Re: Software so Computerbank users can use their own languages

[Frank Copeland <fjc@thingy.apana.org.au>]

Bruce McCubbery wrote:

> I don't know anything more about this reminder of mine than it is obvious
> that disadvantaged groups include lotsa people from NESBs and there is
> software to help them use their primary language. Who knows stuff?
> 
> Many of those getting our computers will want to use it in their own
> languages? At least to communicate with some in their homelands?

I did idly wonder about this issue in relation to the boxes we are preparing
for the East Timor project. Will we need to localise them, and if so to what
language? I know that Portuguese has been declared the official language,
but from what I've read Indonesian is likely to remain the language of
instruction.

Linux does have good support for internationalising and localising
applications, and the Debian distribution we are using is supposedly one of
the best at this. Taking a quick look through the package manager there are
task packages for Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, German,
Japanese, Polish and Spanish environments. Other languages are supported,
but not so well integrated. Just for the hell of it I selected the
Simplified Chinese task package, and it came up with a long list of packages
to install, including:

locale-zh    Locale definition files for Chinese zh_CN.GB2312 and zh_CN.GBK
doc-linux-zh Linux HOWTOs and mini-HOWTOs in Simplified Chinese in HTML
xfonts-arphi X11 fontmap files for Arphic "AR PL SungtiL GB" TrueType font
xfonts-arphi X11 fontmap files for Arphic "AR PL KaitiM GB" TrueType font
xfonts-cjk   basic Chinese, Japanese, and Korean fonts for X
xfonts-intl- International fonts for X -- Chinese. 
rxvt-ml      multi-lingual VT102 terminal emulator for the X Window System
xcin         Chinese input server in X11
zh-autoconve Chinese HZ/GB/BIG5 encodings auto-converter
zh-trans     Chinese (zh_CN and zh_TW) message files and manpages
xfonts-intl- International fonts for X -- Chinese big.

and many more. Doing the same for the Polish task package produced a far
shorter list, and I would expect that to be true for most European
languages.

So the support is there, but it's not something I've ever had to do. This
might be a good project for a future Installfest, especially if there is
someone there from a non english speaking background who can help.

> http://www.vicnet.net.au/vicnet/COUNTRY/COUN.HTM#world
> 
> See there [with LINKS]...

I took a quick tour through these links:

> Multilingual Software
> 
> Multilingual software for viewing the world wide web, creating web pages,
> viewing documents and sending email can be got from Accent Software. 
>                
> LOTEit - A growing resource for the provision of multilingual public
> internet workstations in community languages. 

This contains links to existing Linux documentation on multilingual
software.

> MultiWeb Free "disability aware" browser. 

Windows 3.1 only. It *might* work under WINE, I'll give it a shot.

> Tango - Multilingual Web Browser. 

I couldn't find anything about Tango from following the link. The main focus
now appears to be Gist-In-Time, an online translation service. This
apparently will be integrated with the Netscape 6 browser based on Mozilla,
but I was unable to find out how it will work with other browsers.
Unfortunately Mozilla is currently so bloated and leaky that it's useless
for our purposes, but the work being done to shrink it down to make it
embeddable should also make it more suitable for low spec desktops like the
ones we are building. I think it may well be worth keeping an eye on this
one.

> Twin Bridge Asian Viewer. AsianViewer enables the user to view web pages,
> e-mails, news groups, and Internet applications in Chinese, Japanese, and
> Korean. 

This all appears to be Windows only, and commercial to boot. There are
downloadable trial versions.

> Union Way - an Asian viewer. 

Windows only and commercial.

> NJStar E-nable Asian Communications, where you'll find very
> full-featured word processors, viewing and input software all with working
> downloadable versions in Chinese, Japanese and Korean. 

Windows only and commercial.

> Multilingual Software Digest. 

Appears to be a mail-order software house with a selection of multilingual
software.

> MtScript The Multext multilingual text editor. 

There are Linux binaries for this, but it is *old*. It doesn't appear to
have been updated since 1996, and possibly won't work on a current Linux.
The licence is technically non-free (non-commercial and non-military use
only). Might be worth checking out.

> MediaLingua jsc. We are Russian software company in the area of
> professional lingustic, information retrieval and Internet search engine,
> multimedia. 

Windows only and commercial.

Frank
-
ComputerBank Australia -- http://www.computerbank.org.au/