > > There are already 33 languages from Afrikaans to Turkish. Unfortunately=
> ,
> > > there is not (yet) any Indian language.
> 
> There is also a startup Wikipedia in Malayalam: http://ml.wikipedia.org/
> 
> I hope it works; I don't have fonts that can display it!

GtkHTML can render the malayalam unicode page like
http://ml.wikipedia.org But the page doesnt have the attribute 'charset'
set to 'UTF-8'. Save the page and set 'charset' you can see the page in
gtkhtml(I tried with Nautilus gtkhtml view). Fonts are available from
http://www.gnu.org.in/software/software.html#akruti

arun.

[Indic-computing-users] Wikipedia in Indian languages

[FN <fr...@by...>]

> On Monday 24 Feb 2003 6:06 pm, Yann Forget wrote:
> > There are already 33 languages from Afrikaans to Turkish. Unfortunately=
,
> > there is not (yet) any Indian language.

There is also a startup Wikipedia in Malayalam: http://ml.wikipedia.org/

I hope it works; I don't have fonts that can display it!

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

--
Frederick Noronha    : http://www.bytesforall.org : When we speak of free
Freelance Journalist : Goa India 403511           : software we refer to
Ph 0091.832.409490   : Cell 0 9822 122436         : freedom, not price.

[Indic-computing-users] Response to Wikipedia post...

[FN <fr...@by...>]

--__--__--

Message: 3
From: Ganesan Rajesh <gan...@et...>
To: lin...@li...
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2003 07:28:19 -0500
Cc: int...@wi...
Subject: [LIG] Wikipedia in an Indian Language
Reply-To: lin...@li...

Thanks Yann. It is great to know that you are interested to get wikipedia in 
an indian language. But India has around 18 official langauages (in a way all 
the indic languages are descendents of Prakrit/Sanskrit) and my mother tongue 
is Tamil. I am good at tamil and I can only understand Hindi. If possible, I 
may try translations for Tamil.
Regards,
Rajesh

On Monday 24 Feb 2003 6:06 pm, Yann Forget wrote:
> Hi,

>
> There are already 33 languages from Afrikaans to Turkish. Unfortunately,
> there is not (yet) any Indian language. May be a Hindi Wikipedia should be
> started?

>
> So come and particpate !
>
> Regards,
> Yann Forget
>
> PS: Copy to int...@wi...
--__--__--

[Indic-computing-users] Re: GNOME translation...

[Christian R. <me...@gn...>]

s=F6n 2003-02-23 klockan 06.31 skrev FN:
> Hi Christian, I came across a month-old page of stats from GNOME... of al=
l
> places, via a LUG from Bangladesh. In India, a number of diverse efforts
> seem to be underway to localize GNU/Linux in the wide variety of regional
> and non-English languages we have here. It would be great if you could
> build closer links with groups working in this arena (particularly
> accessible through networks like the Indic-Computing forum on
> Sourceforge). I will share your stats with groups that could get further
> interested. Regards, FN

Hi! Sorry for my late reply. I'm also cc:ing this reply to
gno...@gn..., the GNOME translation mailing list.

We certainly need help with improving language support in GNOME. Our
current supported and partially supported languages are listed at
http://www.gnome.org/i18n/, but also those language teams need help. And
of course we want to be able to add lots of other languages as well!

Our GNOME Translation Project homepage is at
http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gtp/ and a page describing how to
join our translation efforts is at
http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gtp/join.html. We would encourage
anyone wanting to improve the support for their language in GNOME to
follow the instructions on that page. Or if you know some already
existing localization efforts that may be interested in improving the
language support in GNOME, please spread the information let them know.
We can't do it without help! :-)


Thanks,
Christian

[Indic-computing-users] Re: Contacts in Chennai, and other issues

[FN <fr...@by...>]

Forwarding this to IndicComputing, a list working for local language 
solutions to computing. Some great people around there. FN

On Tue, 25 Feb 2003, C.P. Jayalakshmi wrote:


