The effects of the localisation of FOSS in a sophisticated developing world

economy

Dwayne Bailey

Dwayne BaileyFounder and Director: Translate.org.za

Executive Director: WordForge

200+ 1 million

Rural vs Urban

200+ 1 million

UrbanRural

English

200+ 1 million

EnglishOther 10

Software Market

200+ 1 million

GovernmentOther

Web Language Demands

200+ 1 million

English (US)AfrikaansOther

Locales as a measure

XP – 2 locales XP sp2 – 5 locales Vista – 9 locales What happened to all 11?

Why shouldn't you localise

Each language is costly 11 languages – Which ones would you choose? There is no demand, as I've just shown you

Na jare se briefwisseling en vertoë ontvang die Vriende op 20 Junie 2003 'n brief van mnr Mike Cathie, die Bemarkingsdirekteur van Microsoft Suid-Afrika. Microsoft Suid-Afrika is in die proses om hulle sagteware in Afrikaans, isiZulu, isiXhosa, Sepedi en Setswana te vertaal en hoop om die proses binne vier tot ses maande af te handel.

Vriende van Afrikaans, 3 July 2003

Time line

Translate.org.za Other2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

Promise of languages

Languages ready for testingOpenOffice.org * 3

OpenOffice.org * 11

Various spell checkers

More surprises? More promises?

SABC 3 Interview

Mozilla Suite * 3

GNOME & Red Hat

KDE Desktop

First release

Why would you localise

Risk of losing Government contracts Suppress a competitors product advantage There is no longer an excuse that it is too

difficult The cost of losing market share is greater then

the cost of localising

Results

A small NGO helps shape the direction of a large organisation

Windows now in approximately 3 languages with some more due soon

Microsoft Office available in a few languages Locales still an issue :(

Want to start a localisation industry?

Localise Free and Open Source Software

“ Speak to a man in a language and it goes to his head; speak to him in his own language and it

goes to his heart.”Nelson Mandela

Dwayne Baileydwayne@translate.org.za