Free Software In Iran, KDE In Farsi

Elektroschock writes "KDE, the leading *nix desktop environment, is translated to Farsi (=Persian). Now native language KDE can be used in Iran as well. Farsi is written from left to right. Full story at Dot KDE. Arash Zeini (KDE Farsi) wrote an intresting article about FLOSS in Iran. His view: "It is not a secret anymore that FLOSS is gaining momentum all over the world. We witness an international move and acceptance of FLOSS in the private as well as in the public sector."" Update: 12/29 16:37 GMT by T : That should read "Farsi is written from right to left." (Thanks to Thomas Zander for pointing that out.)

though it is weird

[demonhold]

that such a concept as LINUX and free-software in all its spectrum of variants is becoming the choice of many dictatorial regimes that have no access to the microsoft and apple cadre of products....

is LINUX gonna be a troyan horse that brings freedom through software or a tool that will make tech savvy to many non-democratic states...

Farsi is Right to Left

[Stephen Samuel]

From the website: <gtml lang="fa" dir="RTL">

Farsi, like most middle-east languages, appears to be written right-to-left -- the same as our numbers are -- When the original algebra texts from Persia were translated, the translator kept the right to Left form of the numbers (little-endian). This is the reason for the big-endian / little-endian dicotomy in modern day computers -- we've been writing our numbers backwards for the last thousand years!

How to make a system bilingual?

[GerardM]

I would like to know how to use two languages on one system so that I have a Farsi environment or an English environment at will.

I have many friends, among them Iranians, Turks and Israeli, who would like to have a bilingual system. Multiple keyboards are also an issue. Preferably it would need a switch to go from one language to the next alternatively a reboot would be acceptable.

Any ideas, resources that I might look at?

Thanks,
Gerard

A little oversensitive, perhaps?

[Tor]

To me, it did not seem that the term "the leading desktop environment" was used in an exclutinary manner - rather, it seemed that the intention was to explain what KDE is (to the occasional Windows-only user that happens upon /.)

Sort of like Ford, the leading auto maker (even though they are probably not the worlds largest).

-tor

PS. I use Gnome and WindowMaker. KDE is a bit too "all-or-nothing" for me.

Two questions regarding the article.

[Anonymous Coward]

They state that a major factor in adopting open source is the fact that most persians don't speak english and commercial companies can't supply native language versions. But since it's an islamic country most people speak arabic and could probably use already available version propriety software from neighbouring arab countries.
Secound since Iran is under sanctions will it be (technicly) illegal to cooperate with Iran based projects, accept patches from their developers and help them get "our" software?

Heading trolls off at the pass.

[theolein]

I can well imagine that, as with any article on /. relating to anything not understood/foreign/not american there will be a fairly high noise to signal ratio around here. So, I thought I could mention that Farsi (written from right to left in a modifed Arabic script) is an Indoeuropean language with no relation whatsover to Arabic, apart from the script (The Alphabet for those who think that script means VBS or Perl) and loan words.

Iran, with its odd mix of religious and democratic government (The religious side seems to be making it very hard for the elected officials to do anything), also has an interesting approach to copyright. According to Islamic law If I understand it correctly(), God is the source of all invention and creation and therefore the holder of all copyright. That means that things like MS anti-piracy drives are unknown there, as practically everything is pirated.

While it certainly is an interesting way of looking at things, I can see countries like the US (surprise, they don't get on well with the Iranians) making it very difficult for the Iranians ever getting into the WTO because so called IP has no value there (Read: Britney will not make much cash on CD sales in Teheran and the Matrix 2&3 will flop just as it did in the west, but for other reasons).

Re:Heading trolls off at the pass.

[pirhana]

>> According to Islamic law If I understand it correctly(), God is the source of all invention and creation and therefore the holder of all copyright

You make an interesting point. Its interesting to think of Islam and Free softwares. In fact proprietory software itself is not very Islamic. Islam is very much against putting obstacles in reading or learing. Actually Quran start with the word "READ"("Iqra'h in Arabic) and free information is an essential thing according to Islam. Proprietory softwares are exactly at the opposite spectrum. What they are saying is like "dont read" or "dont do much" ; just do ONLY what we are asking you to do . Also, as something similar to you said, Islam doesnt gives you "absolute power" over anything. Whether its money , software or anything. According to Islam, Allah is the real (read absolute) owner of any property and you are a "temporary owner" or rather someone who is authorized to posses this and spend accordingly. So any behaviour out of the assumption that " I am the owner, I can do wahtever I feel like" and attaching so many restrictions(something like Microsoft EULA) are not the Islamic way. In all these contexts, I am surprised that Islamic scholars are not debating the software issues(Free vs proprietory) in an Islamic context much.

Re:Heading trolls off at the pass.

[Einziger]

Please dont call the theocratic government democratic. Though the moderates or "reformists" would like one to believe that you can have democracy within a theocracy, it is not possible. The new generation does not want the theocracy and they are beginning to understand that "reforms" simply can not happen (due to how the constitution was written etc.), but have not come to the conclusion that a revolution is the only option left . The Islamic Revolution is what brought the clerics into power, and people are very reluctant to talk about another revolution.

So long story short, a theocracy is not a democracy, unless you are Richard Armitage of the state deptartment.