Re: Status of Arabic OpenOffice

[Ossama Khayat <okhayat at yahoo dot com>]

TAlzaffin at diwan.dubai.gov.ae wrote:
---------------------------------
>Dear All,
> 
>I would like to know the status of Arabic OpenOffice,
>what is the progress on it, any time frame, etc...?

Hi. First of all, thanks for your interest.
Let us introduce ourselves. We are Arabeyes.org - *nix
Arabization group. I personally had interest in
OpenOffice.org and applied (with the help of Nadim - 
another member) to be incharge of the Arabic Native
Lang project.
So far, I've only prepared the basic website
(ar.openoffice.org) and working on other stuff, like
tutorials and resources.
Another memeber (Anmar) is also waiting the approval
to take charge of the Localization project (Anmar, any
progress?).

>I have been browsing the site
>http://native-lang.openoffice.org/
>Can you explain what is the difference between native
>project at http://ar.openoffice.org and the project
>(l10) bellow?

Well, the Native Lang project is more of language
tools, resources and linguestics. It involves
development, programming and building all these
resources for users.
On the other hand, l10n and i18n contains a framework
and tools for localization (l10n) and
internationalization (i18n). More information about
these two projects can be found on
http://l10n.openoffice.org/.
As far as I know, the localization work stopped at
version 1.0.3 of OpenOffice.org. I tried contacting
mr. Al-Nufaily but got no response at all.

>Localization/Internationalization Project (l10n).
>
>Localization / Language
>         
>Leader: Shady Al-Nofaily
>Email: nofaily at gmx.net
>Status: Looking for volunteers
>Arabic
>
>Is there an dependencies between both? Is the
>Arabization of StarOffice is tied to this project?

There is no dependency between the N/L and l10n
projects. But, since OpenOffice.org is built on the
same sources of StarOffice, the later will surely 
benefit and use the same resources available.

>What can I do as a decision maker to speed up
>this project?

Actually, many things! We lack a lot of people who
would help in many areas:
  - Helping in development and support of Arabic/BiDi
    features using Java and/or C++.
  - Testing the current features and support.
  - Providing feedback, through submitting bug reports
    (Issues).
  - Translators who would be able to dedicate time,
and
    have good translation skills.

>I would appreciate your reply and thank
>you in advance.

I hope this answers most of your questions and hope to
further extend the cooperation between us.

>Best Regards,
>
>Thani Alzaffin

Again, thanks for your interest.

kind regards,
Ossama M. Khayat

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