Tyson Tan

Free and Open Source

Free and Open Source

This page showcases the mascots I designed for Free and Open Source projects, along with my other volunteer work in the FOSS community.

What is Free and Open Source?

A program is Free Software if it was released under a free software license.
Open Source means the source code of a program can be freely accessed.

A Free Software License permits all people to freely use, modify, and distribute a program and its source code. Common examples are: GPL, APL, MPL, MIT, BSD, etc. Free software licenses ensure programs and their source codes to be public resources. On principle, all people can participate in the development and provide other contributions. Free software licenses are the legal safeguards of the modern Open Source Software Development Model.

Almost every modern software has some free software parts in them — the engines of most modern web browsers, the kernels of Linux and Android operating systems. Most popular apps are built on top of some free software frameworks and libraries. Free software programs are everywhere. They are the bolts and gears of modern information systems.

The free and open source ideal is friendly for community members to participate in a FOSS project. As a volunteer, I designed mascots and provided Chinese translations for some FOSS projects.

Mascots

More: FOSS Mascots Gallery

Chinese Translations

I have provided a considerable amount of Chinese (Simplified) translations for many Free and Open Source projects. Due to repository and branch changes, not all of them still mark me as the translator of the current strings. Here I only list my notable contributions.

KDE

KDE is a long-standing free and open source software community. KDE hosts many well-known free software projects and provided frameworks for them. The forementioned applications like Krita, digiKam, Kdenlive, Kate, Okular and Marble are all KDE applications. KDE also developed Plasma, a popular free Desktop Environment for Linux and other free operating systems.

I participated in correcting, completing, and have since been maintaining KDE Plasma and many of its system applications’ Simplified Chinese translations (application only). I have also redesigned KDE’s mascot.

Currently, I mainly provide Simplified Chinese translations for various KDE projects:

Krita

Krita is a free and open source digital painting application. Prior to my involvement, Krita’s Chinese translations had many missing and wrong strings. I retranslated everything, and have since been maintaining all of Krita’s Simplified Chinese translations, including the application, documentation, website, and Steam descriptions, etc.

On top of that, I updated Krita’s page on various Chinese Wikipedia equivalents. I wrote articles and answered questions about Krita on various Chinese platforms. I collected and translated feedbacks from local communities to the Krita team. I have also designed Krita’s mascot and drew many splash pictures for the application.

Krita: https://krita.org/

digiKam

digiKam is a free and open source photo management application. Prior to my involvement, digiKam’s Chinese translations had many missing and wrong strings. I retranslated everything, and have since been maintaining digiKam’s Simplified Chinese translations (application only).

digiKam: https://www.digikam.org/

Kate Editor

Kate is a free and open source advance text editor. I participated in correcting, completing, and have since been maintaining Kate’s Simplified Chinese translations (application only). I have also designed Kate’s mascot and its new logo.

Kate: https://kate-editor.org/

Okular

Okular is a free and open source document reader. Prior to my involvement, Okular’s Chinese translations had many missing and wrong strings, especially in the annotation modules. I retranslated everything, and have since been maintaining Okular’s Simplified Chinese translations (application only).

Okular: https://okular.kde.org/

Marble

Marble is a free and open source virtual earth and map viewer. The forementioned digiKam uses its components to show where the photos were taken on a map. Prior to my involvement, Marble’s Chinese translations had many missing and wrong strings. I retranslated everything, and have since been maintaining Marble’s Simplified Chinese translations (application only).

Marble: https://marble.kde.org/

Kdenlive

Kdenlive is a free and open source photo management application. Prior to my involvement, Kdenlive’s Chinese translations had many missing and wrong strings. I retranslated everything, and maintained Kdenlive’s Simplified Chinese translations (application only) for a few years.

Due to the project’s increasing size and my lack of expertise in video editing, I have reached my limit. Starting mid-March 2025, I will no longer provide Chinese translation for Kdenlive.

Kdenlive: https://kdenlive.org/

Qt

Qt is a free and open source cross-platform software development toolkit. The forementioned KDE Frameworks and many commonly used applications are developed based on Qt. I participated once in thoroughly correcting, completing Qt’s Simplified Chinese translations.

Qt: https://www.qt.io/

CUPS

CUPS is a free and open source printer backend. Most operating systems except Windows use CUPS to carry out printing tasks. I participated once in thoroughly correcting, completing the Simplified Chinese translations for CUPS and some of its commonly used printer drivers.

CUPS: https://www.cups.org/

SANE

SANE is a free and open source scanner backend. Linux use SANE to carry out scanning tasks. I participated once in thoroughly correcting, completing the Simplified Chinese translations for SANE and some of its commonly used scanner drivers.

SANE: http://sane-project.org/