Re: [Indic-computing-users] Localization in Mumbai

[Guntupalli K. <kar...@fr...>]

On Sat, 21 Sep 2002 11:04:01 +0530
"Nagarjuna G." <nag...@hb...> wrote:

> There are at least five teams in Mumbai who are serious in solving
> the localization problem. 1. Karunakar, Prakash (Netcore)
> 		      2. Keyur and others at NCST
> 		      3. Jitender Shaw and his student team (VJTI)
> 		      4. Tapan and Venky at Media Labs
> 		      5. Me at HBCSE,TIFR.
> If there are others please let me know.  I propose that we work in
> close coordination so that duplication of work could be avoided
> saving so many man hours.  Both Jitender Shaw and me are willing to
> provide students to do the laborious technical jobs.  If Keyur other
> experts in the field conduct a few workshops so that the work force
> could get the skills imparted it would be really good.
>
 What we could have is Resource groups ( ala TDIL ), A group will
comprise of all people living in a geographical proximity, interested
in localisation work together, also taking support from local
organisations. This groups will have all activities ongoing made known
to themselves & other groups outside. Leaders of the groups will be in
Indic-computing group working at a national level. We had some of them
from this workshop. 

 Few areas/cities where I know of activities going on are
Ahmedabad - Gujarati,
Bangalore - Kannada, Telugu,
Bhopal - Hindi, 
Chennai - Tamil, 
Delhi - Hindi, Gurmukhi, 
Hyderabad - Telugu, 
Jabalpur - Hindi, 
Kanpur - Hindi, 
Kolkata - Bengali, 
Mumbai - Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, 
Pune - Marathi, 
Trivandrum - Malayalam.  

I will put up my thoughts on this more properly in another mail.

 We will probably have a session within next month & have all
activities based in mumbai & around known.
 This could be done for other places too. eg All those present at
workshop can take it up in their cities, organise a meeting or
workshop , bringing all people who are working in localisation area
together, 
 
> BTW, today evening at 5pm Karunakar and me would be joining the
> Jitender Shaw's camp at Powai to begin the work.  I managed to know
> the technical issues to some extent from Arun at Trivandrum, with
> whome I sat for few nights during TUG 2002. I am preparing my self
> to solve the localization problem particularly on the browser side
> (HBCSE's own interest, we have a lot of content to deliver).  Keyur
> I heard is already working with Mozilla (I have seen his name
> mentioned on the Mozilla website.)  Any technical inputs in this
> regard would be welcome.
> 
 Long time back I had looked into this, & got mozilla in Hindi using
Shusha fonts. The work didnt go much further as there was the usual
debate of using font based encoding or unicode. Back then mozilla has
limited unicode support & Java didnt have Hindi support. I had written
few docs on this, will dig out from by backup cds.

 Actually I had done lot of R&D work on  i18n/l10n issues, for
IndLinux while at freeos.com , when i18n stuff had just started taking
shape in Linux. Most of the info is in bits n pieces, in old mails,
mail archives, docs etc. While collecting this info didnt try much to
put the info in order, so now reached a point where I am literraly
buried under this heap of info & I cant get out under it on my own &
need others help. To some extent started this work by working with
others like malayalamlinux, telugu team & marathi team. Similarly
passing on info to any interested volunteer depending on what he wants
to do. This has already started the Gnome Hindi translations , Telugu
translations & font development efforts. I request everyone to pose
any questions they have regd localisation, this would help (motivate)
me to dig out the info & this time we make sure that its well
documented.
 
 I think the next step in coming months would be to get all the people
who have/are doing work together.
I think Linux Bangalore2002 would be a good venue for it. Last year
too 'Localisation sessions' were termed as key achievements ( icing on
the cake ). Showcasing localisation work there would be best, as there
would be good concentration of hackers & media to cover the event. We
just need to be there.

I will continue in another thread ( will become late for 5pm meeting
).

Regards,
Karunakar