Our next move...

[Waseem S Bakr <bakr at MIT dot EDU>]

As kdebase stands 96% done, the question that is most likely to be whizzing around in you heads is....WHAT'S NEXT????
Back in September, Isam put a priority list. If we are going to go by that list, then our next move is to the kdeutils directory. Then, kdenetwork directory, then the koffice directory. Both of the last two directories are massive (each about half of kdebase) and will obviously take lots of time to translate. kdenetwork is without doubt a very important directory, particulartly because it contains the important kmail file. But otherwise, I find the files in koffice more important.
Let's consider the whole translation issue frankly.
How many of you think that home users are going to use Linux in the arab world? Not many... even in the west, linux, inspite of being the second most widely used operating system, still lags far behind Windows in terms of the number of people using it. Linux better... yes, but definitely less user friendly, inspite of all efforts, including KDE. Just thing of setting up a new program. Joe and Joanne are definitely going to find double clicking on setup a much easier alternative to the commands that are used in Linux. Whether we like it or not, Linux remains the 'expert' system. People who use it are either computer scientists and engineers, university students, or computer enthusiasts. A whole generation grew up with old Bill's Windows. We can't change that overnight.
So, am I saying that all our efforts are for nothing?
No, for one thing, Linux is eventually going to gain the upper hand, but that's going to take some time. More importantly, there is a whole sector of the society that I've not mentioned who would be willing to use Linux in the Arab world... companies. These, by far, together with universities, are the most frequent users of linux in the west, although many companies do not admit that they use the 'hacker's' system. Stability is one reason, fantastic networking capabalities is another, but FREE is the keyword. And not free as in free source code, because although many companies like to customize their systems, the main thing is that it is free as in paying nothing at all. After all, the purpose of a business is to make profit. Pay less expenses, you make more profit.

Now, to the purpose of all this lengthy discussion. If anybody in the arab world is going to use our system, it's going to be businesses. Businesses need to things: e-mail from kdenetwork directory and more importantly word-processing, spreadsheet, and to a lesser extent, presentation, software from the koffice directory. So, I propose we move kdeoffice up in our priority list, and do it before kdenetwork, although finishing off the kmail file which is already 50% done would be a good idea.

Kdeutils is already half done, and it is a really small directory. It contains very important files which are of every day use, like a floppy disk formatting utility and similar things. Unfortunately, the largest file in that directory is a hexadecimal editor, a thing that is not going to prove that useful. Still, I would say, since I have finished a good number of files in that directory, and it followed kdebase in Isam's priority list, we should get it out of the way. 
Kdeaddons is a funny directory. It's very small, nearly done (only ten strings left) and so, inspite of it being one of the least useful directories, get the 10 strings translated and let's get it out of our way for God's sake.

I would suggest a new priority list that looks as follows (skipping root and kdebase since they're done):

1-kdeaddons (believe it or not)
2-kdeutils (should take a week or so)
3-kmail file (a necessary file)
4-koffice (the most important thing)
5-kdenetwork (if we still are able to breathe)

The remaining directories are about games, graphics and doc. I suggest we leave them as a chance for the arab world to learn some English language skills;)

Naturally, due to their small size, 1,2, and 3 can be easily finished before KDE3's release. koffice is a BIG question mark. Can we include it in the release? It depends. Lately, we've had a flood of new translators. If eveyone is going to finish off a file or half a long one every day, it can be done. But, to tell you the truth, all I've seen since I joined the team is people correcting fuzzy terms, with occasional translation of bits and pieces, and very, very rarely, doing any real work, like translating a hundred strings or so in one chunk. Therefore, if we are to include koffice in KDE3, we have to get serious... very serious. 

I won't talk about kdenetwork. Let's first focus on koffice.

A general discussion of the future of Arabeyes:

As a start, I'd like to say that whoever wrote the 'About' page on the site definitely is a great dreamer, and I hope we can achieve some of his dreams. The projects Arabeyes has taken so far are KDE's translation, Arabic VIM, Akka, and qaMoose. qaMoose, helpful as it is, won't be used by someone outside arab eyes, so it's just an internal project. I don't know much about Akka, but VIM is great. The problem is that, so far, inspite of having the potential to be an external application, meaning that it will be used by people outside Arabeyes, is still not ready for public use. To make it available to the public, we should contact KDE's developers and ask them to add it to the project, so that if a user selects an Arabic installation of KDE, it is automatically installed, emphasizing the word automatically. I assume all people who contribute to Arabeyes have some computer experience, and I would say almost all of them (including me) had some trouble getting it to work. The readm!
e is clear, so I'm not saying that Nadim should change it, but simply, the whole patching process is the wrong approach. Arabization should be part of the vim installation. We shouldn't install vim and then patch it. I know this is only a temporary thing for Arabeyes, but I'm just pointing out that we should contact KDE's developers to include it in KDE.

Now, for the rest of the dreams. Translation is great, but trust me, no business (since we agreed businesses will be the main users) will use linux if we simply translate the interface. For the system to be really arabized, it should be arabic down it's very roots. ALL applications, and most importantly word processing software, should support bidirectional text like vim. You won't find a secretary in an office using vim to type a letter. Kword is more likely to be used (that is, if we get rid of MS-Word;) Thus, it's important to arabize programs not simply by translating interfaces, but by programming them to behave in a more 'arabic' way. The same applies to kmail.

I think it was Mohammed Gamal who suggested translating Gnome. I think we should focus on one environment at a time. It's much better to provide the world with a fully arabiized envionment rather than providing two partially arabized ones. Although Gnome is great (it's written here in MIT!) and has lots of things that are better than KDE, for some strange reason, there is a preference among developers to write programs for KDE. I've seen a whole k family, but no g families yet.

Most of what I said requires programming... a thing that not all of the translators may be proficient at. Hence, I did not put it under the priority list. Translation should be continuous. Even if we finish what we have on the list, we can move on to games and docs however silly they seem. The Arabeyes project should always be there. It shouldn't stop at any cost. If we're done with one project, there are plenty of others to transate. What I propose is that the programming projects go side by side with the translation efforts, so that everyone who can program writes code, while everyone who doesn't, translates. The two things should be go hand in hand, and should not be treated as separate items that are to be done one after the other.

Let's hope for a long and prosperous future for Arabeyes.