On 01-Feb-08, at 3:55 PM, vivek v wrote: >> villages dont have electricity. And what good is a TV for a person >> who has hardly enough to eat? >> >> > Great Points. They do need something different to play with. What is > the Value generated here, How far is localization reached? > how many actually use localized Computers in india for starters? Any > figures? ( I know" future lies in it" etal ) . how many softwares are > there which touch more into local issues specific to our terrain ? > Again are they also localized?
this is the core issue. TV and radio reach the remotest of villages and penetrate because they are truly localised. Localisation of computers - not so much the interface which anyway is full of icons and need not be translated, but the content. Localisation of content is paramount. If that is done, a huge battle is won. And it needs to be done for 35 major languages - a herculean task that no government can do or afford to do. The only way it can be done is by collaborative volunteer effort - the kind of effort that made wikipedia. And the need of the hour (to use a cliche) is to put online portals where people can localise content. And get them to use the portals. This is a tough job - we Indians hate to add content to anything - and that includes even enlightened groups like the foss community. -- regards Kenneth Gonsalves Associate, NRC-FOSS [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://nrcfosshelpline.in/web/ Foss conference for the common man: http://registration.fossconf.in/web/ _______________________________________________ ilugd mailinglist -- ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd Next Event: http://freed.in - February 22-24, 2008 Archives at: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.user-groups.linux.delhi http://www.mail-archive.com/ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org/
