By Bal Krishna Bal
Project Manager
Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya,

Development of the localized operating systems in Nepali

The year 2005 proved to be a landmark in the Information and Communication Technology sector of Nepal as for the first time in the history, two different localized operating systems into Nepali were released, respectively the Windows XP and MS Office 2003 by the Unlimited Nu Media Pvt. Ltd. in November 2005 and the NepaLinux 1.0 by the Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya in December 2005. This has certainly reduced the distance prevailing between the majority of the Nepali people and the computers, as in the past the Nepali had to go through two trials, first learn English and then learn to use the Computer for getting a proper computer literate license in order to comfortably be able to use the computer. Hence, the new possibility of not necessarily requiring to learn English to be able to use the computer has become still significant as the larger share of the Nepalese population are either English illiterates or not possessing the proficiency of English.With the price of the computers going down considerably in the recent years, personal computers(PC) have become abundant in most houses of the urban community and some limited rural areas, yet their use has continued to remain confined within the new generation chiefly because of the language barrier and the technology fear. People unable to afford for a PC shared the same problem. Without the knowledge of English, they were even deprived of taking the services of the cyber-cafes. And, thus the digital divide got further rooted. Now, more or less, we have a different story or at least some possibilities to get a considerable population closer to computers. But still the road ahead does not seem to be smooth.

Do we feed our own cooking?

The release of the localized operating systems into Nepali, that too, two in a year got much media coverage and appreciation. People even advocated that it was a big revolution in the Information Technology sector of Nepal and now productivity would increase in homes and offices and so on and so forth. With several months gone by since the release, it is however sad to note that the products have not been able to become much popular among their target masses as expected. Such a rather disappointing first result was but natural to come. Nepal, although never fell into the colonial rule, has always been largely influenced by its neighbouring country India in all its socio-economic and political aspects. One of the areas that the colonial rule in India had a direct influence in Nepal is the education sector. Although Nepali is the national language, teaching and learning is largely conducted in the English medium in the urban and partially in rural areas.

The majority of the computer literates in Nepal today too, possess a more or less basic knowledge of English. Equally important is the sad but the bitter fact that still today, people having a proficiency of English is regarded of high esteem in Nepal. This acts as a governing factor for the usage of software in English gaining grounds in Nepal. Be it a rural area with a considerably low number of English literates, yet a telecenter or a cyber cafe established in the locality would have software installed in the computers in English. Interestingly, people are found more used to and comfortable with the alien language "English". This has overshadowed the potential or target users of the localized operating systems. Hence, we are forced to ask to ourselves, "Do we feed our own cooking?"

How to move ahead?

Howsoever, before further gathering much pessimism, it is but essential that we looked at the other side of the coin. In a poor country like Nepal, it is almost impracticable to afford for licensed proprietory software. Thus, we have been using cheap pirated proprietory software at our homes, offices and almost at every nook and corner. Using pirated proprietory software, we, not only become culprits on a moral basis but also are forced to remain under constant trepidation that some day the software may actually crash and thus inflict huge loss of the valuable data. In such extreme cases, we will have nobody to complain to, other than sit and repent for having used unauthorised and unauthentic software.

Free Open Source Software (FOSS) and the FOSS Community

In the current scenario, the only reliable option would be using Free Open Source Software (FOSS). Unlike proprietory software, FOSS applications, as evident by name are free to use, modify, distribute or even sell given that the terms and conditions mentioned in the license are well preserved. Some of the typical FOSS Applications are Linux Distributions, web scripting language PHP, web server APACHE, database management system MySQL, Postgres SQL etc. In the context of Nepal, we do not carry a long history of the usage of FOSS. Linux appearred in Nepal for the first time in 1994 A.D. For a long time, it was taken to be an operating system usable only by professional programmers and hackers. However, with the localization of the Free Open Source Software movement, Linux in combination with rich desktop environments like the GNOME and KDE and other Desktop Applications has today become an equally competent rival to the traditionally predominant Windows operating system in terms of user-friendliness and attractive Desktop features. NepaLinux 1.0 is one of such localized Linux Distributions which has GNOME 2.10 as its Desktop environment.

So that Nepal got the actual benefits of NepaLinux and similar other attempts of localization, what is lacking is the general awareness in the people about FOSS. Unfortunately, ideas and concepts on FOSS have remained confined to few individuals and limited organizations working on the Open Source Paradigm. Initiatives of few organizations like the Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya in promoting localized FOSS applications and the usage of FOSS is short of wider collaboration and support from other organizations. However, positive developments are going on recently in this direction. MPP has been running a bi-weekly talk program "Linux Ka Kura" from the 14'th of May 2006. The talk program has been focussing on sharing ideas on FOSS, Open Source and Linux. The postings on the talk program are available at http://nepalinux.org/content/view/21/41/

Besides, with a view to celebrate the Software Freedom Day 2006 and ultimately establish a FOSS Community, a committe had been formed comprising of FOSS enthusiasts, students and faculty members of IT colleges and universities, which would accomplish FOSS awareness campaigns, establish FOSS units in individual colleges and conduct several FOSS activities. The committee may be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it It is expected that the committee, which now has just a few members could later be extended to a bigger FOSS community. This committee is a revamped form of the FOSS Nepal Community, which was about a year ago in Nepal by a group of FOSS enthusiasts. Among some works done by the Community include the celebration of the Annual Software Freedom Day(SFD) on September 10, 2005 and a half day seminar in the Kathmandu University with the help of the University FOSS Community. As an update to the latest information, the recently conducted SFD 2006 on September 16 organized by the FOSS-NEPAL Community at Yalamaya Kendra, Lalitpur, Nepal was a major success in terms of the general participation of the public. The majority of the visitors were however young youths, the fundamental supporters of the Open Source movement.

The responsibilities of such a FOSS Community would be multiple. First of all, it would be engaged in creating the general awareness about FOSS to the general people, its advantages and the existing drawbacks. In addition to this, it would also disseminate information to the people on the essence of FOSS Applications, localization of FOSS and its usage in the context of Nepal and elsewhere. Besides, it could also serve as a encouraging body to gradually replace the usage of pirated software in the country with FOSS. To start with, small communities could be taken as an experiment. As these communities get used to using FOSS Applications, the same could then be extended to a wider range of population. As far as the localization of FOSS is concerned, again the community's role would be vital in building the expertise in the local language. Working in the main stream of FOSS localization would mean working in close co-ordination with the International Open Source Community through mailing lists and discussion forums. Our local community members working in close contact with the International Open Source Community experts, could substantially develop and broaden their expertise area.

Having discussed above much on the role of the FOSS Community, it is but clear that promotion of FOSS Applications whether in the localized form or in English is largely dependent upon how strong and pro-active our FOSS Community evolves out. Undoubtedly, the role of the Government in implementing pro-Open Source IT policies, the possible efforts from the civil society in raising voices for FOSS cannot be undermined, but at a time when FOSS concepts are still in it's infant stage in Nepal, it is the FOSS Community, which needs to work 24/7 and may be even more.