[Wikimediaindia-l] Tamil Encyclopedia merge into Wikipedia.

[BalaSundaraRaman]

Yes, we need to get it under a suitable license. If the technical issue related 
to OCR is resolved, we can talk to them about releasing the content into public 
domain.

- Sundar

 "That language is an instrument of human reason, and not merely a medium for 
the expression of thought, is a truth generally admitted."
- George Boole, quoted in Iverson's Turing Award Lecture


>
>From: Shiju Alex <shijualexonline at gmail.com>
>To: wikimediaindia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>Sent: Mon, November 15, 2010 12:02:42 PM
>Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Tamil Encyclopedia merge into Wikipedia.
>
>I have a query. 
>
>What is the license of Tamil Kalaikalanjiam? Did Tamil Nadu government or Tamil 
>Virtual University had officially announced that this Encyclopedia is released  
>in Public Domain or in some creative commons license so that we can  reuse the 
>content. If yes, we can very well reuse the content. Otherwise  it will be 
>copyright violation. So kindly verify this. 
>
>
>Let us not  assume that since it is published by Government it will be in pubic  
>domain. In India that is not the case.
>
>In 2008 December, Kerala  Government has officially announced that it is 
>changing  the license of  similar encyclopedic project in Malayalam  
>(sarvavijanakosam) to Free documentation license so that Malayalam wiki 
>community can reuse its content to develop  Malayalam wikipedia. Governmant has 
>officially announced it. Kerala Government has also set up its own wiki (to help  
>us) for Sarvavijanakosamand they are slowly digitizing the content and posting 
>in its own  wiki (http://mal.sarva.gov.in). They have completed some 2,900 
>articles now. We are  reusing this content to enhance many of the existing 
>articles. But we  are not copy pasting  the entire content due to various 
>reasons. The main  reason is, the content need to rewritten as per the style of 
>wikipedia.
>
>I really have doubt about the  efficiency of  current OCR softwares for Indian 
>languages. It is still  under development. The existing solutions are not good. 
>I am not sure about Tamil OCR softwares.
>
>Shiju Alex
>
>
>On Mon, Nov 15, 2010 at 11:33 AM, Murali Kumar <pthooran at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>Dear Wikimedia India,
>>
>>
>>As you probably aware the Govt. of India, immediately post Independence started 
>>multiple Indian language encyclopedia projects to stream in Science and 
>>Technology. The Tamil language encyclopedia was completed 
>>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_Encyclopedia]    
>>
>>
>>I'm pleased to report Tamil Virtual University has scanned in the Tamil 
>>Kalaikalanjiam / Tamil Encyclopedia [Please see Reference 1 below].
>>
>>
>>I was able to download the material via the wonderful wget command and the 
>>'convert' (from imagemagick lib)  in GNU/Linux. However each of the 10 volumes 
>>is close to 700 MB without compression.
>>
>>
>>I would imagine, the people behind this mammoth task (pre-internet era) would 
>>have liked it to be merged into a Wiki type format, which would make it a truly 
>>living document in-sync with the times.
>>
>>
>>I do not have any experience with 1) Tamil OCR software and 2) Automated updates 
>>to Wikipedia. 
>>  
>>Can anyone take the lead on this project ? It will help boost the number of 
>>quality, articles in Indian languages. The Children's encyclopedia is being 
>>scanned and has a lot of great visual content.
>>
>>
>>I have uploaded a sample (10 MB) PDF file at 
>>https://sites.google.com/site/periasamythooran/kalaikalanjiam/kalaikalanjiamWikiMergeAttempt.pdf
>> if you are interested to give it a spin.
>>
>>
>>Thanks,
>>
>>
>>Murali.
>>
>>
>>1. http://www.tamilvu.org/library/libindex.htm and click on Kalaikalanjiam / 
>>Tamil Encyclopedia.
>>_______________________________________________
>>Wikimediaindia-l mailing list
>>Wikimediaindia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>>https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
>>
>>
>
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