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

[david at lang.hm]

On Mon, 9 Jun 2008, Chris Leonard wrote:

>
>>
>>  What about to delivery plain intn'l machines with default keyboard and
>> then set up some stocks of nationalized keyboards (FR, DE, IT, GR, etc.. )
>> and offer them at a price that's commisurated to the production cost of the
>> keyboard itself (and the planned numbers), not burdening at all XO
>> production?
>>
>
> I sincerely hope the OLPC has learned some lessons from the first G1G1
> program.  While it seems clear enough that the logistics of providing a
> "factory-localized" laptop are very likely insurmountable, it also seems
> clear that shipping only US International keyboard to an EU-focused G1G1
> program will NOT be well received and will only bring accusations of
> cultural and linguistic imperialism and the like to an organization that
> should be earning praise for it's efforts to make computing in local
> languages possible.

by screaming that any EU available G1G1 program must have many different 
keyboards available or OLPC will be condemmed, all you are doing is making 
sure that future G1G1 programs are not made available in europe.

the logistics of getting the proper keyboards don't change significantly 
between having the local keybard installed in the machine, or having it 
encosed in the box (in fact, I suspect that it would be cheaper to install 
it, putting it in the box is going to be a manual process)

if you can find a supplier to make the keybard skins, and OLPC can ship 
a single keyboard, with the people receiving the machines ordering the 
keybards and installing them themselves you may then have something.

but demanding that OLPC make them available in more places, and at the 
same time threatening them unless they provide dozens of localized 
versions, is not productive.

David Lang