On Sun, 2004-02-15 at 08:05, ahmad khalifa wrote: > hello all... > > im a new member... maybe you'd like my view on this subject.... Most certainly. > > what am i doing..?? nothing... > im working on PuTTy's arabic support, but thats going too slow, and i cant > help it... > There is always an overhead to development project that you do not experience in translation projects. That is natural. > i just complained about the Todo list, maybe your problem is there... u dont > structure the > Todo list as little tasks that someone could just say "i did that" and > report it... > take a look at the GNOME bounty hunt, its so detailed... > http://www.gnome.org/bounties/ > There is a considerable difference between GNOME and Arabeyes -- most of which I probably do not need to explicitly enumerate. The main difference is, many of the projects Arabeyes undertakes _require_ research. Internationalization and Arabization specifically is not exactly a straight path. There is no 'one' manual you look up to find the information you need. It's not that simple. > instead you have things like "Check lp, lpr's Arabic situation"... i tried > to do that, but then > i got into trouble because of Type 1 fonts... i spent a few hours on CUPS's > code and > located the problem to be in the texttops filter... but then when i asked > for someone > to check if it prints or not (because i have problems due to lack of Type 1 > fonts) i just > got "see YOURSELF if lp and lpr print arabic then its supported"... > how can u say "we'd be happy to help" all the time and you wont even print a > Document... Again, the TODO list was drafter by Core. Now, between the four of us, it is impossible to assume intimate knowledge of all the items on the list (I mean, hey, it would be great if that were true!). In reality, we can only identify problems and give some details when available. But when it comes to printing, for instance, we had no details. For example, I personally have never had a printer that I could connect to a Linux system until a few months ago. In other words, aside from back in college when we had everything setup for us, I have only been exposed to CUPS a few months ago. I don't know what's involved. Finding out, documenting findings is _part_ of the task. The problem we find is that people find things, quit because of the lack of tangible progress. For this, wiki.arabeyes.org is a compromise. Enter your findings as you go along. Let others see what you have been doing, what you have found.. If for whatever reason, you decide to quit the task at hand, someone else can pick up from what you have been researching. > i think some1 is about to reply with "get this program ttf2***, it changes > from ttf to type 1", > or "read the Arabic-HOWTO" > no thank u... > No, I would say, write the document when you are done with the research, so we can refer the next volunteer to it ;) > my point here is... im new, i dont know anything, how am i supposed to > evaluate > the Todo list and know what i can and cant do... > for example... nadim asked me to help musab with PuTTY, i looked into it, > and actually > could do a lot of help there... without nadim's hint PuTTY could've had just > one guy working > on it, now they're two... > Yes, there are sometimes cases when a core member is able to better hook people together. The problem again, is that we get so many applicants everyday. Most of which are just registering cause it's a form! Rarely do we get to hear from them again.. So when we find someone who is serious about their contribution, we do tend to work a little harder at pointing them at the right direction. > try to assign tasks to new people and teach them... write Docs about > Shaping, etc... > thats what core members should be doing... (Not beating deadlines)... > Core members do a lot of different things. We have tried both, assigning people and letting people pick for themselves. Both have had the same relatively low results. Documentation is a definite necessity. Again, you have to realize that we are not so many. So, if someone like yourself finds something missing, the solution is -- contribute it. There isn't much to say about shaping, by the way ;) I think Unicode has said all we can say on the subject (http://www.unicode.org/Public/UNIDATA/ArabicShaping.txt). > assign the new guys tasks... dont wait for them to offer help... > I think you have hit the nerve here. I do believe that assigning specific tasks is better than letting someone who is just wanting to help decide where to go. The problem is that tasks are not detailed enough to make sense for someone new to all of this. The question then is, how do we manage to detail the todo list? If you are suggesting that Core is responsible for all of the details then we are back to square 1 ;) We all have a plateful as it is. Youcef has Bayani to work on, in addition to worrying about the site's PHP code and our not-so-available webmaster. Anmar has a plethora of translation projects he's kicking off, not to mention Arabbix. I have Duali to port. Nadim.. he's in just about everything ;) All that, in addition to our Core responsibilities. I am not saying all this to say we are all busy people. I am simply trying to impress that resources are not on our side. And, in the Open Source world, the general idea is, if you think something is missing, add it. > and i sort of agree with Arafat on the issue of Marketing Arabeyes.... > I find this to be secondary, but most people disagree with me about it ;) Regards -- ------------------------------------------------------- | Mohammed Elzubeir | Visit us at: | | | http://www.arabeyes.org/ | | Arabeyes Project | Homepage: | | Unix the 'right' way | http://elzubeir.fakkir.net/ | -------------------------------------------------------
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