Still at home resting the swollen foot.

So I have had some time to think about a current problem in Open Source Software.

I was reading a piece on Miguel de Icaza the new VP of Product Technology at Novell and the developer of Gnome and Ximian. He stated the reason he got into open-source software was to allow people in developing countries access to technology which was denied to them by the software being proprietary.

This was linked with another request by a pal of mine who helped create LibreSSL . They were trying to find native speakers to translate their web pages to allow non-english speakers to gain access to their free services.

I brought the two together and thought that what is really needed for open-source software to gain a foothold in developing countries is a resource page that allows translators and open-source developers to get together. This would allow the internationalisation of these projects to happen without having to search for translators everytime this task must be performed by an individual project. It would also allow non-coders with language skills to give something back to the open-source community (i.e. teachers who use open-source in classrooms but can't program).

I am unsure what form this resource would take - a forum, a cvs or maybe a wiki. Maybe just a page with electronic contact details to allow projects to get in touch with people with these skills. So it needs some more thought and input.