Re: [Indic-computing-devel] Re: [Indlinux-gujarati] My introductionand Debian-IN

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

> Joseph Koshy wrote:

<snip>

> >We should be thinking of educating our 3 million plus developers;
> >not just 30-odd attendees per workshop.  One of the focii of the
> >Indic-Computing project is to help the Indic developer community
> >bootstrap itself.

This is precisely where the font workshop or the Marathi Computing workshop
that Prof. Jitendra Shah and I put together in Mumbai recently help. It may
not produce direct results in terms of immediate contributions to the
handbook but it plays a critical role in reaching out to the broader
community. There may have been just 30 odd people attending the workshop,
but I think that's a commendable number for a subject that's not (yet) as
cool and sexy as, say, Free/Open Source Software. As the Chinese say, "A
journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

At the Marathi Computing meet, we found that the linguistic community was
eager to work on these issues but had no clue on how to move forward.
Commercial software vendors are interested in understanding the developments
happening in the Indic computing world and Free/Open Source community and
the threats/opportunities they face. Some of them are open minded and
willing to contribute fonts etc to the community. Developers were curious to
meet people who had expertise in Indic computing and build a one-to-one
relationship.

As far as I can see, this is precisely what Indic Computing should be
doing--catalyse the interests of different groups to create a future where
Indians can compute with ease in their own language(s). If linguistic groups
are made aware of how their languages can be a part of the digital age, the
Indic community as a whole grows. If developers learn how to work on Indic
scripts, localization etc. through such meetings, the Indic community grows.
Maybe out of 100 people, one person will contribute to the handbook but that
just means that if we want 10 volunteers, we have to reach out to a 1000
people. Having said that, we also need to ensure that, in future, these
efforts are closely tied up with the handbook because a common reference
point like the handbook is valuable and essential.

Venky

PS: I am surprised that the details of the font workshop are not there on
the web site. This would be a good way to spread awareness of font-related
issues relevant to Indic computing.