Mozilla Localization Camp, Hanoi

Last week we organized the Mozilla Localization(L10n) sprint at iWay in Hanoi. The event is first in series of Mozilla Localization (L10n) sprints across Asia. The sprints try to increase contributions to mozilla localization and engage Mozilla Localization (L10n) contributors.

Few active contributors from various localization projects; Tuan(Fedora), Vu Hung(Mozilla), Yang (Ubuntu) and Dung (Sahana) joined the sprint. The small gathering of experienced contributors provided an interactive sessions. We expected more participant however those who confirmed their participation at Mozilla Localization coffee meetup didn't show up. The sprint lasted for more than 3 hours. Later we head to nearby Bia Hoi for round of beers and light lunch.

Narro is web based wiki-like collobrative translation tool. The participants of the sprint were happy with simple interface of Narro. They quickly understand the basics of Narro. I explained how to use commenting, review and voting options to do peer review of the localizations and pointed out feature that would speed up localization. Working with Narro with increasing connection time-outs. During the Narro downtime, Tuan and Vu Hung shared their translation workflow. Tuan found Narro easy to use than Pootle and Yang suggested numerous improvements to the Narro UI and workflow.

Clearly the positive response to the mozilla localization sprint. Tuan expressed interest to talk about Mozilla localiztion at SFD 2011 and having more community driven localization sprints. The goal of such sprints to generate interest and have more community driven localization events.

ICANN 41 Singapore 2011

The five day Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) 41 meeting was held in Singapore on 19 – 24 June 2011. The ICANN meetings are held three times each year in different regions of the globe. The meeting has pre-meeting workshops, working group sessions and ICANN's annual general meeting. It is a good opportunity for NIXI fellows to have face-to-face discussions with various people dedicated to the guiding of the future of the Internet.

The ICANN 41 meeting is of particular significance to those concerned with the subject of Internet governance. The controversial new generic top-level domain names (gTLDs) was approved by the ICANN board at this meeting. The internet pundits predicted before the event that "Internet is poised for potentially one of its biggest shakeups in years". Being part of this historic moment and to watch the ICANN board vote to expand TLD space was an experience that I will cherish. It really motivated me to play an active role in future ICANN activities.

Another important topic at ICANN 41 was Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs). The ability to have country code top-level domain (ie. www.example.com) displayed in non-latin alphabet would bring the local language computing to full circle. We now have complete operating systems, word processors, web browsers and email clients available in local languages. With implementation of Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) computer users can surf the web and email in their local language.

The Internationalized Domain Names(IDNs) implementation poses certain complex linguistic and technical problems. At ICANN 41 various IDN Variant TLD case studies were presented. Of particular interest was the Arabic and Devanagari language case studies. The problems faced by various IDN variants are similar however there seems no consensus on how to address them. Presentation and transcripts from these meetings are available here.

Jothan Frakes presentation on Universal Acceptability, The Public suffix & IDN Whitelist was really good. I never realized that Mozilla Firefox supported IDNs. Later I met up with Frakes to understand the internals of Mozilla Firefox IDN support.

Universal acceptability, The Public suffix & IDN Whitelist

James Galvin (Afilias) IDN e-mail solution was perhaps the most practical demonstration of IDN Email support. I hope to test Thunderbird Aurora with IDN email addresses with help of Afilias in the future.

In future, I would be participating in IDN working groups with special emphasis on IDN support for Mozilla Firefox browser and Thunderbird email client. Also work with various Indian language IDN variants groups. Document various technical solutions and provide support using existing workarounds.

Syafiq Mazli's Mozilla Localization Camp (Malaysia) Report

You can read Syafiq Mazli's report about the Mozilla Localization Camp at the Barcamp KL 2011 here.

