[Localization] German and French keyboard layouts

[Chris Leonard]

On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 3:40 AM, Bastien <bastienguerry at googlemail.com>wrote:

> "Nicholas Bodley" <nbodley at speakeasy.net> writes:
>
> > Without more information, that seems strange. Afaik, we have a Nepalese
> > keyboard layout, yet we couldn't manage a German layout, which might be
> > standard in roughly 15 countries?  Good grief! I surely have no dislike
> at
> > all for Nepal; it's a developing country, but, I'm sure, has a much
> > smaller number of people than are in countries that use the German
> layout.
>
> I guess there is a nepalese keyboard because there is a deployment
> there.  How many countries with a need for a german keyboard have a
> contract with OLPC?  (No rhetoric question, I would really like to
> know!)
>
>
OLE Nepal started out with 135 XOs deployed in two schools.  Quoting from
the OLE Nepal blog http://blog.olenepal.org/ "The OLPC Project in Nepal will
enter its second phase when the next school session begins in April, 2009.
In the second phase, OLE Nepal, in partnership with the DoE, plans to expand
the project to more than 20 schools in at least 5 different districts in the
country."  From comments made by Bryan Berry on IRC, I believe this second
phase will number in the thousands of XOs, which certainly qualifies it as a
substantive finanical commitment to a deployment that would justify a custom
SKU being specified/manufactured.

There are certainly dedicated volunteer communities in Western European
countries where (for instance) German has official standing, as an example,
OLPC Austria created and hosts the database that coordinates
the Contributor's Program for getting XOs to inidviduals that want to
contribute to software develoment on the XO) .  Other Western European
volunteers and groups have also played important roles in developed
countries where there are former colonial relationships or simply a desire
to provide humanitarian assistance, but this is not the same as funding for
a multi-thousand unit manufacturing run.

According to Wikipedia:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_language

Namibia is apparently the only developing country where German has
an"official" standing, while I believe there may be some small pilots in
Western Europe being cooked up, I haven't read of any substantial
commitments from say Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, or
Luxembourg to deploy amounts in the thousands.  If such a commitment were to
be made and if a German keyboard design were required, I know of no
technical barriers to it being designed/approved/manufactured.

cjl
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