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Re: ITP possible story



Elzubeir, these are draft thoughts, not to be taken directly, needs rough 
editing :

Q3. What do you mean that this is the only real GNU/GPL open source project
to Arabise Linux. I thought there were other projects in the pipeline?

No, But it seems that Arabeyes is the only one active now. Most of other 
projects lost their maintainers and thus got berried. We will insure that if 
there is a berried Open Source Project that we would be able to wake up, it 
will be done .. Arabeyes had a good start, that hopfully that would help it 
last. And because Arabeyes did touch projects and have good communication 
with other teams (KDE ( www.kde.org) , VIM ( www.vim.org) , GNOME ( 
www.gnome.org) ) it gave Arabeyes a good push forward.

Q4. How are you working with the other group's in the Arab world to ensure
that a standard emerges for Arabic Linux?

We do not set standards, we implement them. Most of the standards related to 
Arabic language implementation is set by different Unicode (www.unicode.org) 
spec. . We maintain communication with different teams to share efforts, make 
sure to complement each other's work (Like with linux-team.org who worked 
with trolltech (www.trolltech.com )in QT in adding Arabic support, Arabeyes 
worked with KDE to implement Arabic). Communication with teams of similar 
interests like teams working in the Farsi Language ( which have more than one 
similarity to Arabic) and Urdu, Hebrew, etc .. .

Q6. What do you mean that your project delivers all the recipes of 'open
source?'

Arabeyes provides the infrastructure needed for any new Arabization project, 
and the needed tools, and devices for any project to get maintained and 
continue to exist. Arabeyes was able to some extent to get recognition from 
the Linux users by involving in the most needed projects such as adding 
Arabic support to the console, and adding Arabic support to one of the most 
favorite editors (VIM- www.vim.org ), and creating and maintaining the Arabic 
translation of the KDE( www.kde.org ).


Q7. What stage is the Arabisation project at? When do you expect to diliver
a solution?

The foundation of Arabization in Linux is very much there. Multi-byte 
support, Unicode support, TTF fonts support, and so on. Arabeyes was able to 
see these sparsed elements, and try to use them to deliver Arabic Language 
support. (I personally think here, that the last few months in 2001 did show 
real progress in Arabization, and the year 2002 will be the *ix Arabization 
year)

Q9. Other than local language support what do you believe are some of the
biggest hurdles in front of the growing deployment of Linux in the region?

Lack of interest from the Linux companies in the possible market in the 
region caused having the businesses in the region not aware of the revolution 
and changes in the operating system and software fields worldwide. And 
furtherly building the belief of the ONE WAY world.
Deploying Linux in the region faces the probelm of lack of technical support, 
lack of user base, lack of proper training, as far as I know there is no 
center in Jordan or KSA that gives any of the courses related to any of 
certifications. Lack of linux solution providers who are willing to risk and 
invest in the empty lands in the region. 
One other point is that the respect of propertly rights for software in 
rather new and incomplete, making some of the advantages of open source 
software unclear, and unobvious.


-- 
Yours,
Isam Bayazidi
Amman - Jordan
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Think Linux + Think Arabic = Think www.arabeyes.org
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