Ankur Bangla Project
_________________________________________________________________
The Ankur Bangla Initiative is a collaborative effort aimed at
bringing Bangla (or Bengali) to the Free/Libre Open Source Software
desktop.
One of the challenges facing modern societies is the prospect of
ensuring equitable distribution of knowledge. The draft proposal for
the World Summit for Information Society (WSIS) accepts that
governments, agencies and NGOs face an uphill task in ensuring that
the digital chasm is bridged with the greatest number of people being
provided access to technology and technological benefits.
One aspect of crossing the digital divide is to create an IT aware
culture. Such a movement should have its base at the grassroots level
in order to ensure that the benefits are available to all. Free/Libre
Open Source Software (FLOSS) models provide an ideal base in utilising
Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D). As
a part of such models, localisation (L10n) of the GNU/Linux Operating
System provides an unique opportunity to create an OS that is
culturally aware. Such an OS reflects the cultural nuances and
conventions of the end-users. At the same time such an effort is also
robust and scalable enough to be deployed in enterprise wide
implementations. Integration of such L10n efforts with globally
accepted standards and conventions lead to the creation of a complete
suite of products and technological infrastructure that can be
utilised and used in many applications.
The Ankur Bangla Project is a collaborative initiative aimed at
bringing Bangla to the FLOSS desktop. Comprising of volunteers,
developers, translators, graphic artists, linguists and technocrats
from India, Bangladesh and other parts of the world, the Ankur Bangla
Project aims to make Bangla Computing possible. The core objective of
the Ankur Bangla Project is to make available a completely localised
GNU/Linux OS. Simultaneously it provides a scalable and standardised
technological infrastructure for Bangla Computing.
As an initial release of the work completed so far and to provide a
glimpse of the scope and possibilities of the project, the Ankur
Bangla Project has released a AnkurBangla LiveDesktop v1.0 (Technology
Preview). Incorporating all the work that has been done on the Gnome
Desktop Environment (a popular desktop environment of the GNU/Linux
OS) as well as elements that provide a functional computing
environment, the AnkurBangla LiveDesktop provides a preview of the
completely localised GNU/Linux OS planned for release during February
2004. Showcasing the project in a LiveCD format has the obvious
advantage of allowing a greater number of users to use it for
evaluation purposes. On a very minimum hardware specification (which
conforms to those currently available as Commercial-Off-The-Shelf
configuration), the entire localised Bangla GNU/Linux OS runs off the
CD and provides for a wholesome computing experience. For those who do
possess the bandwidth, the ISO image of the OS (to be thereafter made
into a CD by burning the image file) is available for download from
the project home at sourceforge.net.
For a project that is only around 10 months old, the incremental
releases of the CD has seen downloads crossing the 400 mark. Numerous
CDs have also been distributed by the volunteers on a personal level
based on request.
The Ankur Bangla Project is based on the classical F/L OSS model of
software development. It is completely voluntary and a (till date)
non-funded effort. The L10n project ties in well with initiatives in
the domain of e-governance, Low Cost Computing as well as other ICT4D
projects. The Ankur Group is thus in a collaborative discussion with
various stakeholders in such initiatives including major vendors like
RedHat, IBM etc; the Government of West Bengal; academic institutions
like Jadavpur University, Indian Statistical Institute; WEBEL among
others.
The Ankur Group also participates in the standards creation process by
providing inputs to Gnome Core, Unicode Consortium, Indic Consortium
and FOSSI. Such involvement ensures that the technological expertise
and insights gained by the group are shared and made available to be
replicated in other L10n projects. Contributing to the global
knowledge pools has been one over-riding feature of FLOSS models and
the Ankur Group considers itself an important contributor to such
knowledge repository.
Other projects that are concurrently taken up by the group and pursued
in tandem include:
Bspeller - a spellchecking program and a dictionary
xponjika - a 'ponjika' and a calendar program
Lekho - a multi-platform editor and document output program
Bangla Gutenberg - an archive of public domain works in Bengali
(similar to the Project Gutenberg effort)
A Localised Low Cost Computing (L2C2) framework and accessibility
program involving Text-to-Speech in Bengali are also in the
development phase.
For further details and clarifications, please feel free to contact ::
Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay
Member, Ankur Bangla Project
sankarshanmukhopadhyay at vsnl dot net
sankarshan at bengalinux dot org
(
geocities.com/sankarshan76)