[Fwd: Re: #7116 NORM Never A: Possible European G1G1 program needs appropriate keyboards]

[Kim Quirk]

Agreed, Ed. The legalities of each country need to be determined and
met before we can include that country in a Give One Get One program.

Some of the things we need to understand are: Certifications,
language/keyboard requirements, messaging, non-profit status,
shipping, customs, support and warranties. I believe these issues (and
perhaps more) will be different for almost every country.

Kim

On Sat, May 31, 2008 at 11:18 AM, Edward Cherlin <echerlin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, May 30, 2008 at 7:09 AM, Kim Quirk <kim at laptop.org> wrote:
>> Adam and Support gang,
>>
>> A second G1G1 program will still be only US/International keyboards
>> (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Keyboard_layouts#US_International_keyboard).
>> There are too many logistics, production, forecasting, and shipping
>> issues associated with more than a couple of SKUs (different laptop
>> configurations) for a G1G1 program.
>
> I don't know whether that is acceptable to Europe. They want Cyrillic
> (Bulgarian and Serbian layouts are completely different from each
> other and from Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian, which are all quite
> similar), Greek, and Eastern European (Czech, Slovak, Polish...are
> nearly identical), at least. I can look up the standard layouts in
> more detail if that will help. You need to specify exactly which
> countries will be included in your version of Europe. Lithuania,
> Latvia, and Estonia are EU members. So are Malta and Cyprus. Turkey is
> a candidate. Croatia, Bosnia/Herzegovina, Serbia, Macedonia,
> Montenegro, and Albania are not members.
>
> You had better get the lawyers to check out EU regulations on computer
> sales. I suppose that you can get away with printing only US
> International on the keyboard as long as you say so, very clearly, in
> the announcements and ads, and explain how to access the other layouts
> in a document shipped with the laptops.
>
>> But, from a languages perspective, It would be great to point
>> translators for European languages (or any languages) to various ways
>> in which they can help translate our wiki pages and add to the product
>> translations through Pootle.
>
> IFYP
>
>> Here are some links:
>> Localization of XO files: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Localization
>> Translating wiki pages: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Translating
> Pootle page, including table of localizers: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Pootle
> Pootle: http://dev.laptop.org/translate
> Localization mailing list at http://lists.laptop.org/
>
>> Thanks,
>> Kim
>>
>>
>> On Thu, May 29, 2008 at 3:14 PM, Adam Holt <holt at laptop.org> wrote:
>>> Dear Kim,
>>>
>>> Can we get some preliminary discussion going in the next couple weeks,
>>> towards helping people set up fuller support
>>> structure for those European languages?
>
> Talk to me about any language support issues that management isn't handling.
>
>>> Or if nothing else, an idea as to how many EU countries are liable to be
>>> supported for 2008's G1G1?
>>>
>>> Whether it's 2 countries or 12 countries makes all the world of difference
>
> Uh, actually there are 27 countries in the EU, and 8 candidates.
> Non-members include Switzerland, Norway, and the new countries formed
> from former Yugoslavia (except Slovenia).
>
>>> ;)
>>> --A!
>
> %-[
>
> --
> Edward Cherlin
> End Poverty at a Profit by teaching children business
> http://www.EarthTreasury.org/
> "The best way to predict the future is to invent it."--Alan Kay
>