How I met the Debian JP study session and the openSUSE developer community in Japan.

presentation at openSUSE.Asia Summit 2024 Tokyo

Transcript

1. How I met the Debian JP study session and the openSUSE developer community in Japan. openSUSE.Asia Summit 2024 2024-11-02 dictoss@debian.or.jp
2. Agenda • Who am I ? • Debian Project • Debian JP Project: Local Group in Japan • Tokyo Debian Meeting • Flow become Debian Developer • Survey • Solution: XDDC (Cross Distro Developers Camp) • Conclusion
3. Who am I ? • Norimitsu SUGIMOTO (dictoss@debian.or.jp) – software developer – not Debian Developer, not Debian Maintainer • Use debian over 20 years (since 2003) • Join Kansai Debian Meeting (2008) • Join Tokyo Debian Meeting (2011) • Organizer of Tokyo Debian Meeting (since 2016) • Debian JP Project member (since 2018) – 2024 Leader
4. Debian Project • https://www.debian.org/ • Founded in 1993 • Debian are two meanings – community – operation system (Debian GNU/Linux, GNU/Hurd) • Debian related member – Debian Developer (1,022 people in the 56 countries) – Debian Maintainer – Package Maintainer, document translator, etc
5. Debian JP Project: Local Group in Japan • https://www.debian.or.jp/ • Founded in 1997 • Purpose – develop debian (include translate document to Japanese) – increase Debian users and developers • Activity – i18n, L10N activities (website, packages, installers, etc.) and tools used – support to become a Debian Developer – publicity (website, SNS, lectures and exhibitions at events) – provide infrastructure for users in Japan (mailing list, mirror)
6. Tokyo Debian Meeting • https://tokyodebian-team.pages.debian.net/ • started in 2005, Workshop to become a Debian developer – participate include some Debian Developers and experts • Activity – participants present what they learned about Debian – technical advice – BoF (Birds Of a Feather) – translate debian packages and documents into Japanese – understanding each other (keysign and prepare to advocate) • achievement – since 2009, increased 6 Debian Developers and 3 Debian Maintainers (few) • exclude here, increased 1 Debian Developer and 2 Debian Maintainers (few)
7. Flow become Debian Developer
8. Flow become Debian Developer
9. Survey • Discussions with Debian, openSUSE and other linux distribution community in Japan – common issues • few newcomers – In Japan, most of the Linux used in business is Red Hat (or clone OS) – few users are interested in develop (our) operating system • recent software is not translated upstream into Japanese (such as systemd-*) • no new implementation of Japanese input system for a long time – mozc (released in 2010), anthy (released in 2001), skk (released in 1987) – specific issues for debian JP Project • can’t catch up develop uim (input method), and translate web pages etc. • result and guess – very few Japanese developers are involved in upstream OSS software development – developers of each distribution will collaborate to develop software into Japanese
10. Solution: XDDC (Cross Distro Developers Camp) • https://dictoss.github.io/xddc/ – a group working together to solve and develop common Japanese language issues across distributions – started 2019-02-23, now holds meetings and hacks monthly in Japan • Participants (about 10 people including developers and translators) – developers who openSUSE, Debian, Ubuntu, AlmaLinux, LibreOffice – developers who want to create their own distributions • Activity – develop the distribution used myself – develop for CJK problem (for wayland, qt, gtk, etc.) – try to develop kana-kanji conversion system, input method – translate .po files and manpages in upstream
11. Conclusion • In Japan, the Debian JP Project and Tokyo Debian Meeting provide support for becoming a Debian Developer – However, in recent years, there are few Japanese people who have become Debian developers • There have been similar concerns with other distributions such as openSUSE – The stagnation of upstream OSS Japanese translations and Japanese input systems • Solution – started XDDC, and try to solve OSS problem related to Japanese • Next step – increase developers in Japan who contribute to OSS operating systems
12. Welcome to XDDC ! Thank you !