Salam,
Good Morning,
Here the report for this event by chronology time.
There has two session, introduction talk session and sprint session
0700 Hours
- Wake up and prepare for out Me,@umarzuki and Arky @playingwithsid. From *Mozilla Base Camp* like Arky said, to MMU Cyberjaya.
0845 Hours
-Arrive at Faculty of Information Technology, MMU Cyberjaya.
0900 Hours
-Bring out bag of Mozilla Swag and straight to counter for registration. Surprisely, there are many crowd arrive before us. Haha. We quite late.

Read More

Mozilla Localization Camp at Barcamp KL, Read the Storify Story

Traveled to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia this week to organize Mozilla Localization Camp at the Barcamp KL 2011. Instead of doing a blog post I decided to use social media content storytelling tool Storify.

You can view "Mozilla Localization Camp (MozMY L10n Camp)" on Storify

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BarCamp Yangon 2011: Mozilla Localization Community Meetup

BarCamp Yangon 2011 provided good opportunity to engage localization community in Myanmar. The Make FLOSS Software Speak Your Language talk on the first day of BarCamp was well received. The talk introduced the concept of software localization using wiki-like collaboration tools.

On the second day of the BarCamp the Mozilla Localization Community meetup was held. Some of the mozilla localization contributors participated along few other localization enthusiasts. The goal of this community meetup was to engage the mozilla localization contributors and take concrete steps towards starting new Burmese language localization.

The Burmese multilingual support is hodgepodge of different encoding models and various unicode fonts (Refer Burmese Multilingual support wikipedia page). These problem are both historical and technical, the Myanmar NLP project is spearheading the standardization process. The contributors pointed several technical issues with Firefox Burmese multilingual support. They expressed their willingness to work with the Mozilla developers by reporting bugs and patches.

Ngwe Tun and Steven had already created Burmese/Myanmar (my-MM) Firefox 3.6 Language Pack. These translations should be merged into new locale repository for Burmese locale. The process of starting new Burmese locale can be tracked here (Bugzilla #631921).

Few other ideas that were discussed at the meetup are better co-ordination via a dedicated Burmese L10n mailing-list and getting more people involved in localization using web based translation platform such as Narro and organizing few more community driven workshops at other events in different parts of Myanmar.

Make FLOSS Software Speak Your Language, BarCamp Yangon 2011

I gave a talk entitled "Make FLOSS Software Speak Your Language" at BarCamp Yangon 2011. The talk covered web-based localization tools Launchpad Translations and Narro that are used to translate Ubuntu Linux and Mozilla applications. The translators can use these tools to contribute translations in a wiki-like collaboration.

This talk was designed as a hands-on session beginning with a short talk that introduced the software localization concepts in a simple non technical language, followed by a practical session where the workshop participants logged on and started translations guided by experienced members of the local translation community.

Make FLOSS Speak Your Language

Ahkeno, a Joomla! localization contributor from Myanmar translated the talk and explained some of the concepts in the Burmese language. She also shared her experience with the Joomla! localization project.

Myanmar based Mozilla Firefox localization community member Steven Zaw Htut talked about the Burmese language package for Firefox 3.6. He explained how to install the package and change the default language of the Firefox Web browser. You can visit the http://www.wordpress-my.tk/ website to download this package.

There was a good turnout for the talk. The audience was mostly young college students who were excited about participating in localization projects. The presence of active contributors from the Myanmar localization community offered them a chance to meet and join these localization efforts. I finished the talk with a few key points about working in teams, asking new contributors not to be afraid of criticism and focusing on quality translations.

Unfortunately we did not have the Burmese (my-MM) locale enabled on Launchpad Translation and Narro. It was therefore not possible to do the practical exercises without the locale and the slow internet connection would have made it difficult for many people to sign up and work on translations. This event nevertheless helped me develop the framework to begin developing material, both printed and online for the future localization workshops. The overall response to the workshop was positive. It showed me that there is definitely a need for these types of exchanges not only in Myanmar but in many different Asian countries.

Stay tuned. More about this event to come!