[Fsf-friends] Mozilla Localization

[Frederick Noronha (FN)]

This note is from Venky Hariharan. FN

---------- Forwarded message ----------

One of India's most respected Internet companies is 
looking for programmers who will help localize Mozilla 
to Indian languages. Those who apply need to have at 
least 2-3 years experience, but above all, a passion 
for the Internet and for free /open source software. 
The objective of Indianizing Mozilla is to 
revolutionize computing in Indian languages, especially 
on the Internet. The selected individuals will be based 
in Mumbai.

Those interested are invited to apply to 
venky@indlinux.org/karunakar@indlinux.org. For more 
details, see the attached job description.

Regards,

Venky
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Mozilla Indianization
=====================

1) Goal: Enable Mozilla browser to display & handle 
indian languages
properly, with proper font technology available. 
Localize Mozilla
interface also to indian languages.

2) Project Requirements:
 All work done should be contributed back to Mozilla 
codebase, so that
it becomes part of it. Solutions arrived at should make 
into main
tree, rather than be done as adhoc hacks / addons / 
patches.

 i) i18n part (involving changing mozilla codebase) :
 a - Should be able to render Indian languages encoded 
in
Unicode/UTF-8
 b - Use a standardized font technology - eg OpenType.
 c - Support any encodings standardized for a language 
eg ISCII,
TSCII, KSCLP (KGP) 

 ii) l10n part (no code change - UI customization, 
translations of UI
and Help text):
 a - Incorporate locale support (chrome level)
 b - Translate Mozilla UI into indian languages 
 c - Making indianized mozilla theme - custom graphics, 
logos

3) Skill sets req
 a - Knowlegde of at least two Indian languages - 
reading & writing,
script & language processing level  2.i & 2.ii.b
 b - C, C++, XML, Java for 2.i
 c - Graphics expertise for 2.ii.c
 d - For translator - good vocabulary in English & at 
least one Indian
language, previous exp in translation also helpful.
 e - Proj. mgmt skills, ability to work with volunteers 
remotely ,
coordinate work through email/IM/group meetings. 
 f - Interest in localization and passion for having 
indian languages
on mozilla.
 g - Work experience of 2-3 years in the IT industry

Current status:
 Mozilla supports Unicode, so all indian languages 
represented in
Unicode work at unicode level - no proper rendering, if 
a suitable
unicode font is available. ie proper vowel sign 
positioning, conjuncts
etc are not avialable. Some work is on by Prabhat Hegde 
from Sun
Microsystems on adding devanagari support, basically by 
using Pango
(www.pango.org) rendering engine. He is exploring doing 
it using
Opentype fonts. 
 (Any one working for this should work with Prabhat for 
guidance &
review, as he already has experience in Mozilla 
codebase )

Some hindi translation work has been done by a group 
based in Mumbai,
available at http://www.bttlindia.com/mozilla/ . Some 
translation work
for Tamil is also on.
(These translations should be reused, instead of 
starting from
scratch)


Notes:
 2.i has to be done in active participation with 
Mozilla developers &
done at those forums ( mozilla-i18n , mozilla-l10n  )
 2.ii.b is pure translation work, can be done in 
centralized or
distributed fashion.
 2.i.c - Since ISCII, TSCII etc are not registered 
character sets, it
may not be possible to use them with Mozilla 
autodetection feature.
Some workaround could be suggested. ISCII text will 
basically be
converted to Unicode internally for display, enabled 
through use of
\\\'iso8829-12\\\' ( reserved for Indic - ISO is waiting 
for us to settle
to something :)  .
(The rationale to support ISCII is since ISCII chars 
will take 1byte,
UTF-8 indic characters take 3bytes, or  7 bytes when 
used as named
character references - The debate will pick up heat 
when indian
languages are fully supported )


---------------------------
* Indian Linux project    *
* http://www.indlinux.org *
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