[Localization] XOs for Cambodia (was Beth Kanter sent you a message on Facebook...)

[Edward Cherlin]

Side note: Sayamindu, why is there no Khmer localization on Pootle?
Put one up now. I'm bringing Cambodians in, as you can see, and there
are plenty of Cambodian .po files elsewhere for us to start from.

KhmerOS: Please forward this e-mail to Javier Sola and to anybody else
who might be interested.

On Feb 19, 2008 8:04 AM, Facebook
<notification+o4ysy=99 at facebookmail.com> wrote:

> Re: OLPC XOs in Cambodia
>
> Edward,
>
> No I don't .... [know where in Cambodia the XOs are going.]
>
> One problem is that the Khmer OS software doesn't scale well on the screen.

I believe that this and the rest of Javier Sola's objections at
http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2007/09/give-one-get-on.html
are spurious, in part because he obviously hasn't tried it, in part
because he appears to be suffering from Not Invented Here syndrome as
a member of the KhmerOS Executive Committee, and in part for the
following positive reasons.

* XOs run a version of Red Hat Linux, Fedora Rawhide 7. Anything from
KhmerOS on SUSE Linux can run on it immediately, or be easily ported.
(And there is no reason for KhmerOS to be distribution-specific.
Everything in it should have been contributed to the upstream
repositories.)

* All of the Khmer localizations are in external .po files that will
work immediately on the XO. We will of course data-mine them for our
own localizations.

* The XO does not run OpenOffice, which is indeed too large. But we
have our own word processor and will soon have a spreadsheet from Dan
Bricklin.

* We will use stock Khmer Unicode fonts, the standard Pango rendering
for Khmer, and a stock Khmer keyboard layout file slightly modified
for the locations of specific keys on the XO. Keytops for Cambodia
will be printed with Khmer and Latin alphabetic characters, and a
keyboard switching key assignment will be set.

* The XO has a 200 dpi display. If we can't read your software, your
screens are too cluttered.

I can't very well answer Javier's objections to the XO's design, since
he doesn't say what they are. But it is laughable for him to claim
that the XO design does not take conditions in Cambodia into account.
Cambodia was the site of Nicholas Negroponte's first experiments in
computers for all students. The MIT Media Lab and then OLPC have been
in contact with the Cambodian Ministry of Education ever since.

http://www.andycarvin.com/archives/2005/09/creating_the_10.html

> There's also a national plan for educational technology in process - you should connect to that.

We already have. The Ministry of Education is well aware that more
than 10,000 XOs will be coming to Cambodia.

> Some folks left comments on these posts
> http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2007/09/give-one-get-on.html
>
> I can help connect to you some folks if you want.

Yes, please. Give them my contact information, and encourage them to
join the relevant OLPC mailing lists at http:lists.laptop.org/. They
should check out Localization, Development, and Grassroots, at least.

-- 
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