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Arabeyes…
a new way to look at computer software |
Mohammed
Sameer of Cairo is just 24 and a pharmacy graduate. But he's one of the thirteen
or so active young people who are working hard to open new vistas to the world
of computing, especially in Asia. Called Arabeyes, this team is working to make
computing more relevant to the hundreds of millions using Arabic lettering
across the globe.
In
a world where computers were created for a left-to-right flowing script like
English, the languages of Asia (and less so of Africa, since many use the Roman
alphabet) pose significant problems when getting people to work with computers.
Arabic gets written from right to left. Indic scripts, such as Hindi, are
written on top, below and in-front of a base alphabet. Added to that, various
computer terms must be translated in a way the user understands.
Now
these challenges are being met.
Arabeyes
and New Opportunities
Located
online at arabeyes.org, the network Sameer is part of describes itself as a
"meta project that is aimed at fully supporting the Arabic language in the
Unix/Linux environment". The project aims at making itself home base
to standardization of the Arabization process in the world of computers. What
makes it interesting is that Arabeyes relies on voluntary contributions by
computer professionals and enthusiasts scattered across the globe.
If
successful—and it's arguably already on that road—the project could benefit
a large pool in West Asia. "I suppose (it would potentially benefit) all
people using Arabic or Arabic-lettered languages in the Middle East and for the
Urdu-speaking people (of South Asia). Then, there are people speaking languages
like Pashto too (using a similar script)," explained Sameer. "This
could be a pool of maybe 225 to 400 million people (depending on how you define
it)," Sameer told this correspondent in an interview.
When
did Arabeyes start and where? Who are its members? And how far has it
progressed? Sameer had an interesting story to tell while visiting India
recently.
What
makes it different is that unlike other 'Arabized' products, this one looks at
Free Software, sticks to a 'free' approach for computing, and works on the
ideals of 'open source' communities. GNU/Linux, the computer operating system
around which Arabeyes is based, is among the most famous examples of free
software and open source development.
In
the past, attempts at Arabizing Unix—a multi-task and multi-user computer
operating system, that came before GNU/Linux—were mostly done by Arab computer
science students studying outside the Arab world. Once their studies ended,
their projects were abandoned.
This
time round, there's no problem of sparse code or fighting to re-invent the
wheel. So, rather than creating new computer applications, their goal is to
incorporate modifications and additions to existing "common everyday-use
applications". This becomes possible in the world of Free Software, which
offers the freedom to run, study, redistribute and improve its crucial software
code.
Sameer
says it has currently "100% Arabized" Gnome, and has touched
about 99% in terms of KDE Arabisation. (Gnome and KDE are the two most popular
desktop environments used in the world of Free Software. In graphical computing,
a desktop environment offers a graphical user interface—or GUI—solution to
operate a computer. It provides icons, toolbars, applications, applets, and
abilities like drag-and-drop. This gives each desktop environment a distinctive
'look-and-feel').
Free
Software
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Arabeyes
relies on voluntary contributions by computer professionals and
enthusiasts scattered across the globe |
OpenOffice.org
1 has also been completely translated, and they are now working on
OpenOffice.org 2. OpenOffice.org is an office application suite for computers
that is compatible and also a direct competitor to Microsoft Office. Unlike the
latter, it is free software. FireFox, the revolutionary web browser which today
millions are seeing as an option to the dominant Internet Explorer, is also
in the process of being translated.
Like
other Free Software projects that thrive on the Internet, Arabeyes has its
contributors coming in from different countries and regions. Youcef Rabah is an
Algerian PhD student in Cosmology. Mohammed Elzubeir is from the Sudan.
Ossama Khayat is from Lebanon and studied in Kuwait. Nadim Shaikli is of
Iraqi origins. There are 13 volunteers listed on the
http://www.arabeyes.org/people.php page of the project, ranked in terms of the
"CVS commits" (or, roughly, software improvements) they've made.
We're reminded that "chances are if someone has a high number of commits,
they are working very hard." Mohammed Sameer is ranked a decent fourth.
Team-leader
Nadim Shaikli is one of the core team members, and with the aid of
another member introduced Arabic to Vim—the multi-platform text editor from
the Free Software world. Currently they're re-working on their 'Akka' project
(which is basically a software layer on top of the console, or almost
old-fashioned non-graphical monitor, which is however still used by many,
especially on older computers).
