On Sat, 2005-01-15 at 17:53 +0000, Abdulhaq Lynch wrote: > assalaamu `alaykum > > I dont' understand the self-flagellation and cries of doom that are from time > to time uttered here. The best criticism is one that comes from within. It's not like I joined the project a couple years down the road -- I've been here from the beginning and I believe that when I cry bloody murder, it's not because I am simply being pessimistic about things. > > In the FOSS world 99% of developers are doing their (voluntary) work because > they enjoy it. If their work becomes dull or tedious they will stop. The same > applies, I believe, here, although there are some other incentives relating > to, perhaps, 'political' reasons. But primarily we/you work for the pleasure > of solving the problem, and the enjoyment of seeing the solution and people > using our software. A lot of what we do at Arabeyes is stuff we enjoy.. and a lot of it is stuff we don't enjoy. I can tell you that about 60% of what I do for Arabeyes is stuff I don't enjoy but find to be necessary. > > Take away that pleasure, or make the work painful enough, and the work will > stop. Nothing new here. > > Now, in respect of arabising something like OpenOffice, the primary emotion > one feels is pure pain. I checked out the source code and had a look. Even > compiling this 80MB beast is a feat in itself. For most types of work I could > just pick a small part of the app, equation rendering for example, and try to > improve it - perhaps I need to understand 5% of the code base at the most. > However, to arabise the code I need to get a good grasp of much larger > sections of the code. This is pure pain and just isn't repaid by the feelings > I might get if I ever managed to complete the job. You are absolutely right, here.. but even when looking at things like FriBidi (which has a small code base), we haven't done much in terms of contributing to it. We have been sitting here waiting for FriBidi authors to add shaping to the library for months upon months -- sounds to me like time to fork the library and get on with it. But, we've gotten so used to just sitting and waiting for others to do some of the hairier work. By the way, this is not meant to say that Arabeyes people haven't done anything. We, collectively, have achieved a _lot_! I am simply saying that so much more could and should have been done. Also, this whole post is not so much about that only -- it's the fact that once all this is said and done we will be left with what to do? The mandate of the project says to Arabize FOSS. What do we do when it's done? I am simply looking several years ahead. > Incidentally, this is why so many OSS projects (arabic or not) are doomed to > be repeated and reinvented all the time - ploughing through millions of lines > of C to improve someone else's project is as dull as ditchwater. > True but irrelevant here. > Knowing this, why should I be concerned if other people are not arabising > OpenOffice? It's an awful job and one that is far easier for an OpenOffice > dedicated developer to do. He can go straight to the sections of code that > need > changing, etc. I don't demand that Thamer or some other arab should start > punishing themselves with this job because 'they should'. FOSS doesn't work > like that and it will be some time before it could. Perhaps if arab > governments start seeing 'the light' then they could pay people to do it. > Until then.. (the words 'hell' and 'freezing over' spring to mind')... Well yes and no. I am concerned and others here _should_ be concerned. The fact that beasts like OOo are not touched by volunteers here is not unusual. Most of the people working on OOo are Sun employees anyway and very very few people contribute to it from outside of Sun. However, _because_ those developers don't seem to have Arabic high enough (for us) on their agenda, we should take it upon ourselves to find a way through. You are absolutely right that having developers deal with piles upon piles of code like OOo's would probably require someone being paid to do it, simply because it is too painful to do voluntarily. Should we make it our job to find a way to pay people to do it then? Those are the types of questions I would like to raise here. Why not? In the early days of Arabeyes I was very suspecious of financial dealings and anything smelling $'s was suspect. This outlook has changed for me today. I think it would be rather constructive to have a bounty system for dealing with beasts like OOo and the likes. It is unfortunate that institutes like the KACST are not employing such tactics (instead they are wasting their money and resources on paying for translations done by "professional" but non-technical translators). > Until as mentioned elsewhere the people in the Middle East start to feel that > they should pay for using MSOffice etc, then there is no incentive for Red > Hat et al. to arabise linux as they can't compete with a free MSOffice/XP. > That's a whole other issue. If RedHat wanted to truly penetrate the market here, they would have flexed their muscle in that area. They obviously don't want to, just yet. Not on the desktop anyway. > In conclusion I think that we should accept that, whatever the arabeyes > charter etc. says, we are here for personal reasons where pleasant emotions I don't think we should accept anything as-is -- let alone that I was part of writing those documents ;) > are expected and to demand/expect that any group of people start punishing > themselves voluntarily is asking too much. > Really, that is not the intention. I am simply saying that it is not working as advertised. Some projects are very successful. ITL, Katoob, PuTTY, VIM, etc. Please don't mistake my initial post for someone who does not appreciate the talent involved here. I am simply saying that if we are not able to achieve those goals as we have planned, perhaps we should have an alternate plan -- one which I will duly publish in February. > And by the way, it's not a lack of talent. The ability is here. It's the large > amounts of time and the willingness to undergo root canal surgery that is > missing. > No, technical know-hows _are_ missing. There are some, but not enough. > I do agree that compared to the number of PC's in the arab world, the interest > in FOSS is surprisingly low. That is a huge topic for discussion in itself. > That is just something that will come in time. I'm not worried about that ;) Regards -- ------------------------------------------------------- | Mohammed Elzubeir | Visit us at: | | | http://www.arabeyes.org/ | | Arabeyes Project | Homepage: | | Unix the 'right' way | http://elzubeir.openius.com/| -------------------------------------------------------
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