Re: do we need any arabeyes ?

["Youcef Rabah Rahal" <yrrahal42 at hotmail dot com>]

Salam,

I think it is always difficult to start doing something alone. In other 
words, yes, the pioneer' life isn't that easy, and we are pioneers ! Maybe 
in thirty years or so insha Allah, you could proudly look back in time and 
say :'Yes, I was among those people who start generalizing the use of Open 
Source in the Arab World, and we made a wonderful thing, thanks God !'.

In the meantime, things won't be easy. It is difficult to raise people's 
interest for our project. It is even harder to make them contribute after 
they register for an account (sad but true). And so difficult to make them 
stay on the long-run !

Saying 'what are we doing this while people are interested in other things?' 
is a good question. But the right question, I think, should be 'What are the 
solutions to change our situation (as Arabs) ?'. In other terms, we must not 
ask 'How(or why) did we get in this situation?' but 'How can we change it?'. 
The first question
should be asked later.

Raising awareness about open-source and the dangerousness of closed-source 
software in the Arab World is a noble cause and goes in the direction of 
'how can we change our situation?'. However, everything has to start 
somewhere. You can't expect generalizing Open Source without actually 
starting to do it. And waiting for others to do it in your place is wrong. 
Imagine a world where everyone would count on others to make things in their 
place: nothing would change !!! And we are the ones (as people who has a 
certain amount of knowlegde about open-source) who SHOULD do the FIRST move.

We can't disconnect ourselves from the reality, and the actual situation is 
really sad/bad/alarming etc. But we can't stop and watch passively. We must 
change things by ourselves, in the limits of our power. The main common 
'power' between the people subscribed to this list, and to Arabeyes in 
general, is the computer/open-source/linux etc knowlegde. SO LET'S USE THIS 
POWER !!!

IMHO, here are some useful questions:
1- How can we get more voulunteers ?
2- How can we make those volunteers active ?
3- How can we keep the active volunteers interested ?
4- Are we going t attain our goals with the current configuration ?
  If not, what else should we do ?
5- ...
Feel free to append this list ;-)

What about the answers now ?

Salam,

Youcef.

PS:

Arafat,
- It is not beacuse the political situation that people don't know freedom. 
Liberty is inate in every human.

- It is not beacuse arabs are using foreign languages in the technical 
domains that this situation can't be changed. It should simply be done in an 
intelligent manner (in Algeria, arabization, in schools, was done 
anarchically in the 60's-70's and it did more harm than good). However, this 
is a global problem. Even the French complain about the increasing use of 
English in the technical domains ;-)


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