New Year, New advertising campaign?

[Igor Pires Soares]

Em Ter, 2011-02-22 às 14:24 -0500, Paul W. Frields escreveu:
> That the foundations start with "F" in English is really not important
> at all in my mind.  In fact, that's one of several reasons we have
> never referred to them as "4 F's".  Another reason is that we knew
> when we came up with the four foundations that they wouldn't translate
> exactly with the alliteration.
> 
> (Did you know "4F" has a negative connotation in the US?  That's
> another reason why we don't use that term.  It was the rating someone
> would get from the military draft board (when the draft was in use)
> when they had an impairment of some kind that meant they were
> ill-suited for military service.)
> 
> The alliteration of the initial "F" for each idea may make them all
> easy to remember in the language where they were devised, but that's
> all.  The *ideas* behind the foundations are what's really important.
> I'd rather see consistency in those ideas than for translators to put
> a lot of work into making the alliteration work in another language.
> 
> Building a brand is a long, hard process that requires consistent
> effort for years behind the same core ideas.  Thanks in part to the
> strong graphical ideas the Design team has built around the
> foundations, they are increasingly well known.  I think Fedora should
> be building consistent messaging around these ideas in every language,
> with an equality of ideas, and not so much emphasis on the "F".  We
> want strong language matches for the ideas themselves.

I totally agree that the ideas are the most important aspect here. The
foundations totally reflect what the Fedora Project is about. But when
translating the four foundations the feeling that something is missing
is inevitable. We lose the alliteration in order to make the ideas
consistent. That feeling is inherent of a translation work, it's
natural.

-- 
Igor Pires Soares
Fedora Ambassador (Brazil) - Member of FAmSCo
Fedora I18N/L10N QA
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Igor