> Hi Fred,
> 
> I was wondering if you know of people whom I can meet and network on Linux 
> and other Open Source networking partners, especially for use in the 
> NGO/development sector.
> 
> Are you aware that Bellanet has been one of the key technical partners in 
> the development and management of D-Groups, a collaboration platform 
> written in open source softwares ( XML and Post Nuke). There are over a 100 
> lists that are now operating under the d-groups platform.
> 
> We were keen to make such capability available in local languages, say 
> Hindi or Tamil or Chinese, and we would be keen to partner with agencies 
> that are involved in it.
> 
> May be you can make a request posting in your list , and give us your 
> references and contacts.
> 
> Thanks for taking out the time.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Jaya
> 
> PS. I certainly wanted to meet with Prof. Ashok Jhunjunwala, do you have 
> his contact email, phone, etc?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> C.P. Jayalakshmi
> Senior Program Specialist
> Bellanet International Secretariat
> 250 Albert St. 5th Floor
> Ottawa, Ontario K1P 6M1 Canada
> (PO Box 8500, Ottawa ON K1G 3H9 Canada)
> Tel: (613) 236-6163 X 2526  Fax: (613)-238-7230
> Email: jch...@be...    Web: www.bellanet.org
> 

-- 
 _____             _           _      _
|  ___| __ ___  __| | ___ _ __(_) ___| | __  Freelance Journo, Goa India
| |_ | '__/ _ \/ _` |/ _ \ '__| |/ __| |/ /  http://linuxinindia.pitas.com
|  _|| | |  __/ (_| |  __/ |  | | (__|   <   http://www.bytesforall.org
|_|  |_|  \___|\__,_|\___|_|  |_|\___|_|\_\  http://opennews.indianissues.org
--
Frederick Noronha * Freelance Journalist * Goa * India 832.409490 / 409783
Writing with a difference... on what makes *the* difference

[Indic-computing-users] GNOME translation...

[FN <fr...@by...>]

Hi Christian, I came across a month-old page of stats from GNOME... of all
places, via a LUG from Bangladesh. In India, a number of diverse efforts
seem to be underway to localize GNU/Linux in the wide variety of regional
and non-English languages we have here. It would be great if you could
build closer links with groups working in this arena (particularly
accessible through networks like the Indic-Computing forum on
Sourceforge). I will share your stats with groups that could get further
interested. Regards, FN

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: 24 Jan 2003 01:55:22 +0100
From: Christian Rose <me...@me...>
To: gno...@gn...
Cc: rel...@gn..., des...@gn...
Subject: GNOME 2.2 Translation Statistics and Rankings

Here we go again. Last week I summarized the translation statistics and
sent it out to gno...@gn..., and as a week has passed it's
probably a good idea to do so again. The numbers (percentage of
translated messages) are taken from our 2.1 core translation status page
(http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gtp/status/gnome-2.1-core/) and
then I have sorted the languages by level of completedness, and ranked
them. There is also the level of support (using the
http://www.gnome.org/i18n/ definitions of "supported") the languages
would recieve if GNOME 2.2 was released now. Enjoy!

