Re: Re: Hindi and Software

["Ruchir Tewari" <ruchir_tewari@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Vaibhav,

A china focus will actually benefit India a lot, just so that
we see ourselves in perspective - on how far behind we are falling
in terms of bandwidth and spread of IT. China has already taken
the lion's share of the manufacturing industry, which is the biggest
job creater of all industries. India currently has a lead in IT, which is 
its only trump card in the global marketplace. The rest of the world
looks at India as a very poor place to do manufacturing - one reason
why the investment in hardware fab plants has been negligible in India.

And we will steadily be losing market share in IT to China as well,
if we do not take care of issues like spread of IT through localization and 
increase in bandwidth etc. For instance China completed a 40Gbps network 
last year, whereas India's sankhya vahini project has still not seen light 
of day (delhi-bombay bw is still a paltry 155Mbps). In localisation too, as 
mentioned, they are far ahead. In mirrors, there are typically 4-5 mirrors 
in China but not a single one in India.  So the question is not just of 
utilizing existing resources, it is of creating more resources to solve 
specific problems that are impeding the spread of IT in India. And to 
understand and create awareness of
the bigger picture of why these things are important.
In IT especially, once you've lost market share, it is very hard
to win back.  Cribbing out loud is very good, if it's for asking for more 
bandwidth, imho, for this very practical reason.

I don't mean to sound negative, but we've got to treasure and guard
our lead in IT aggressively, or it'll slip out of our hands before we
know it. As they say, keep your friends close but your enemies closer.
We have got to keep a close watch on our competitors.

> Why do we compare ourselves with others when it comes to using our
> resources that we have? Its good to compare ourselves with others when we
> are talking about improving ourselves, but when we are using the
> resources, we should try and make use of all that we have, in our way to
> the fullest, instead of cribbing about other people having the advantage
> of more B/W etc.
>
> > >the web in chinese instead of in english. the linux-chinese howto
> > >has been around for quite a while and people are fluent in using 
> chinese
> > >from the regular keyboards.

sure, but an indian/hindi version of linux does not exist yet.
the howto would be limited to installing hindi shusha fonts
on linux - both the howto and the shusha fonts can be obtained
from bharatbhasha.org.

a suggestion - why not make the localisation effort open source,
since there are so many diverse language skills involved ? this'll
make it faster and will also allow people to start using what's
available immediately.

- Ruchir

> It needs SOMEONE to write it for a start. Is there a Linux-Hindi howto? Or
> even a Indian-Linux-howto? NO! We are basically going in circles on
> the localisation issues. There have been efforts in this direction but
> what needs to be done is that the efforts need to be collected for a start
> and put up as a Howto with whatever minimal details are available.
>
> > If we try to localize in Hindi than still there are many people who are
> > not comfortable with hindi or they don't know hindi.
>
> We are talking about Localisation. Not Hindification of Linux. What needs
> to be done is atleast a start in this direction, which may be to localize
> in hindi or any other language. Once things get started, it should serve
> as a template / motivation for other languages.
>
> >
> > Take my case. I have learnt my 1-10 th std. in Marathi Medium in 
> Karnataka.
> > There I had no Hindi Subject, Only English / Kannada / Marathi were the 
> only
> > three main language subjects. I have never learnt hindi, though I can 
> speak and read
> > hindi because of my Marathi knowledge. :-)
> >

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