Dear Friends,
I've always wondered how
much South Africa spends
on proprietary software
- now that I know I feel
quite ill. But
Translate.org.za has
helped a number of wise
consumers save
themselves over R1
million, which makes me
feel a little better.
Translate.org.za is a
finalist for ICT
Achiever Awards in the
category 'Top Civil
Society to Bridge the
digital Divide in
Africa'. This month we
introduce you to the
WordForge Foundation,
which focuses on helping
digitally endangered
languages. Learn more
about Dwayne (me –
*blush*), why I do this
and how it all started.
And with guns blazing we
take aim at Sepedi.
This newsletter in
Afrikaans
AFRICA BUILDS OVERSEAS
IT INDUSTRY
Most of us have heard
the estimated statistics
on piracy and how much
is 'lost' through people
using pirated software
as opposed to buying it.
Today we want to tell
you how much consumers
have gained from our
website alone during
October through free
downloads of one of the
best office suites
available –
OpenOffice.org. From our
site alone, 254 copies
of OpenOffice.org have
been downloaded during
thirty days. This comes
to a gain (as opposed to
the notion of loss) of
around R1 million! So
who has gained it? Not
Translate.org.za,
although that would save
us a lot of stress, but
the general public.
People have saved around
R1 million in October
alone, by legally
downloading the software
as opposed to buying a
version that does
exactly the same thing.
Ntsika Msimang of the
Meraka Open Source
Centre, who has made the
shift to Open Source
himself, gives us some
scary statistics: “The
government IT agency
spends between R4 – R10
billion per year on
software licenses. If
you add software support
and services to that, it
comes to around R14 –
R20 billion per year.”
With software and
hardware requirements in
the public and private
sector, South Africa
spends about R48 billion
a year. A shocking 85%
of this amount goes to
companies overseas.
These ludicrous figures
point to a moral issue.
Not a convenience one.
Ntsika is the first to
admit that moving over
to Open Source is
painful and takes time,
energy and effort, but
in the light of the
above financial
estimates, is the only
way forward. Dwayne
Bailey, of
Translate.org.za, says:
“Sometimes IT managers
say that they are using
the best software for
the job, no matter the
price. But I think it's
important to look at
business in the light of
macro-economics and the
impact that their
decisions have on the
broader community.” He
goes on to explain that
every year South Africa
has the potential to
create a vibrant, local
software industry, and
every year we flush it
down the drain and
continue supporting the
IT industry abroad.
“Don't business and IT
people see themselves as
part of the bigger
picture,?” asks Dwayne,
before likening
irresponsible IT users
to the uneducated likes
of the butch *'ous' who
drive their 4X4s on the
coastal beaches, with no
thought to the local
communities, the
ecosystem or the future
of the area.
Translate.org.za
encourages people to
become IT activists ~
don't sit back and watch
Africa throw our
innovation and creative
ability aside, to build
someone else's empire.
Join the revolution.
Every year is a massive
loss, but not through
software piracy.
* South African
slang for men –
Afrikaans word
WORDFORGE BRINGS
CAMBODIA AND SOUTH
AFRICA TOGETHER
The Translate.org.za
team have been zooting
around the globe during
the past few weeks ~
Ireland, France, Spain ~
and this all in the name
of WordForge, an
international
organisation that aims
to help digitally
endangered languages.
WordForge is a joining
of hands between
Cambodia and South
Africa in a unique
partnership between two
unlikely nations,
started by two men with
a vision to improve the
quality of software
localisation. Javier
Solá, Cambodia, who
spearheaded KhmerOS and
Dwayne Bailey, South
Africa, met at a
conference in Berlin in
2004. “We had met online
before,” says Dwayne,
“Javier was using our
tools and started
documenting them, but it
was at a series of
conferences around the
globe that we started
talking about a
collaboration that would
potentially help people
in their quest to
localise software to
their environment.”
WordForge has secured
funding from the Open
Society Institute and
the International
Development Resource
Centre (IDRC) to get
this project off the
ground. Debian, one of
Open Source's
significant
distributions, are
interested in using the
tools, such as Pootle,
that WordForge (and
Translate.org.za) have
developed and made
available for
localisation. Friedel
Wolff,
Translate.org.za's
WordForge programmer,
and Javier went to the
Debian localisation
conference in Spain and
met with their team to
discuss partnering.
“They wanted to discuss
ideas and do a needs
analysis, as well as get
an idea of how far we
are from being able to
fulfil their needs. I
helped them set up a
experimental server for
the localisation tools,”
said Friedel.
In France and Ireland,
Dwayne presented the
vision of WordForge,
which is essentially, to
equip others to do more
to localise software,
and was well received.
The strong relationship
between Javier in
Cambodia and Dwayne in
South Africa, has lead
to the respective
programming teams
working together on a
translation management
system that will enable
others to start
localisation projects in
their own countries. “I
like the idea of what
has been termed Blowback
Localisation” says
Dwayne, “It goes against
the notion that
globalisation is about
the developing world
absorbing from the
so-called developed
world. We are creating
tools for the developed
world.” And whether they
know it or not, any
OpenOffice.org and many
Mozilla users who are
translating, are using
WordForge's tools
already.
