Re: Arabeyes discussion [WAS: do we need...]

[Arafat Medini <lumina at silverpen dot de>]

Am Son, 2003-04-20 um 17.28 schrieb Mohammed Elzubeir:
> On Sun, Apr 20, 2003 at 06:57:37PM +0200, Arafat Medini wrote:
> > Salam
> > 
> > The first Q is obvious, by speaking with people and encouraging them to
> > work with us. What about sending all the user groups an email with a
> > request to post some Job offerings!!! I want to do that. And I'll make
> > this but I need the approval of the big three (4?) 
> 
> Post all you want. If you are offering a 'job', you will get an influx of
> people who will think they were will be a financial compensation for their
> work. You will spend half the time explaining to people exactly what
> you are.
I mean with user groups the Saudi user group the Algerian one etc. I'm sure they know us and will not ask...



> > How can we make them acitve... I don't know! From my experience, I had a
> > goal I wanted to reach something which I was working for. I'm sure if
> > you make a goal for people they'll work for it. Maybe some prices? Maybe
> > a honoring interview, maybe money!!! But at the end the programmers,
> 
> You have been on this for long enough. You know what any Open Source
> contributor gets in return. We are no different from any other Open
> Source project in that respect.
Abisource made a special price which constitues of 300$ for the person
which cleans the highest number of bugs at a special day. Abisource
makes the program Abiword (OSS app)...

> 
> > translators,etc... Have to know they're doing the Job for every Arab out
> > there, I mean thaT's a big problem. Maybe the question would be how can
> > we make the "workers" believe in themselves in the Arab world and the
> > work they are doing for the Arab world, this is really a whole other
> > story...
> 
> I don't think it has much to do with this 'Arab' thing. There's a
> project, there are people.. some will work, some won't. Some want to
> work, but don't have the will power. Some just want to put their
> name out there to show their friends and sit back doing nothing..
> If you stop concentrating on the 'Arab' factor and focus more on the
> 'people' factor, you may be able to get more answers.
That's your personal point of view, Arabeyes is there to make two worlds come together
the OSS world and the Arab world, in its soul the Arab thing is
fundamental, Even if you and me don't think so the goal has nothing to
do with your or my personal thoughts.


> > How can we keep the active volunteers interested I think that answer to
> > question 2 is the same for this Q, maybe more rights in affecting
> > Arabeyes? I suppose if the orginiztion becames more dynamic. People will
> > get under pressure and work also.
> 
> I'm not sure I understand you. Everyone's contribution affects Arabeyes.
> You are affecting Arabeyes right now ;) 
Institutionalization of the affections ;) One our the biggest hobbies of
Arabs is speaking the whole day without anything coming out, something
we are doing now ;)


> > "Will we attain our goals with the current configuration", What are our
> 
> Define 'configuration'.
As an example the lack of translators for Gnome, the big amount of
semi-dead apps etc...
> > goals? Translation? Let me be sincere, at the gnome front I am the only
> > person who's working very hard now. And I know I can't make it all
> 
> 
> Yes, and Roozbeh was/is the only one working on the Farsi GNOME. Guess
> what? He has single-handedly beat you and everyone else on the GNOME project.
> So, don't get me started on that. Maybe less time posting the same stuff
> we have been talking about on the lists and more time translating?
I'll show him what Arabs are ;) At the end of next month the core
desktop, libs included will be completed.

> > alone. Mr. Abdin is still present and I'm waiting for him to help
> > because he's a very good translator (Hassan where are you? ;) ) on the
> > KDE fron it seems, from the post of Elzubair, nothing is going. On the
> 
> Yes, not much is going on. The problem with KDE is that its coordinator
> (yours truly) is not a translator. I think that will have to chance, and
> I will start doing some of the translation work to bring things up to
> speed. This is simply not acceptable. If I have to stay up late at night,
> fall asleep at my desk at work.. I will not allow KDE's next big release
> to be crap. Mark my words!
For speeding up the gnome translation I was working for one week 22 to
24 hours a day...

> If the folks who claimed to be ready to work and no longer care to even
> say, I won't be available for this time, or forever.. are not going to be
> there to help, so be it. We will put out a good release.
> 
> > other fronts I have a point of critics which sure many will not agree
> > with. We have too many little projects. What will a gnome quran do? I
> > mean Allahu akbar our Religion is for us more important then the air we
> > breathe, but is a gnome quran really the answer? And many projects are
> > apparently dead. Or not? no one really knows...
> 
> There are 2 issues you may not understand about Arabeyes then. First of
> all, one of the main purposes of Arabeyes is to preserve projects from
> extinction. That is, we ensure that a project does not just disappear.
> Secondly, take a look at Duali -- it took more than a year since we
> decided to start the project for a pre-alpha release. Some projects
> take a long time to put together.. others have little reason to progress.
> Take for instance QaMoose. There isn't much there to add (well, there is,
> but not with the current design). 
I don't agree here. Look at the gnome project or mozilla or php or even the Kernel...

> If you see a project dead, make not of it. If someone wants to 'take-over'
> a project, they make such an announcement and we help facilitate such
> a transition of maintainership. However, the project itself should
> never be dead.
I totally agree here but where is any status report to know something about that app.

> GnomeQuran (and others for that matter) has had a release already. Some
> people actually use it. Do you really expect us to kill the project because
> the author is currently busy with life? He has even posted about this.
"We are all busy with our lives" quoted from an early post about KDE
translators...

> > My Idea would be, clean up dead or semi-dead projects. Make a lean
> > orginization, I'm sure this is very unlickely to happen, but I still
> 
> It depends on what you mean by 'cean-up'. See, if you mean, ensure that
> an active maintainer is taking over the project, then we are in agreement.
> However, if you mean to simply kill every project that doesn't witness
> active development for a few months, then that's simply unrealistic. You
> are mixing translation progress with development progress. They work very
> differently.
We are in agreement.

> 
> > think this will make the whole prject smaller yes but clearer. On top of
> > that we can build now goals. We have to set-up new goals. Why not let us
> > all make every month a meeting. We have to speak more, we have to work
> > more, we have to work on less things and we have to get more people.
> > "work more, get more, on less" this is a nice slogan.
> 
> How about this, "talk less and work more?". I mean, I just wated a good
> 20 minutes replying to this email while I could have been working on
> my KDE's translation review.. or finishing off some touch-ups on Duali.
I'm working so hard believe me I can't do more, I mean I'm translating on a daily basis 
for 3 to 4 hours and once or twice a week for 6 hours. My University
started and I returned translating at the beginning of the second week,
what do i have to do more? even the 22 to 24h mark was attained...

cheers