Oriya Computing Meet

[Srujan Srujak]

Hello,

A meeting is being planned for all who have shown interest and/or have
been involved in Oriya language computing work - especially relating
to Linux.

By the way of a background, you may recall the initiative taken in
this direction about 4 years back in the form of Project Rebati
(http://oriya.sarovar.org) which led to the finalisation of the first
Oriya Unicode font (Ori-uni1 or Utkal), development of the Rebati-
Gnome glossary and the starting of localisation work for Linux. While
the original work progressed in a different direction (like the
digitisation of important Oriya resources like the Purnachandra Oriya
Bhashakosha and the development of Oriya lexical resources), the Oriya
computing work continued elsewhere (especially at Sarai, New Delhi and
Redhat-India, Pune) through former Rebati associates. This has
resulted in the near-perfect Oriya input/rendering on Linux platform
and the availability of several opensource Oriya Unicode fonts like
Lohit Oriya and Samyak. Contributions from CDAC, although not
opensource but free for “personal use”, in the way of GIST-OT-typing
tool and a series of beautiful Unicode fonts for Windows have made it
possible to work in Oriya with a variety of applications.

Oriya interface is now readily available an all Linux distros using
Gnome desktop and comes as an installable feature in Fedora 8/9. It is
quite easily installed on Ubuntu. GIST-OT fonts are also available
from CDAC for linux and work well with these distros. CDAC Mumbai has
also contributed to Oriya language computing through the localization
of Open Office.

Thus the progress has been appreciable, but many problems do remain.
The biggest problem is that the linux user base still remains very
small, even among the students and professionals engaged in technical
disciplines. The users of Oriya language are still smaller in number.
A workshop/meeting is being organised in collaboration with SARAI, New
Delhi, on 28/29 June 2008 to review/address some of these issues and
to explore ways to kindle interest in the use of opensource software,
Oriya language computing and localisation work in Oriya. The workshop
will review the work going on in Asamese and Oriya on the development
of dictionaries/glossaries and on localisation. This will be limited
to the people working on the projects and to people who have been
doing opensource work seriously. Those interested in participating in
the workshop should respond immediately (to sruj...@gmail.com) with
a write up on their work in this direction.

There will be an open meeting on Sunday (29th June) with participation
of opensource/localisation workers from Sarai/IndLinux and Redhat.
Live demonstrations of localised interfaces/applications will be
arranged. The programme and venue details will be posted on all Oriya
discussion groups as soon as these are finalised. In the meantime
please feel free to contact us with any suggestions you might have to
make the proposed meeting fruitful.

Nikhil Mohan Pattnaik