						Last week's	Difference
Ranking Lang.   Percent Level of support	ranking		in ranking
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1	lv	100.00	Supported		1
1	nl	100.00	Supported		8		+7
1	sv	100.00	Supported		1
4	cs	99.98	Supported		4
4	da	99.98	Supported		5		+1
4	de	99.98	Supported		5		+1
4	es	99.98	Supported		1		-3
8	sk	99.78	Supported		15		+7
9	el	99.53	Supported		7		-2
10	sl	99.05	Supported		21		+11
11	pt_BR	98.61	Supported		13		+2
12	no	98.56	Supported		9		-3
13	vi	97.11	Supported		17		+4
14	ca	95.84	Supported		20		+6
15	mn	95.35	Supported		--		+43
16	fi	94.83	Supported		11		-5
17	fr	94.75	Supported		10		-7
18	ms	91.63	Supported		12		-6
19	pl	91.62	Supported		16		-3
20	zh_TW	91.43	Supported		19		-1
21	ko	90.21	Supported		14		-7
22	ru	89.61	Supported		23		+1
23	bg	89.02	Supported		18		-5
24	zh_CN	87.11	Supported		24
25	ro	85.47	Supported		30		+5
26	hu	84.72	Supported		22		-4
27	uk	84.00	Supported		29		+2
28	pt	77.83	Partially supported	25		-3
29	be	75.09	Partially supported	26		-3
30	ja	75.00	Partially supported	27		-3
31	he	71.87	Partially supported	28		-3
32	tr	70.18	Partially supported	31		-1
33	it	64.28	Partially supported	32		-1
34	et	55.26	Partially supported	34
35	gl	46.98	Unsupported		33		-2
36	az	40.85	Unsupported		35		-1
37	am	39.08	Unsupported		36		-1
38	hi	37.98	Unsupported		37		-1
39	mk	36.82	Unsupported		38		-1
40	ar	36.02	Unsupported		39		-1
41	wa	33.00	Unsupported		40		-1
42	lt	32.33	Unsupported		41		-1
43	eu	30.20	Unsupported		42		-1
44	nn	27.50	Unsupported		43		-1
45	ta	25.12	Unsupported		44		-1
46	sq	24.00	Unsupported		45		-1
47	fa	4.32	Unsupported		46		-1
48	ga	3.64	Unsupported		47		-1
49	sp	2.38	Unsupported		48		-1
50	sr	2.38	Unsupported		49		-1
51	bs	2.31	Unsupported		50		-1
52	en_GB	1.48	Unsupported		51		-1
53	th	1.01	Unsupported		52		-1
54	bn	0.61	Unsupported		--		+4
55	hr	0.47	Unsupported		53		-2
56	ia	0.32	Unsupported		54		-2
57	en@ipa  0.29    Unsupported		  55	  	  -2
58	cy	0.20	Unsupported		56		-2
59	es_ES	0.01	Unsupported		57		-2

So let's summarize. We have two new languages this week, Mongolian (mn)
and Bengali (bn). Bengali enters the list at 54th place (Unsupported),
but Mongolian makes the impossible possible and enters the list at a
whopping 15th place (Supported). Sanlig Badral, Ochirbat Batzaya,
Tegshbayar, Bayarsaihan and the other guys in the Mongolian team have
certainly made an impressive start by jumping right in in the top crowd
with over 95% translated messages! The Mongolian team started their work
on GNOME translations less than a month ago, and in that short period of
time they've managed to translate no less than 11455 messages.
Incredible!

We now have 27 supported languages (>80%), whereas we had only 23 last
week. Out of those, 3 are at exactly 100% (also 3 last week). We have 7
partially supported languages (50%<x<80%), whereas we had 9 last week.
The reduction here is most likely due to the increase of supported
languages.

Keep 'em coming... :-)

Christian


PS. If anyone wonders about language codes, you'll find them all
explained on http://lcweb.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/englangn.html. DS.

-- 
 _____             _           _      _
|  ___| __ ___  __| | ___ _ __(_) ___| | __  Freelance Journo, Goa India
| |_ | '__/ _ \/ _` |/ _ \ '__| |/ __| |/ /  http://linuxinindia.pitas.com
|  _|| | |  __/ (_| |  __/ |  | | (__|   <   http://www.bytesforall.org
|_|  |_|  \___|\__,_|\___|_|  |_|\___|_|\_\  http://opennews.indianissues.org
--
Frederick Noronha * Freelance Journalist * Goa * India 832.409490 / 409783
Writing with a difference... on what makes *the* difference

[Indic-computing-users] Link to Free Chinese Fonts...

[FN <fr...@by...>]

    * Free Chinese Fonts very interesting account of the efforts and
      the motivation to develop fonts.
      http://www.gnacademy.org/twiki/bin/view/SOS/ChinaFreeFonts