[ossig] malaysian distros - embun

[Colin Charles]

Sharuzzaman Ahmat Raslan wrote:

> I cannot see the point of having Embun Linux or Chevna Linux, compared 
> to having *Ubuntu Malaysian Edition*, which I think will cover all 
> bases, be it home user, government, education, business, etc.

So, you contribute to the upstream Ubuntu initiative (I know you do, but 
keep in mind this is the world of open source and then you're dealing 
with m'sians who enjoy [trying] making money out of anything). Let 
others do their own thing...

Make sure Tamil, Mandarin, and Bahasa Malaysia is so rock solid 
upstream, that /anyone/ who wants to create say a Malaysian (or 
Singaporean) livecd, can just pull in the langpacks required?

> We are re-inventing the wheels here, and we are duplicating our effort.

Incidentally, take a gander at:
	https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/feisty/+translations

Language		Untranslated
Malay			266635
Simplified Chinese	118471
Tamil			245770

These statistics aren't fine grained, I'm unsure if all 1,338 packages 
need translating, but I'm pretty damn certain that DBP or some 
government initiative should make it possible to get finer grained Malay 
support

Kudos to all volunteers, all of whom you'd find:
	https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/feisty/+lang/ms

And rather than debating if we need Embun linux (I can't find a download 
link) or Chevna (I'm afraid they'll run out of quota when I download 
their software), let the ecosystem attempt to flourish. With Malaysia, 
you'll run into this a lot, then they'll disappear, and those that got 
bitten will think twice when they want to look at OSS again

That just makes you a better advocate :-)

And to all those thinking that running a distribution or not working 
with upstream is best, because maybe its the hype-du-jour, maybe take a 
little advice from Jeremy Zawodny:

"My goal is to spend more time on quality stuff: getting deeper into 
stuff that I already do and want to do more of, building more stuff 
(more on that later), and spending less time on trivia, and generally 
trying to have a clearer head and less of a sense of urgency."

... via http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/008219.html


-- 
Colin Charles, http://www.bytebot.net/
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you,
then you win." -- Mohandas Gandhi