Red Hat, a US-based Linux software developer, announced this week that it is preparing to roll out commercial versions of the Linux operating system in 13 Indian languages by February 2006.

 

In the initial stage, commercial versions of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system will be offered in five Indian languages - Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati, Hindi and Tamil - starting as soon as February 2005. In the second phase, Red Hat will expand its offerings to cover Linux software that operates in Marathi, Telegu, Kannada, Oriya, Malayalam, Urdu, and others. The Indian language versions of the Linux operating system will be distributed directly by Red Hat India and through a host of OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) such as HCL Infosystems, Acer, IBM, Wipro, and PCS.

 

The localized adaptation of Linux is being designed at Red Hat's development center in Pune, India, working together with local software developers from the open source community. Red Hat officials have indicated that they hope the local language interface will encourage the spread of the Linux operating system beyond the metro areas in India. Licenses will be sold on a subscription basis and will include multiple layers of customer support.

 

Red Hat's Indian subsidiary is actively considering opening a software engineering center in Kolkata, as the provincial government of West Bengal has done much to demonstrate its enthusiasm for the open source software operating system.