Wikiyetu's Purpose:
The aim of "Wikiyetu" (Kiswahili for "Our Wiki"), is to provide an
offline wikipedia for those with simply no Internet access. This is
especially so for schools in developing countries where school
libraries are badly stocked (literally empty!). The project involves
the conversion of the online wikipedia (that we all know and love so
much!) into an offline wikipedia. The offline wikipedia will use the
platform independent mozilla so that the DVD can boot on any platform;
Linux, Windows, FreeBSD etc. This makes it even more pervasive (and
definitely more knowledge-packed!) than Microsoft Encarta
currently is. It will enable easy access to free educational content by
marginalised schools.
Objectives:
- 1. Make online wikipedia
offline.
- 2. Make offline wikipedia
bootable from DVD.
- 3. Make offline wikipedia
easily available to schools and students.
- 4. Make offline wikipedia cheaply
available to schools ie at the cost of only a DVD. Each DVD costs only
Kshs 50 (~70 US cts.) .
- 5. Make vast knowledge resources
easily available to offline communities eg in Africa.
Task list:
- 1.
Python script to store the wikipedia XML dump inside an sqlite database.
- 2. Library to execute SQL using
javascript and display it using XUL and XHTML.
- 3. Auto-boot up scripts for Linux
and Windows.
- 4. Installable XUL extension to be
used for browsing wikipeda content.
- 5. Wikiyetu mozilla skins to give
wikiyetu the kind of look and feel that we want.
- 6. Develop Windows and Linux
installers for Wikiyetu.
Articles:
1. A Wikiyetu article can be found at
http://www.opensource.or.ke/
(by Laban Mwangi)