fedora only for US users ?

Pekka Savola pekkas at netcore.fi
Sat Sep 27 18:08:29 UTC 2003


On Sat, 27 Sep 2003, Andrew Sobala wrote:
> On Sat, 2003-09-27 at 14:28, Pekka Savola wrote:
> > http://fedora.redhat.com/about/rhel.html says about Fedore Core:
> > 
> > Users: Early adopters, enthusiasts, developers 
> > 
> > How big a percentage of the above-mentioned user group does not speak 
> > English?
> > 
> > Note that it's about being able to read/speak/write English, it has 
> > nothing to do with "US" or not.
> > 
> > My personal belief is that most of the internationalization efforts are of
> > very low priority for that particular user group.  There are more pressing
> > issues to handle (such as, making it possible to get external
> > contributions on packages etc. to Fedora, getting the infrastructure ready
> > all in all, etc.) first.
> 
> I think you're coming at this from the wrong direction.
> 
> In GNOME, we have a huge l10n effort and a lot of contributors from all
> over the world: these people run GNOME in their native language whenever
> possible.
> 
> Yes, developers speak English and yes, a lot of people in all countries
> speak English nowadays. But when it's your second language,
> internationalisation efforts are of utmost importance.
> 
> English people, Americans, Australians, etc. are a subset of linux
> enthusiasts, not the whole.

Some of my observations from technical translations:

 1) more often than not, they seem badly translated, or there just isn't
useful local Language terminology which would be commonly understood.

 2) technical folks don't even know what the local Language term X refers
to (compared to the English version), as the terms aren't stable, and
globally common.  So, using the local language is often a much bigger
problem, especially if you report bugs, discuss features or such in
English.

 3) translations are often not really in sync with the latest versions, 
some translations are missing, or not everything is translated anyway.


-- 
Pekka Savola                 "You each name yourselves king, yet the
Netcore Oy                    kingdom bleeds."
Systems. Networks. Security. -- George R.R. Martin: A Clash of Kings






More information about the devel mailing list