Re: Arabeyes -- a critique

[Nadim Shaikli <shaikli at yahoo dot com>]

--- Mohammed Elzubeir <elzubeir at arabeyes dot org> wrote:
> Arabeyes has been at the forefront of the FOSS [1] Arabization efforts.
> It began with general ideas and evolved to concrete goals and agendas
> which have taken it from a group of wishful thinkers to a group of
> doers.
> 
> Throughout the 3 years of its operations, Arabeyes has seen many ups and
> downs, internal and external battles and a plethora of challenges. Its
> survival can easily be attributed to the determination of a few key
> contributors.
> 
> The challenge that no one seems to have given much thought to is, what
> will become of Arabeyes once the Arabization of FOSS is complete? Or is
> this a never ending process? If indeed it is a never-ending process then
> one can safely state that Arabeyes has degraded to its initial state of
> being a bunch of general ideas and no conrete goals.

I don't think there is a golden end to this per se.  We continue to evolve
(as do individuals) by reaching some milestones and setting-up new goals.
Arabeyes, sans articulation, has become an advocate of Free and Open Source
Software (FOSS) in the Arab world.  We keep telling people that we need
them to understand what it means and why it's great and why they should
buy into it - that to me sounds like an unstated goal.  Have we sat around
and formulated clear and cut goals and set dates to them ? NO - should we,
absolutely.  But with the limited resources and a never-ending barrage of
things to do and tasks to take care of, we are barely keeping ourselves
afloat. 

> It is unthinkable that Arabization is something that we will be doing
> for the next 20 years. However, there will be one issue remaining which
> will require constant updates and maintenance -- namely, translation.
> The question would then be, do we want Arabeyes to end up being a
> primarily translation effort?

I don't think that will ever happen, translation will continue to be a
necessary part of what do but I don't think it will be the only matter
that will keep this organization afloat.  As noted, part of our longevity
is our collective ability to re-mold our focus while keeping the ultimate
vision on what it is we'd like to see (a broader acceptance of Arabic
in the Open Source community which translates to better support as well
as more engagement by the Arab community to reach for its own independence).

> One could say that Arabeyes can be involved in setting standards with
> the various standardization bodies once it is a legal entity. Even if
> Arabeyes becomes a legal entity and is able to collect enough donations
> to pay to join consortiums such as Unicode, W3C, etc., it will not be
> enough. 

If it's not enough due to lack of necessary expertise (language, history,
academic reputation, etc), then I agree and that is something we need to
continue to seek - else I don't agree.

> Going through all of Arabeyes contributors, the reality is, technical
> expertise is seriously lacking. How many real contributions have
> Arabeyes volunteers made to OpenOffice [2]? What about Wine [3], KDE
> [4], GNOME [5]? It is not only a question of time and a flat number of
> contributors. What no one seems to be willing to admit is that we simply
> do not have the people with the know-how. Is it not shameful that
> Arabeyes had nothing to do with the actual development work involved
> with allowing Arabic support under Debian Installer [6]? How can we even
> claim fame when we have others doing the real work and all we end up
> doing is translating a bunch of PO's?

Don't know about "claim fame", everyone gets their due credit.  As for us
not having more of an active role in major projects that is VERY true and
that must change.  The only way to get involved in some of these projects
is to simply dedicate most of your time to them - since, as you note, we
are short-handed that hasn't taken shape.  There are multiple reasons I'd
guess,

 a. Being overwhelmed: people might shy away from things they don't know
    and can't grasp quickly - people want to see results quick to feel
    as though their time isn't wasted (return on time invested).
 b. Lacking focus: no one is telling people what they need to do and why
    they need to do it due to lack of focus on that aspect of things.

I think we lack both to some extent.  No where has Arabeyes noted the need
for people to go and jump-in and help out Pango for instance, partly due
to us relying too much on asking for help (and getting it) and partly
because we don't know what to tell newcomers to help out with (or what
to fix exactly).

> In the beginning of 2003, I have posted a few recommendations [7] to
> overcome this technical lacking by introducing a mentoring program.
> Despite this being accepted as a 'nice idea' in principle, no effort
> whatsoever has been put to make it a reality. This is mainly because
> Arabeyes is too engulfed in its day-to-day activities with no more focus
> on the big picture. This by no means is to say that the above mentioned
> recommendations are the only or best way to proceed -- they are merely
> suggestions that have had a very very short thread associated with it.
> This simply shows that no real interest has really been given to an
> otherwise rather important issue. It is a survival issue.