"We
are trying to create an Arabic spellchecker, called Duali. But it's still not
complete," says Sameer. Duali, named after the legendary founder of
Arabic grammar (Abul Aswad al Du'ali - d. 688), is a spellchecker that is
designed to accommodate the Arabic language. It is extendible to other non-Arab
based languages as well. Other tools being "Arabized" are also listed
on their website.
How
did Sameer find the Arabeyes team? Simply while trying to locate solutions for
his own computing needs. One of the first projects of the Arabeyes team was
Akka, a tool for Arabizing Linux and Unix consoles. Akka allows you to read and
write in Arabic in your plain-text 'console' (as the old-fashioned monitor was
called), using any existing software without any change.
Solutions
like Akka and QaMoose were just what he was looking for. QaMoose allows you to
access an English/Arabic user-defined dictionary via the web.
Making
a Difference
Their
team has over 500 registered users, but approximately 13 are active
contributors on a daily basis.
Could
such a small group even dream of making a difference to the way a few
hundred million people use their computers? "Two people, (Free
Software Foundation guru) Richard M Stallman and (the father of the Linux
kernel) Linus Torvalds, did change the life of millions (in terms of computing).
They were two; we are 13. If they can do this, I hope we too can achieve
something," said Sameer with cautious optimism.
Asked
why Arabs wouldn’t simply take the easy option of using proprietorial
software—which is made by companies like Microsoft, and is widely used across
the globe, but is a costly solution in the poorer parts of the planet—Sameer
laughs, "That's a religious question," he joked. His reference, of
course, is to the fact that campaigners for Free Software have strong
preferences and points of view, and refer to their choices for Free Software and
the freedom it offers as being "religious options".
"We're
really focusing on open source software." Free or Open Source is
any computer software distributed under a license which allows users to change
or share the software freely. By contrast, proprietary software means that some
individual or company holds the exclusive copyrights on a piece of software,
while at the same time denying other people the access to the software's source
code and the right to copy, modify and study the software.
Sameer
said he had been contacted by people from South Asia too, who wanted a solution
for the Urdu language that is also written from right-to-left.
Unfortunately, he says, they lost contact.
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Could
such a small group even dream of making a difference to the way a few
hundred million people use their computers? |
Urdu
is a language which originated in India, emerging out of interaction between
Indian languages and the tongues spoken in the courts of the rulers of the
sub-continent—from the time of the Delhi Sultanate to the Mughal Empire and
its succeeding states. The language of the court, and of literature, was usually
Persian, while that of religion was Arabic, the language of the Qur’an. This
process of the mingling of these languages and the local dialects led to the
development of everyday speech that sounded much like today's Urdu and Hindi.
There is still a spectrum of dialects spoken in the streets of cities from
Lahore and Karachi to Delhi and Calcutta and in the villages all over the
region.
Like
Arabic, it also uses a right-to-left script, making it face common challenges
when attempting to computerize across various software programs.
"At
Arabeyes, we would like to know the state of Urdu. I think Farsi (from
Iran) would also benefit from this work, the Farsi people have been very helpful
for the last few years," said Sameer.
What's
his tip for those wanting to work in the field of localization, or adapting
computers to local languages? "They should really understand the
language needs, and then they will start hunting around for what's missing and
what's not. And then, I don't know. But I'd really be glad to help anyone,"
he added.
Sameer
has been using computers "since I was in primary school"
when his Atari-manufactured computer was used for the programming language
Basic, that became widespread on home microcomputers in the 1980s. "My
father helped me. He knew this was the thing I loved. And although I
studied and obtained a degree in pharmacy, I hardly know anything about it
anymore,” Sameer said, demonstrating his enduring adoration of working with
computers.
Sameer
is one of the admins responsible for the Egyptian Linux user group website.
Linux, being a computer operating system that depends largely on volunteers, has
a concept of volunteer-run 'user groups' that spread awareness about it
worldwide. Egypt has two major Linux user groups or LUGs—called the Eglug and
Linux-Egypt.
Sameer
can be emailed at msameer@foolab.org
or msameer@eglug.org.
**
Frederick Noronha is a Goa-India based freelance journalist and can
be contacted at fred@bytesforall.org
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