News Headlines

Looking Back

A web search engine in Xhosa and Zulu, OpenOffice beta in Zulu, an Afrikaans spellchecker. New team members, conference participation and more. We've been busy in 2003. We're not 100% happy with our progress on some of our objectives but definitely not idle.

The Road Ahead

The project has exciting plans for next year. Without letting the cat out of the bag we list a few of our objectives for 2004.

Patron Programme

Help support the Translate.org.za project by becoming a patron.

In the News

We have received excellent coverage in the press during the past year, including an interview on SABC prime time television as well as mention in a recent issue of The Economist.

How can I help?

You can translate software, use the software, help us with your development skills, become a patron, add words to the spellcheckers, test the software, give valuable feedback, tell your friends about it, get everyone you know to use it. Read the full list of spellchecking and translation tasks and don't forget to join the development mailing list.

Thank you for your interest not only in the project itself, but also the issues around language and making technology more accessible to all South Africans. There is much to look forward to in 2004 - we will keep you abreast of our progress.

Sincerely,
Dwayne

Dwayne Bailey
Director Zuza Software Foundation
Project Manager Translate.org.za

Looking Back

Search the web in Xhosa and Zulu

World-renowned search engine, Google, was translated into Xhosa and Zulu by members of the translate.org.za project in March 2003. IT Web covered the release of this step in the broader campaign to translate Internet content and software into SA's official languages.

Afrikaans Spellchecker

South African spellcheckers are often licensed so that they are not compatible with opensource software. We believe that these tools are a critical component that adds real value to a translated word processor. Because of this we have initiated development in this area and are in the process of finalising an Afrikaans spellchecker that would be freely available. We started with Afrikaans because it is the easiest as we are building on existing work. We hope to release the Afrikaans spellchecker and tackle other languages in the new year.

Testing, testing - OpenOffice in Zulu

We have been working on South African language builds of OpenOffice since June and have a beta release of OpenOffice 1.1 in Zulu for Linux. We will make a final release next year. We would like to encourage you to help us test the Zulu beta - download the Linux version (Ed: This now points to the general OpenOffice.org page as we've released quite a few newer versions since then) and let us know what you think. The process has been both frustrating and rewarding. Frustrating because the work has severely affected all other project goals for 2003. Building and translating OpenOffice must be classified as the most overly complex process we have yet come across. Unlike other projects that we have worked with where translations are separate from the actual code, meaning that you simply install translations in parallel to the application, with OpenOffice the translations have to be compiled into the programme. This process prolongs the testing and validation of the translations. Yet it has been rewarding in that we have finally nailed the process down and seen our first builds in action. We will be taking what we have learnt and making sure that nobody else has to go through the same pain. We are putting things in place to make it easier for others, such as documenting what we have done, looking at an automatic translation builder and investigating how we can separate the translations from the application.

Mozilla neglected but not forgotten

Mozilla has been translated into six of South Africa's languages to date (download version 1.3.1 for Windows or Linux) Ed: please rather download our versions of Firefox and Thunderbird). Our focus shifted in 2003 to translating OpenOffice as we see this as a more important current short-term goal. An office suite requires one's full interaction so one is immersed in the translated interface and most likely editing a document in that specific language. While using a web browser one is immersed in the web content which is still most likely English. Our current effort is simply to maintain the current translation.

Everybody welcome - a shift in development strategy

The project started with full-time translators who completed the initial KDE and Mozilla translation work, but this model has many drawbacks. It requires that the project manage a number of employees with those associated problems, and it does not encourage volunteerism which is an essential component of any opensource project. Faced with an unsustainable model due to limited funding resources, we were forced to retrench the full-time translators. This was an obviously traumatic time for all involved, as it cut across relationships. Retrenchments also have financial implications and the project was affected on various levels. The model we have moved to is volunteer driven and many of our objectives for next year are designed to facilitate and encourage volunteer participation. The project has not stopped looking at paid-for translations, but we now negotiate specific deliverables with the funders and professional translators. We have used this model on some of our OpenOffice translations and have other work in the pipeline for next year.

Snake charmer joins the team

The team has grown again. David Fraser, an expert Python developer with a keen interest in linguistics, joins us from St James Software. David was already contributing to the project in his personal capacity, but St James Software has concluded an agreement with Translate.org.za whereby they sponsor part of his time, and in so doing have become a patron of the project. This innovative relationship benefits both parties, and is an interesting model that could be more widely applied to other opensource projects.

Moving and shaking in language conference circles

Dwayne Bailey, who leads the project, has attended and spoken at various conferences during the year. Some that he visited were SITA (State IT Agency) Human Language Technology Workshop, the Department of Arts and Culture Language Conference, and the IDRC Last Mile Workshop. These have been excellent opportunities to expose people to the project as well as raise the importance of opensource in language. Our software was demonstrated at the language conference by SITA as a statement that this is not simply a dream, but already reality.

The Road Ahead

We are excited about the project's direction for 2004 with many innovative ideas in the pipeline.

Anyone can translate anywhere, anytime

Our most important development for next year is the creation of a web portal that will allow anyone to translate Opensource software using any computer with access to the Internet. The tentative feature list is exciting and we are finalising our milestone program. Our aim is to have the portal ready to be used in January and the bulk of useful features complete in the first three months. As we said above, the portal has been delayed in that we were working on OpenOffice, but with that behind us we can now focus fully on the portal. The portal helps eliminate a barrier to entry in that you do not need to install software, thus it is possible for anyone at work, school or university to open a webbrowser and participate.

Dwayne puts his money where his mouth is

Dwayne Bailey will be going full time as of January 2004. This is a big step, but definitely the way forward for translate.org.za. Says Dwayne, "The biggest frustration for me was knowing how much we had to do and what we could achieve but being limited by other responsibilities. I was not able to dedicate as much time to the project as I'd hoped". Dwayne's focus on the project will be sharpened as this will be his full-time job for the foreseeable future.

Spellchecker

Wordprocessors need spellcheckers. OpenOffice needs a spellchecker. We've wet our feet with work in Afrikaans and hope to make a release sometime in the new year. During 2004 we hope to create spellcheckers for other South African languages. There is a lot of work to be done - many tools need to be built. Taking an opensource attitude we will be building a spellchecker that can be accessed and used as it is developed, rather than waiting until it is absolutely perfect before release. The aim is to ensure that all the word lists are available under an opensource license so that the work remains a resource to all language users.

No hidden agendas - pushing for open development

In order to encourage volunteer contribution we have moved to a more open development model. Tasks have already been completed in this area. The project has started a development mailing list please feel free to join. We are currently in the process of adding components and tools to CVS so that more developers can have access to our tools. We hope to have all our tools in CVS before the end of this year. From next year all development will be done on the public CVS version.

Translation as the project

We have had many requests for direction and advice from similar projects around the world. With that in mind we have begun to re-examine our efforts and role. Our vision for next year is to see translation grow from being a sub-project of the broader project such as Mozilla, and to turn it into the project itself. The result will be an environment in which people are members of the Zulu translation project, for example, and they translate many different pieces of opensource software into Zulu.

Openoffice releases of other languages

We aim to release many new languages for OpenOffice in 2004, including Afrikaans, Northern Sotho, Zulu, Tswana and others.

Patron Programme

Earlier this year we launched our patron program. This is a unique opportunity for businesses and organisations to become involved with the project and to make their own contribution to the translations. Our patrons enjoy a number of benefits, not least of which is exposure. If you would like to join the members below, please contact This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it .

Our current patrons include:

• Department of Communications
• Obsidian Systems
• St James Software
• The Shuttleworth Foundation
• Uniforum