Currently the highest-profile strides in FOSS development in Africa are being made in localisation, the practice of translating the language and sometimes the icons of the computer interface into another tongue. Zulu, Afrikaans, and Northern Sotho language packs have been released for Mozilla and the productivity suite Open Office by Translate.org.za, a South Africa-based organisation. AfricaSource also witnessed the creation of an easily configurable Kiswahili spellchecker for Open Office. That same week, colleagues of Wire Lunghabo James released a version of the Mozilla web browser in Luganda, a language mainly indigenous to Uganda. Its positive reception is, in part, a consequence of an innovation as transparent to novice users as it is to developers. "People were so resigned to the idea that computers were in English," says Wire. "When you tell them that it's in Luganda they cannot believe you," he said.

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