Re: [Fwd: Re: Amr Khaled and Linux]

[Abdulaziz Al-Arfaj <alarfaj0 at yahoo dot com>]

Salam,

--- Ali Echihabi <ali dot echihabi at ieee dot org> wrote:
[...]
> I don't know where is the organization's headquarter. Most probably in 
> Lebanon though. But what I am sure of is that the Internet is good 
> enough to get hold of the important people. There is a person 
> responsible for the organization's project for fighting computer 
> illiteracy. I believe that once we define the project further, we can 
> contact this person and his group. (I will get you their contact info soon)

I'm staying tuned then ;)

> People in Life Makers feel the need to have a custom OS for their work. 
> They have started a project http://www.alkhawarezmi.com/. But its scope 
> is huge. They want to build an OS from the grounds up. I don't think it 
> is realistic.

We want to promote computer literacy in the Arab world, but we are also
Open-Sourcers to the bone, and we believe in doing things the GNU/Linux way.
The GNU/Linux standards have been in place for years, they are tried and
tested, and we certainly don't believe in creating new standards just so we can
say we created them. This is a sort of "legacy" Arab way of thinking that we
try to fight :) . If those in charge of the khawarezmi project see GNU/Linux as
a "western" innovation and therefore unsuitable, we will have trouble
cooperating.

By the way, is Khawarezmi an Arabic project or an Islamic project? There is a
difference between the two of course. Arabeyes is, primarily, an Arabic
project. We may develop Islamic software, but we find its better policy (much
less troublesome) to call this an Arabic project, but that doesn't mean we
can't cooperate with Islamic projects of course.

> I think the project I proposed, Hayat Linux, will give them what they 
> want while saving a lot of precious time and effort by using Linux.
> 
> Hayat Linux should not create any competition for other Arabeyes 
> projects. In fact, just the opposite, it will promote all of them. Here 
> is how:
> 
> Hayat Linux targets the computer illetrate, the beginner. It can be a 
> simplified scaled down version of Muhamed Sameer's work and/or Arabix. 
> After a person learns how to use a computer using Hayat Linux and wants 
> to do more advanced things (after 1-2 years), they upgrade the full 
> version of Muhamed Sameer's work and/or Arabix. And by then, Linux, KDE, 
> Open Office and Open Source in general will be natural for them. 
> Promising for even further reach for Arabeyes' work in the future.

Can you postpone working on Hayat Linux for a short while? There are distros
other than Arabbix you should try. One is being worked on by the Lebanese LUG,
and though it is not downloadable from the web, I can send it to anyone outside
Lebanon who asks for it. It is mean _exactly_ for the kind of audience you
speak of. Just plain newbies and people who have used nothing but MS Windows
and/or complete computer illiterates.

> The fact that Abdulaziz is in Lebanon (called Phoenix) will give us a chance
to give Amr 
> Khaled himself a live demo. He is a very kind man. At the very least 
> will send him screenshots/demo and ask for his support of the 
> initiative. If Amr Khaled mentions Hayat Linux on his TV show then we 
> shouldn't be surprised if a thousand people or more start using it the 
> first month.

What can I say? I would be honoured :) , I wouldnt be surprised if thousands of
people start using Linux either, if Amr Khaled endorses it. I just want to make
sure that the distro he mentions (be it Arabbix or Hayat or Phoenix or just
plain Debian) is the mature enough and in a usable state so the general public
will actually like it. Lets just not rush into things to quickly here :)

> Here is what I suggest we should do.
> 
> - Focus on what a computer new-be needs.
> - Define the typical usage scenarios of a computer by these people. For 
> example: Open Browser, open floppy, open CD, save file to floppy...
> - Set a common look and feel (theme)
> 
> Once we get that, (which shouldn't take long given the expertise in 
> Arabeyes), we can start promoting Hayat Linux.
> 
> I hope this answers your questions.
> 
> Waiting for your comments.
[...]

To tackle these issues we need simply more documentation. Something we can
never have enough of. I've always said we never need to actually write
documents, just collect them from the web and translate them. We have around 6
or 7 documents and HOWTOs on Arabeyes. I hope to see the day when there are
around a hundred, covering aaaaaaall topics encountered by an Arabic user, all
written in the Arabic language, with projects like Hayat Linux and others
coming here to benefit from them. We would greatly appreciate your help in
expanding this small library of ours.

Salam,

Abdulaziz,

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com