Sinhala Bloggers vs. ICTA in browser wars

English bloggers in Sri Lanka few months back found their nemesis in mainstream English print media that saw stealing and using blog content with no acknowledgements (forget payments!) fully acceptable. Sinhala bloggers too have eventually found theirs.

Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) is now under spotlight for robbing the glory of the hard work of one young software engineer (cum blogger) Danishka Navin who, we are told, did the Sinhala version of Mozilla Firefox 3 browser. According to Wikipedia, Mozilla Firefox is a web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite, managed by the Mozilla Corporation. Firefox had 19% of the recorded usage share of web browsers as of June 2008, making it the second-most popular browser in current use worldwide, after Internet Explorer.

As Danishka Navin states in his blog, the Sinhala version development was largely a group effort. Nilaksha Rathnayake, Srishanu Lokupathirage, Harshana Weerasinghe, Su Hewawasam, Wasantha, Waruna Kanishka, Dhammika Mendis, Malinthe Samarakoon and Rajith Vidanaarachchi were those who have joined him in developing the Sinhala version. (I mention all names here because they should get the credit they rightly deserve and ICTA has shamelessly forgotton these young men and women.)

I was surprised to see ICTA’s one page colour newspaper advertisements announcing Sinhala version of Firefox 3. Creating Sinhala version of any software application is commendable, but a web browser is the last thing that needs a local language version. As an Internet user all I expect from a web browser is an empty box on top where I can type my URL. The only other feature I use is bookmarks. I, may be like most users, completely ignore other features.

In fact, I have used web browsers in many other languages including German, Chinese and Korean. Once there was a cyber café along Galle Road, close to Kolpetty (next to old Pramuka Bank building) that was run by few Koreans. Every PC there had Korean versions of Windows operating system. That did not prevent any Sri Lankan user (I guess none of them understand Korean) patronizing the café. They used Korean browser, with least difficulty. So why the language matter in a browser? Is the introduction of a local language browser something to celebrate at national level spending tax payers’ money lavishly on newspaper advertisements and media events at five star hotels?

But ICTA, being ICTA, just craves for publicity. Its eternal policy has been to spend 5 cents to do something and another one rupee in publicizing the effort. I am sure a sizable portion of its budget goes for image building exercises for itself and its master. Most of its projects have failed. ICTA, which boasted about ‘e-Sri Lanka miracle’ by 2007, still has little to showcase. So I guess we understand its urge to exploit every possible opportunity for more and more publicity. (including the death of its Chairman – yes, in fact, in terms of timely organization and publicity gained, Prof. V. K. Samaranayake’s funeral function should be the most successful project ICTA ever did!)

Well, selling cadavers is one thing, but robbing glory for others work is different. If I were Danishka Navin and even anybody in that larger group, I would not be happy about this daylight mugging – even if my efforts were paid. That is not what we expect from a government agency. ICTA would not have lost anything if it gave the credit deserved by the young man Danishka Navin and his team. After all, it is the young generation that drives the IT force, in Sri Lanka and everywhere not the aged bureaucrats.

It was three youngsters Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim founded You Tube. All of them were university students then. Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook while still a student at Harvard University. This 24 year old is the CEO of Facebook now. In 2008, Forbes Magazine declared him “the youngest billionaire on earth and possibly the youngest self-made billionaire ever,” with a theoretical net worth of $1.5 billion USD. All these youngsters get credit for their innovations. We all know creating a Sinhala version of Forefox is hardly in par with any of these great achievements. So why not Danishka Navin take at least that credit? Do the aged bureaucrats in ICTA with mahadenamuttas of Colombo and Moratuwa universities think he is too young to be given full credit for this innovation, and it is fair to rob part of the credit?

It is sad to see even at this stage, instead of apologising ICTA still trying to justify its mistake. This stubborn behaviour  may be good for another state agency, but definitely not for ICTA, most of whose stakeholders are already online. I do not see the Sinhala bloggers will take this lightly.

While congratulating the Sinhala bloggers for the courageous stance they have taken in the support of Danishka Navin and his team, this is what I want to tell them: Don’t think this will be the end. Publicity crazy ICTA will continue robbing your glory. Don’t worry about that. Do your good work. Perhaps ICTA might fool some people in short term but fooling everyone always is not easy for ICTA, even with the powerful backing of President’s Office. The truth will one day come out. I wish you the best.

(Two images are from Sinhala Firefox group in FaceBook)