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CS5038 ELECTRONIC SOCIETY

Assignment 1

Group I Individual Article

Jean Claude UMUGABA

Internalization and localization: Open Source Software will encourage developing countries to embrace technology Introduction

All forms of life need to communicate with one another. Communication can be in numerous ways and forms for living things. For human beings, spoken communication and language is extremely important for promoting understanding between individuals. Clearly, language is an essential characteristic of a human being. Any human being expresses his/ her intellectual activity by use of a written or spoken language. Because of many languages which are different all over the world, translation is needed to enable people understand one another. These days, human beings are assisted by computer technologies to carry out many activities at a time and reduce errors. These activities are done by using computer software which is a set of instructions that performs specific tasks. There are numerous kinds and types of software all over the world depending on the functions needed to be done. Before any software can be developed, the target market for the software is considered before the development, implementation and testing of the software. As a result, software developers usually consider it more profitable to invest their technology in developed countries such as England, America and France because they can find a big market there. Consequently most of the commercial software that are developed are in the languages used in the developed countries and are thus mainly in English and French.

“It is almost impossible to use computer software if you can not read the instructions, buttons and menus. Thus it is not surprising that some developing countries lag behind Europe and America in the adoption and use of modern computer technologies at work, in schools, and in the home”. {1}

2 Developing countries have seen the deficiency they have and have started to adopt the use of open source software because these can be easily localized or translated to a language that can be easily understood by the people.

Open Source: “Generically, open source refers to a program in which the source code is available to the general public for use and/or modification from its original design free of charge”. {2}

What is internalization and localization?

Internationalization “is the process of ensuring that a software application is capable of adapting to local requirements, for instance ensuring that the local writing system can be displayed”. Localization “is the process of adapting the software to be as familiar as possible to a specific locale, by displaying text in the local language and using local conventions for the display of such things as units of measurement” {3}. In terms of software localization, this means the production of interfaces that are meaningful and comprehensible to local users.

Why do we need Software Localization?

Language has been a barrier for many people from the developing World to use Computer programs because the latter are mostly written in English. At this point, we can ask ourselves a good question. When will Microsoft Corporation release for example an Operating System in Kinya-rwanda or Swahili for example? I believe the answer could be easy to find. Proprietary Software is always for Commercial purposes and hence it will really take many years or centenaries to get a Kinya- rwanda or Swahili version of an operating system because there is no big market there. We all know that the bottom line for such big companies is their profit at the end of the day. This is a really sad case, but what about those people who need to use internet or other computer software in their language rather than English?

3 I believe the solution is to use Open Source Software which they can localize and hence use in any language they like. The following are some of the Software localization benefits: The benefits are in two categories, the first category is about Software developers and another category is for End Users.

End Users will not have to learn English language and this will facilitate software training This will also allow more people to communicate using Internet services and be able to send and receive emails in their own languages.

This significantly reduces the amount of training necessary to empower end-users to use a computer system. It also facilitates the introduction of computer technology in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

Furthermore, it empowers local software development companies to work for the administration, the public sector and private companies. It helps local universities to train and retrain local software engineers, developers and technicians. Indirectly, through improvements in governance using native computer systems, all local citizens benefit in the quality of their dealings with the administration. The local government also have the opportunity to develop databases and applications in the local language. Consequently, this can lead to sufficient technology and local development companies will be also being established. This opens the way for the development of computer systems for a country’s national, provincial and district level administration that will allow civil servants to work entirely in the local language and manage databases of local language names and data.

The software industry in the developing countries gains immensely through government’s use of standard-compliant computer technology which encourages software companies to start developing compatible computer systems that will be

4 used by the different bodies of the administration, thereby creating a stable software industry in the country.

They are now many projects in different continents to localize Linux and other open software applications: the following are some examples:

1. South Africa: is the first country in Africa to embrace Open Source Software Localization trying to translate Linux in ten different languages. South African Linux support and development company, Obsidian Systems, developed and sponsored this project, sharing their premises, resources and expertise to get the translation up and running.

“In South Africa many languages have been marginalized through the history of apartheid, which has led to a lack of language pride. Seeing Linux users working in German and French environments made me realise that this could do the same for South African languages. I hope that simply allowing people to use the computer in their mother tongue will stimulate pride in their language. Also, learning something in your mother tongue is naturally easier” {4}

2. Rwanda: one of the biggest projects in Rwanda vision 2020 program is to have a localized Linux in Kinya-rwanda. The project has started and they are expecting to use this software in all ICT Centres which have already set in each District providing an internet access to the rural population at a very cheap price. Even those people who write KINYARWANDA only will be able to use the machines/Pcs. A good example is the Maraba Vision Telecenter which trains all coffee Cooperative members in using OpenOffice and firefox in Kinya-rwanda. This would not be easy if they relied only on Proprietary Software. {5}

