African language web browsers

The translated Mozilla browser runs on Windows, Linux and Apple Mac, and includes a browser, an e-mail client and an HTML editor. The open source browser is available for download from the mozilla.org Web site and the language packs are available from www.translate.org.za. The open source KOffice suite has also been translated into Xhosa, Zulu and Venda, and is available for free.

Largely funded by the Shuttleworth Foundation, the organisation behind the translation effort is Translate.org, a body formed little more than a year ago with the intention of translating a range of open source software into local languages.

"This project is crucial to transformation in our country where language is a highly sensitive issue," says project director Dwayne Bailey. "The open source philosophy lends itself to making technology available to the masses. No commercial software vendors have adequately addressed the language issue in SA, but in one year the open source community has."