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

[Edward Cherlin]

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