Re: global TODO

[Nadim Shaikli <shaikli at yahoo dot com>]

On Tue, 23 Apr 2002 22:25:41 -0500,
  "Mohammed Elzubeir" wrote:
> > instead of having yet another file to look at.  The way I viewed
> > the file is more like a "wish-list" and "things that need to looked
> > into and worked on".  As for your question to why would we translate
> > StarOffice or Mozilla; why is arabeyes doing KDE or Gnome -- these
> 
> Because they are absolutely critical and most importantly because no one
> else was doing it. Now there are teams springing out to translate
> Mandrake's setup/installation (some of whom used to be Arabeyes
> volunteers as well).. I think the trend is there.

The translation of Mandrake is news to me (which is pretty bad since
such info/news needs to be noted for all to see somewhere since we
should be disseminating information in case others are interested in
helping or even just knowing) and on the same topic, it would be nice
to have had this team be affiliated with Arabeyes somehow (if Arabeyes
wants people ? if Arabeyes wants to recruit ? if Arabeyes wants fresh
blood -- that's how, in my opinion, one goes about getting some).  As
for KDE and Gnome being critical, noted; but that is very much a
"personal" decision.  In other words, Mozilla's interface might also
be noted as critical based on how popular it might become (if/when it
starts rending Arabic correctly :-).

> > are all applications that will be widely used and ought to get
> > Arabic attention (most applications nowadays have .POT files awaiting
> > someone's attention - we need to pick the ones that matter - I added
> > my $0.02's worth to that list).
> 
> And I never said they don't need to get Arabic attention.. I am simply
> saying that we have agreed on this a long time back.. that our focus
> will not be on translation, and that KDE/Gnome are exceptions (for
> reasons above). 

I think we (and I know I've preached repeatedly about this) should not
limit and not mention Arabeyes with translation work only since on a
couple of occasions that's what happened (and to prioritize 'software
development' over 'translation' in the Arabic definition of what Arabeyes
is); but there is no harm in soliciting help for whatever is deemed
"popular" or "critical" and hosting that on Arabeyes (the question now
is simply what is deemed "popular/critical" and that should come from
the user base to what they want to see translated first since they will
be doing the translation).

> > only 2 people's comments thus far (and are very high-level points)
> > awaiting 2 more people's inputs as well as a general call for
> > scrutiny of its completeness.
>
> I am not being anti-'wishes' here.. I simply don't want Arabeyes to end
> up trying to be everything for everyone. We are a development project
> who happen to be doing translation work for KDE/Gnome because no one
> else has stepped up to them. We have been trying to distance ourselves
> from the 'translation' stigma (and I think somewhat successfully).. I
> would hate to see that coming back to us again. But, if the consensus is
> to go ahead and turn Arabeyes into a translation project with a few
> development projects on the side, don't say I didn't warn you ;)

Without the translation work taking place and producing results (KDE-3
namely), Arabeyes can't be described as a fast-paced project esp. on the
software development arm of things.  With the lack of progress and the
fact that everyone seems not to have time to work on things, if the
translation work is dropped or overlooked, Arabeyes should face the
reality of loosing whatever user base it currently has due to the minimal
software development progress that its shown,

I think of Arabeyes as an entity with 3 main arms,

 1. software development
 2. translation work (i18n, locales, etc)
 3. information source on all things that have to do with Arabic and
    linux/unix (who's doing what, what software is available) -- a
    one-stop location for all info (not so much a news portal, but a
    source of information on what's out there in terms of applications
    and who's working on what/where).

Just some thoughts..

 - Nadim


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