A CLOSER LOOK AT OUR
CONNECTIONS: GETTING TO
KNOW ... Dwayne Bailey
>From a start to his
career at a nuclear
power station to his
forging ahead in the
uncharted territory of
translation of software
into South African
languages, Dwayne's
history is intriguing
and varied. As Dwayne
was completing a degree
in Business Science
(Information Systems) at
the University of Cape
Town, after stints at
Cape Technikon and
Koeberg Power Station,
he started the Linux
Warehouse. “It really
should have been called
the Linux Shoebox,”
laughs Dwayne, “as that
was more like it. I
really just sold Linux
CDs to the public from a
shoebox.” Obsidian
Systems, one of South
Africa's leading Linux
pioneer companies,
bought the company from
him and offered him a
job, that eventually led
to him being Cape Town
Branch Manager and
later, a Director of the
company.
So what led him to start
translating software
into local languages? “I
had access to all this
amazing software which I
knew was worth millions,
for nothing, and wanted
to give something back,”
says Dwayne. Not being a
programmer, Dwayne
wondered what that
contribution could be.
His involvement in a
church in Gugulethu
where the predominant
language was Xhosa, gave
him the right start to
what would become South
Africa's leading
localisation project.
What finally kickstarted
him into action was a
press release sent out
by a local Linux company
stating that they were
translating software
into Zulu. Dwayne,
knowing that this was
untrue, was furious and
immediately his
whirlpool of thoughts
were pushed into action,
and he started the
project. Using his
Obsidian marketing
budget, he hired a Xhosa
translator to start the
ball rolling. Obsidian
was extremely supportive
and made it possible for
Dwayne to follow the
dream.
Milestones along the way
included early funding
from the Shuttleworth
Foundation in 2002, the
release of
OpenOffice.org in 2004
in Zulu, Northern Sotho
and Afrikaans, and
taking the plunge to
leave the safe and fun
Obsidian space to launch
into full-time work with
Translate.org.za. “The
fact that I can really
only speak English put
me off initially as I
thought, what will
people think? This guy
doesn't even speak our
language! Then I thought
about Emily Hobhouse,
the English women who
helped in the
concentration camps in
the South African War
(Boer War), and realised
that I could play my
part
regardless,”explains
Dwayne.
When he is not
co-ordinating
Translate.org.za and
being an activist in the
Open Source and language
arena, Dwayne loves
walking to clear his
head, reading, watching
DVDs and going to the
church that he is
involved in. Living in
Pretoria with Heather
and their two children,
Dwayne is enjoying this
exciting phase of the
project's growth, but
not to the detriment of
his family. “I love
spending time with my
wife and two daughters.
Sometimes it requires
playing with dolls, but
I am secure enough in my
masculinity to count
this small cost.”
LOOSE CANNON – (Dwayne
Bailey) Sesotho sa Leboa
or Sepedi
You might have heard of
a language called
Sesotho sa Leboa or
Northern Sotho in
English, in fact you
might have heard it
called Sepedi by many
people who say they
speak Northern Sotho.
Are you confused? Well
probably not as
confused, and
frustrated, as the many
people who speak Sesotho
sa Leboa but don't speak
Sepedi. And you are in
good company, even South
Africa's constitution is
confused! You might ask
how one language ends up
with so many names? And
that is the real
problem, it is not one
language. Northern
Sotho, in fact, embraces
around 30 mutually
intelligible dialects,
think of it as the purse
that holds together a
number of gold coins.
The dominant dialect is
Sepedi, the language
spoken by the Bapedi.
But it is not the only
language of Northern
Sotho.
In the interim
constitution on 1993 the
language was correctly
referred to as Sesotho
sa Leboa. But in the
final constitution of
1996 it was changed to
Sepedi, which as we saw
previously is in fact
incorrect. We are yet to
find out exactly why
this was in fact
changed. Was it a
confused committee with
no linguistic input or
was it a Sepedi speaker
promoting their own
cause created through
confusion about their
own language. Whatever
the cause may have been
the confusion created in
fact goes against the
spirit of the
constitution which urges
the promotion of
marginalised African
languages yet itself has
created a situation of
marginalisation. The
dialects of Northern
Sotho have been
marginalised and
excluded.
We haven't yet mentioned
the fact that many
Sesotho sa Leboa
speakers are offended
when you call them
Sepedi speakers as they
do not speak Sepedi and
are not Bapedi. The
confusion runs deeper as
Government institutions
are now also confused,
PanSALB promotes Sesotho
sa Leboa, while National
Language Services talks
of Sepedi.
The truth of the matter
is that Sesotho sa Leboa
is the correct mother
tongue name for the
language that the
constitution wanted to
empower. Sepedi is
merely a dialect of
Sesotho sa Leboa and as
a language does not
represent the whole of
the Northern Sotho
speaking populace. If
you where using English
names the language would
be Northern Sotho and
the dialect would be
called Pedi. At
Translate.org.za we have
been inconsistent in the
past but we now strictly
make use of the term
Sesotho sa Leboa which
is in line with the
interim constitution and
in line with PanSALB,
the organisation tasked
with promoting language
and protecting language
rights. We now work hard
to avoid using the term
Sepedi. There is an
emerging effort, of
which Translate.org.za
is a part, aimed at
addressing the Sepedi vs
Sesotho sa Leboa naming
issue. If you feel
strongly about this as
we do then please join
up.
PARTING SHOT – Quote of
the month
“It is with a great
sense of pride that I
utilise a word processor
in my mother tongue,
Zulu. Working through a
computer in my mother
tongue instills dignity
and motivation. It puts
me on a par with other
so-called first world
languages. Through your
impeccable work the
indigenous African
languages have
positively evolved and
moved with the times.”
Thembalihle Sidaki in an
email to
Translate.org.za
Dwayne Bailey
(012) 460 1095
info at translate.org.za
www.translate.org.za
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