ENLASO releases open source localization tools

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On NewsForge.com, Corinne McKay informs the reader that ENLASO Corp. has released its localisation tools for the Okapi Framework as open source.

The Okapi Framework is a set of specifications and definitions, components and applications which provides an environment to build interoperable tools for the different steps of the translation and localization process. Yet, the Okapi Framework is not meant to replace commercial or in-house translation or localization suites, the Okapi website informs.

The Okapi Framework itself requires the Microsoft .Net Framework making it currently only available to Windows users. It consists of three main applications: a graphical user interface (GUI) Rainbow, which provides access to Okapi's utilities and filters; Olifant, an application for creating and managing translation memories; and Tikal, a command line tool.

According to Corinne McKay's article, Okapi includes useful utilities such as a text extraction utility that converts translatable text from input files into translatable formats such as RTF or XLIFF, a text merging utility that returns XLIFF-formatted files to their original format, and a text rewriting utility that extracts and merges translatable text in one step.

"All utilities are fed from filters. Currently there are five filters implemented: for PO files, for Properties files, for .Net resources, for Wordfast TM, and for Trados Text TM. All that is for the last release, but we have already more filters and utilities under development for the next one," Yves Savourel, the Okapi Framework's lead developer is quoted.

ENLASO's move to open source "comes at an interesting time in the translation technology industry," McKay writes. "Last summer, SDL, a translation tool vendor as well as a translation and localization provider, purchased the market leader translation memory software provider, Trados, and announced plans to merge its own tool, SDLX, and Trados into one application in the future."

The Okapi Framework is released under the GNU Lesser General Public License (GNU LGPL) which makes it especially interesting to other developers as this license allows to create commercial software from it. Currently, the Okapi Framework may not compete with TRADOS, the most widely used professional CAT software. Only a couple of days ago SDL released TRADOS 2006, the first fully SDLX compatible version. Yet, one may expect more CAT-tools arising from the Okapi framework in the near future.

Sources:

http://okapi.sourceforge.net/index.html

newsforge.com