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OpenOffice.org In Swahili
linhux writes "A reported on Gnuheter (in Swedish) and elsewhere, OpenOffice.org has been translated to Swahili in a joint collaboration effort of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) and a company called IT+46, and funded by the university and Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency. Neither Microsoft Office nor Windows supports Swahili. Currently, only the Tanzanian dialect has been completed, but Kenyan, Congo and Ugandan dialects are on their way. It's called Jambo OpenOffice and is part of the Kilinux Open Swahili Localization Project."
Neither Microsoft Office nor Windows supports Swahili.
How much profit do you think MS is losing by not translating to Swahili? I'm guessing you don't see a Swahili version because they wouldn't get enough profit to support it.
Granted, I don't want to take away from OO's success here. Open source finding its ways into (technologically) underdeveloped countries will go a long way to making it more standard worldwide.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Opensource shines in small under-served markets. Its allows small communities and organizations to bring effective computing power to everyone, not just the rich first world. I have been using Openoffice for over a year and it is a 95% replacement for Microsoft Word.
Well done Openoffice team!!
Q. What is Calvin's monster snowman called? A. The Torment Of Existence Weighed Against The Horror of Non Being
Big or not it is still another feature to add to the very small set of features that OpenOffice has and Office lacks. Makes it a somewhat more meaningful project.
How is this a bad thing or a waste or time? It's one more developing place of the world that has a chace to use good, quality software. It's not like this venture is a going to make them charge you more for the OpenOffice.org suite, now is it?
If your life is so full of "things to do" that a 20 second difference between the loading of MSOffice and OpenOffice is that important to you, how come you're wasting time on Slashdot?
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I think some NGO's would find this very interesting as it would make it easier to use local staff and train them in computer use. Also, you can't ignore that, allthough having software in English is probably not a significant barrier for most African computer users, being able to use it in your native tongue will definitely make you more inclined to use that particular software.
Nothing is impossible. We just haven't quite worked out how to do it yet.
Not everything in this world is about profit.
If there were a big untapped market of potential Swahili writing consumers, then I'm sure Microsoft would have made Office available in Swahili a long time ago.
The lack of potential consumers does however still allow for a much larger mass of potential Swahili writing Office users.
Only if one measures the progress of the world purely in money does this make little difference at all.
Swahili is a regional trade language (a lingua franca), spoken as a first or second language by around 100 million people. It's the most important language in east Africa.
I don't think you can say anything like that for Klingon. But if you're looking for obscure languages, hey, there are around 100 languages spoken in Nigeria alone.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
I like it! Uhuru has a nice political ring to it, and doesn't have the confusion to go with multiple meaning of "free." You could lose the Q and X keys on the keyboard as well.
I think it is great to do a project like this. As far as cost goes, you have to remember that the Gross National Income of all sub-saharan africa is about equal to that of The Netherlands. Per capita income $400/yr. Yes, computer literate people make more than that, but money is a real issue.
An interesting side issue is the use of Swahili. Tanzania counts only swahili as an official language. Most business is done in Swahili. In Kenya, English and Swahili are official languages, and are taught in parallel in school. It is regarded as showing a higher status if you speak in English, so swahili is relagated to second place, and tribal language limited to close friends and family. I suspect that most computer users in Kenya would be more than happy to work in english.
I still admire the fact that kids who live in mud huts and have never been in a car can speak three languages. I struggle enough with one!
Well, I realize that you have experienced Klingon being spoken on TV, but the truth is that there really isn't anyone speaking Klingon in the real world. That is called fiction, and you see a lot of it on TV.
Swahili, on the other hand, is an actual language, spoken by actual people. Just not people on your TV. That may be what is confusing you.
Not even sure where to start on your second question...........
All Tanzanians and Kenyans speak English.
Not all Africans are Tanzanian or Kenyan either. Swahili is the lingua franca of southern and western Africa and is generally at least understood in northern Africa as well (if only because of it's strong Arabic content). Despite the preponderance of English it is the one language that everyone speaks at least well enough to get by in.
Is it a really, really big deal that OO is now available in Swahili? Well, no, probably not. Most Africans know at least a smattering of English, French or Arabic.
Is it significant?
Why yes, yes it is.
Just like it's significant that it supports Hebrew, even though most Israelis speak English, Russian or Arabic.
KFG
For many governments, language issues like these will be important as many countries with more than one official language have laws requiring equal treatment in places like schools and government offices, and many of these countries have these laws because one or more of their official languages are only spoken by a small minority.
Faced between an application with support for their languages and one which doesn't some of these government will be legally prevented from choosing the one without.
At the very least this could over the medium to long term seriously affect Microsofts profit margins in having to spend money on translations they'd otherwise ignore.
More importantly it could make many companies and governments consider open source + modifications up against commercial software instead of "just" evaluating the status quo of open source apps against commercial software, which would be very bad for proprietary software vendors.