---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 09:06:23 +0530
From: Ma Siva Kumar
zha-kaNini project has completed the translation of KDE desktop. The
100% tamil desktop in unicode will be available in all distributions
when they start bundling KDE 3.2 which is to be released by the end of
January 2004. (The translated messages have been SENT to KDE project
for cvs commit)This is the second major part of zha-kanini. The first
part OpenOffice has been completed and released in November 2003. We
have also completed the Red Hat components, which will be committed to
Red Hat CVS.
This work is made possible by the following contributors:
1. The base built by the open source application developers and
earlier translators for tamil notably Sivakumar Shanmugasundaram,
Gomathi Shanmugasundaram, Vaseeharan and Dinesh Nataraja.
2. Writer Sujatha - he introduced computers to lakhs of tamil youth by
writing about computer way back in the mid-eighties. His active
interest is what enabled us to mobilise volunteers and complete the
task. He continues to inspire us.
3. R Sashidhar - He lost count of his days and dates during the past
one month. He administered the task of giving out the files to be
translated and organising them. But for his tireless work and
commitment we will not be writing this mail now.
4. J Jayaradha - She is the motivator. She went from college to
college to get support. When MOP Vaishnava and Loyola pledged
volunteer support, she was the inspiration for the students to come in
every morning and do the translation.
5. Students of MOP Vaishnava and Loyola college who spend their time
in this creative effort. They surprised all of us by their enthusiasm
and hard work.
6. Mr. Suri of Dishnet DSL provided the computer facilities (20
computers) for the translation work. Mr Suri personally came down one
sunday and talked to the volunteers.
7. Chandran of Ambalam spent considerable amount of time at
translation center to provide support to the students' queries on
technical terms.
8. Volunteers who sacrificed their Sunday's rest and came
enthusiastically for marathon sessions.
9. Gopikrishna and Siddharth who got the files through email and did
their part.
10. Sponsors of Lunch for translators Dr Saravanakumar, C K
Shanthakumar, Sashidhar, Srinivasan, Balamurali, Ashok Kumar, C R
Lakshmi Narasimhan, Chandran, S Ramanathan, Ma Sivakumar, Bharath
Ramasubramaniam, Bharathi S.
zha-kanini team will be showcasing a Red Hat Linux system with Tamil
interface in the third week of January in Chennai. Now the stage is
set for any tamil entrepreneur to assemble a Tamil PC and market it to
the Tamil speaking community. There is a lot to be done. Bharathi is
co-ordinating the efforts to standardise the tamil input methods for
the zha-Kanini. A tool to co-ordinate future translation efforts is
under preparation.
We welcome everyone interested to join hands to carry the work
forward.
Ma Siva Kumar
A PC for Tamils
http://zha.sourceforge.net/ ;
--
Bharathi S | MeTel Team,
TeNeT Group | DONLab, IIT-M,
OMC Group | MidasComm.com.