The idea was deemed more than a 'nice idea' (unfortunately many discussions
were outside the mailing-list) - what needed to happen was to unfold a trial
of it to see what is involved, but again with so many things to do for the
rather limited number of active people that not alot of people wanted to
jump and sign-up for it.  As we continue to preach "fix it" and "do it", I
highly recommend you lead the way for all of us to follow.  In short, the
idea needs to be undertaken by a finite number of people to try/test before
we mandate its need (and I use mandate very loosely here).

> Unfortunately, we seem to be more interested in issuing press releases
> and doing interviews than dealing with the future of Arabeyes as a
> project.

These press releases and interviews are meant to attract attention and
bring-in some support.  Without said PR-tactics the likelihood of people
hearing about Arabeyes outside the FOSS circles is close to nil.  In
general terms, I think many of the administrative duties (due to need)
have sucked alot of various people's time/effort (in lieu of focusing
on Arabeyes' mandate and goals) that we all should either delegated
them to others and/or live with a minimalistic level of standards.

> From what I am seeing today and from personal experiences from the very
> foundation of Arabeyes, I see no real future for the project.

That's a sad statement to read.  The future of the project is what we
deem it to be through mutual brain-storming and shear willingness to
"change the world" (yes, the "fire-in-the-belly" attitude matters).
We need not succumb to defeatism or mechanical solutions but tackle
all these problems head on.  If we are missing a clear mandate and
a long-term plan and a schedule to go with it, then we need to put
one worth, discuss it, agree on it and move on.  If we need to make
correction mid-way then we do 'em.  If something doesn't work in our
process we change tactics if others work then we adopt 'em more deeply,
etc.  What is needed for just about anything to be successful is
communication, commitment, focus and work-ethic (not to mention smarts :-).

> ie. we are not growing but shrinking.

We have in excess of 500 people registered of which about 15 are active.
New people continue to join-in meaning there is interest, it is upto us
as a community to set forth an environment and an easy road for those that
are new to take part in and traverse.  Most need to be told what to do and
actually like to be tracked and asked upon - that is something we need to
do more of somehow and that somehow is a place for discussion.

> We don't have a long-term plan.

I think we do - but it's a non-terminal one.  Meaning the use of "promote"
is not something you can easily guage and I'm afraid we have lots of those
non-measured alter mindset goals.  I do think it would be a good idea to
set something out in clear text (with definitive goals and dates) if that
is what will motivate and focus people.  On the other hand, if those dates
are not met (since we are a volunteer project) have we failed ?

> Sure, we want to have full Arabic support -- whether it comes from
> Arabeyes or someone else. However, the real question is, then what?

We want to innovate in the field and attact like-minded people - there's
a reason why close to 50% of Arabeyes' projects are "home-grown".  We
are no different from any software development entity - what we are
"burdeoned" with is the philosophical stance for which all of this stands
for (plus being short-handed, etc).

--- Alaa Abd El Fattah <alaa at manalaa dot net> wrote:
> based on this assumption I can only see 3 paths for arabeyes to follow
> 
> 1- make advocacy part of arabeyes work and put effort in solving the
>    root of the problem
> 
> 2- think of changes to arabeyes methods and goals with the assumption
>    that number of contributors will always be small
> 
> 3- continue as is and hope the community will grow on its own accord and
>    through the efforts of others

Unlike Alaa (who leaned towards option-2 above), I'd say #1 is more akin
to what we've always been trying to do.  Option-1 doesn't seem such a
foreign concept to me yet I agree that the LUGs have a VERY big role in
all of this and that, among others, is why all the various groups need
to play a more integral part with each other.  There is a reason why we
need the likes of 'OpenArabia.org' (which still doesn't have an owner).
These bridge portals/websites/organization/functions are critical in not
only dividing-up the load, but in bringing local topical prospective to
the table.

Views expressed are my own and don't reflect Arabeyes' - in short, I'm
just thinking out-loud :-)

Salam.

 - Nadim



		
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