Bubulle's weblog

I first considered not really reaction to Joey's post, mostly because he has very true points...and particularly when he has about the same reaction than mine about a recent post in ou mailing lists.

So, I will stick to react to one part of Joey's post...the one I consider really inaccurate.

"everyone uses the software in English anyway"

Really, Joey, really, that's completely untrue.

Of course, I do live in a country that very well known (or at least that has the reputation) for being deeply ignorant in English language. But, really....*all* computers I see around me, both in my personal life *and in my professionnal life* are nearly completely localized.

It's probably now well know that I spend most of my professionnal time....providing desktop systems (or managing the people who provide them) to users in ONERA, "the French Aerospace Lab". That means about 2000 users in a scientific environment where the use of English is much more developed than the average environment. Most of these users speak a fairly decent English and are perfectly able to understand that language in some way.

About 80% of these systems are Windows-based and 20% are Linux-based. Probably more than 95% of them are localized in French. Even on Windows systems, we mostly integrate free software. And for *each* of them, the most important feature we need, besides software being free, is it to be localized in French.

I bet our friends from Extremadura can say the same. The success of Linux-based free systems there also happened because the software is available in Spanish. And, of course, there are tons of similar stories and counter-examples (München, Bhutan, Venezuela, etc.).

So, really, please don't spread out that idea. Oh, yes, geeks *do* use their software in English (and, even here, I need to be convinced if I remember well what I saw at conferences in Germany or Spain, for instance). And, yes, it's very well widespread among geeks that using software in English is "better" or "easier". Which I indeed always fight and will fight until I die..:-).

We certainly agree that these l10n needs put a high load on development and sometimes slow it down. and, for sure, we sometimes need to make a balance and I really thank you for giving me the credit to try doing that balance.

Anyway, all this (including your rant) had to be said and it's interesting to have that small discussion (I just should not start writing down a blog entry at 23:00...:-))

See you soon, hopefully, Joey !