On 4/16/12 1:34 PM, Theo10011 wrote:
1. Why small languages? - Small language versions of Wikipedia, and
sister projects usually don't get the focus in new
development. There is
also the point, that several small language versions, are in fact, too
small to be helpful. The difference between the English and the second
closest version is rather prominent, the really small versions might too
small and incomplete, to be a valuable resource.
Not everyone speaks English.
I am working on a specific request for a specific project in a
"difficult" (heavy censorship) country.
2. There is the rather large issue of supporting
non-Latin scripts for
mobile, that would make offline version usable and accessible.
Indeed.
3. Market trends- Majority of the developing world
isn't on Android and
unlikely to be in the next couple of years. Symbian is the dominant
player; albeit an abandoned OS, it is only the transitory one till Nokia
shifts operations completely. With its limited memory, lack of expansion
and a very basic OS, offline apps are a problem to get and support on it.
I agree with all this, although it isn't especially relevant to this
particular project.
4. Smart phones- It is generally not ideal to develop
offline readers
for android phone. Smart phone by definition have internet access; if
someone can download a copy on their computer, they should be able to
access the online version on their phone using the same internet
access.
Not in places where censorship is a major problem, and not if bandwidth
costs are too high.
To re-iterate, I'm working on a specific project that would potentially
meet a particular need. I don't recommend a major investment of
resources, but if there's an easy way to do this, it'd be great.
--Jimbo