Open Source Software

Internationalization, also referred to as i18n, is the process of translating an application into a different language. Here in East-Africa, we have of-course been eagerly awaiting the process of translating the mainly Enlish language based applications and operating systems, into Kiswahili.

With the dawn of Open Source software in East-Africa, thanks to the growing communities involved, translation has over the past few years taken a good step forward. Whereas Microsoft had been dragging its heels for years, soon after fully Kiswahili versions of OpenOffice.org and FireFox Web-browser became available (see below) Microsoft announced a Kiswahili Office. Though the latter was costly, cumbersome and badly translated, and as such failed. So what is available today? Read the rest of this entry »