3 India: India is the first country in Asia which has been interested in the use of Open Source Software for a long time. In India now there are already multiple localized Indic language versions of GNU/Linux, Mozilla and OpenOffice.org available online. By the initiative of the Indian Ministry of Information Technology,

5 India is now localizing Linux to different local languages like Hindi, Marathi, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu and Sanskrit. {6}

4. Vietnam: In Vietnam, the localization of RedHat is a result of a CMC Research and development and many versions have been released in their local languages. {7}

Open Source Software and education

OSS are largely used in schools and universities for educational purposes, one time I was asking myself why Aberdeen university is teaching mysql and php rather than oracle, sql server or why it prefers Apache web server rather than IIS, I tried to answer the question and found that to use Open Source Software in schools save money and it also provides an avenue to the latest technology for students because they can get some of the tools they need to learn for free. I even believe OSS is much reliable when used on the Server Side, like in the Universities where many students will always be sending requests to the Web servers. It is clear that these days OSS offers a lot to both educators and students. In the UK, the UK Government’s British Educational Communications and Technology Association (Becta) found that using OSS/FS could save a significant amount of money in primary and secondary schools. In a 3 years study, Becta found that secondary schools could reduce their information technology overheads by 24% (including software, hardware, and support costs) by switching to OSS/FS. Primary schools could cut their computer costs by nearly half using OSS/FS. Support costs (usually 60% of a PC’s total cost) had the biggest reduction in cost. {8}

In developing countries, open source software in schools can offer more than cost savings, because, by using localization, it is easier for students to learn some of the software packages in their own language. Another important thing is that localized OSS if used in Primary schools will encourage children to like computer and hence can increase the number of Computer Engineers because now in many countries, there

6 are still a very limited number of Computer Experts. I believe this can encourage innovations which will lead to development in developing countries.

Furthermore, in numerous developing countries, many of the proprietary software used are illegal copies because of the lack of Intellectual property laws. If Companies like Microsoft manages to control software piracy in developing countries, it will not be easy for many people who enjoy copying software from one to another to use computer, and in this case for example, only a very limited number of people will be able to buy a licensed copy of Microsoft Office. I think Governments in these countries have to realize this and put more efforts in the Open Source Software localization Projects.

Localization of Open Source Software will also increase the number of internet users. This is because in some countries there are many projects to translate FireFox web browser in their own languages. Like in the example I gave above about Maraba Centre in Rwanda, the coffee from this centre is sold in America, and a villager who sells coffee to this centre can before, check using localized FireFox in Kinya-rwanda and see how much the coffee is in America to see if maybe the centre is buying at a reasonable price, this really increases transparency between the centre and villagers.

Sometimes localization process is not straightforward for all open source software. And this is because of the complexity of the software structure to be translated or the lack of both skilled developers and translators.

7 Conclusion

Computer use in some developing countries is quite low, compared to developed countries, where its use is a formality for the common man.

Localization of Open Source Software is a great way to enable a large number of people from developing countries to be able to use computer facilities. It gives local citizens of developing countries opportunities that could never have without the localization.

The major problem with it is its implementation. The localization process requires funds because of the numerous factors that have to be considered when carrying the project out. The process involves decision makers (politicians), making the right choices and it also requires skilled technical people in computer and translation fields for the effective adoption.

Governments in the developing countries before they put money investing in the localization projects, they must first understand well what are pros and the challenges of this process are. I believe it is a good idea to first learn from other successful localization projects, to see the merits of the project and also the obstacles faced to ensure that it is adopted and implemented flawlessly.

In conclusion, it is my opinion that when localization is properly thought about, planned and implemented, it changes lives of people immensely in developing countries.

8 References

1. Swatantra Kannada Localization Initiative http://kannada.alioth.debian.org/

2. Open Source http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/o/open_source.htm

3. Internationalization and localization From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationalization_and_localization

4 . Bridging the Digital Divide in South Africa November 1st, 2002 by Linda Martindale in International The Open Source community addresses the sensitive language issue in South Africa. http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/5966

5. Creating the Maraba Vision Telecenter Part 1 of 2 – Final Project Report, August 2006 Washington State University Last Mile Initiative Team http://maraba.visiontelecenter.com/reports/telecenterReport.pdf

6. Software:Localization Anousak Souphavanh and Theppitak Karoonboonyanan http://www.iosn.net/l10n/foss-localization-primer/foss-localization-primer.pdf

7. The situation of OSS and the localization Of open source soft wares in Vietnam http://www.asia-oss.org/march2003/downloads/ HaTheMinh/Report/pdf/linux_in_vietnam.pdf

8. Why Open Source Software / Free Software (OSS/FS, FLOSS, or FOSS)?

Look at the Numbers!

David A. Wheeler

9 http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html

Revised as of April 16, 2007

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