A while back we had some discussion of how important it is to make software available in languages other than the big international languages such as English and French. Mark was a bit skeptical of the need for this in Africa, whereas I saw more of a need. I just came across an interesting comment on Slashdot on the value of making Linux available in Marathi, as Red Hat has recently announced its plans to do. The poster says:
As an example of how useful this would be, I used to be a technical consultant and trainer to the Mumbai Cyber Crime Lab. Most of the officers I trained there speak only Marathi, a language spoken in Maharashtra. Their acceptance of information technology would be much better if the operating system was in their own language.[Mumbai is what used to be called Bombay.]