[WG: I18N & L10N] Having a locale as default for others in the same language

Mon Jul 14 03:11:13 PDT 2014

Hi, I must agree with Sam too:

In the Spanish part, as "es_ES" is constantly maintained to be at 100%
translated, I think it's the best option as basis for the spanish language.
 (As now it is, because we make a copy to "es" from the "es_ES" each time
we export translations)

Spanish has a lot of differences between countries, of course, but I'm sure
most people from any spanish speaking country will prefer to view a
"Spanish from Spain" word as default when they don't have their locale
customization, than and english one.  If it were different, for instance,
Spanish from Colombia or México were the 100% translated and es_ES were a
empty trasnslation, I would prefer to have the "es_CO" or "es_MX" as basis
and then work in the es_ES customization.  The main idea here is not to
have words in english.

I'm not french neither from Canada, so I don't really know the french
question but If I were french speaker (from Luxembourg or from Canada)
surely I'll prefer to have the "French from France" as basis than the
english and then start to work on my locale customization.

Diego

2014-07-12 11:00 GMT+02:00 Gao Jun <gaojun at fudan.edu.cn>:

>  May be this is tradeoff between end-users and translators.
>
> To Chinese, there are four locales defined in Java 7. They are
> zh_CN(Mainland China), zh_TW(Taiwan), zh_HK(Hongkong), zh_SG(Singapore). As
> far as I know, zh_CN and zh_SG are similar to each other (Simplified
> Chinese), while zh_TW and zh_HK are similar to each other (Traditional
> Chinese).
>
> Many people can read both Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese while
> only some people can write both of them. So, I think many Chinese-speaking
> Sakai user will prefer to see (Simplified/Tranditional)Chinese instead of
> English. Since Sakai is mostly used in higher education, I think even more
> end-users can read both Simplified and Tranditional Chinese.
>
> But still not all of the people can read both styles. And, English
> education is very common in Chinese-speaking area, in universities and
> colleges, almost all Sakai end-user can read English. Frankly speaking, may
> be some users will prefer English to the other Chinese style, and even some
> of them can only read English.
>
> So, in the Chinese case, to end-users, having a default zh language may be
> a good idea to many users, not having a default zh language may be a
> 'worse' idea but can fit 'more' users.
>
> In the other hand, as the translator of most zh_CN properties files. I
> think having a default zh language is not necessary. It's very easy to copy
> zh_CN files to zh_SG, or zh_TW to zh_HK. Translator can just edit the file
> to change what they need.
>
> And while I want to check if I have translated 'all' properties file, it's
> easy to see how long to go 100% translated with the l10n-stats tool.
>
> Above is the situation of Chinese, hope these information will help.
>
>
> Cheers,
> Gao Jun
>
>
> 于 2014年07月11日 22:23, Matthew Jones 写道:
>
> I would agree with Sam,
>
>  There are 5 countries that have a French specific locale setting and all
> are in Europe; Belgium, Switzerland and Luxembourg. [1] I'd have to guess
> all of those countries would take fr_FR over fr_CA but if they took fr_FR
> as it was, they would also have to accept date formatting (which may or may
> not be the same) as well as currency and other internal formatting. Or
> they'd have to take their fr_* setting and have it fall back to English
> since there is no fr available instead.
>
>  This was the problem with es, but it was worse because there are 20 es
> countries, and they for sure have more non language variations and
> significantly more overlap with (most likely) es_ES. I think the same could
> be said for Arabic as well.
>
>  I don't have any investment in French specifically either (as I did with
> Spanish), and maybe nobody from the French speaking areas of Belgium or
> Switzerland want to run Sakai, but if I was voting, I'd say that fr_FR is a
> better fallback for everyone (fr_CA) included that English. And to
> accomplish that without an fr fallback seemed to be a technical challenge.
> I'm personally happy with fr_FR being the default Sakai fr language. Just
> as I'm happy with en_US being the default Sakai en language. (And es_ES
> being the default Sakai es language)
>
>  I think those are just decisions that need to be made without trying to
> compromise on minimum coverage. Maximum coverage with individual overrides
> is easier. ;)
>
>  [1]
> http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/javase7locales-334809.html
>
>
> On Fri, Jul 11, 2014 at 9:49 AM, Sam Ottenhoff <ottenhoff at longsight.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>>> French from Canada and France a really different, using one as default
>>> for the other would, in my opinion, be a mistake.
>>
>>
>>
>>  Absolutely.  So my next question would be, what about French from
>> Belgium and French from Switzerland?  I assume they would want to use fr_FR
>> as a base with a few country-specific overrides, no?
>>
>>
>>
>>> When there was only fr_CA available in Sakai, my users were
>>> uncomfortable with it. I suppose it would be the same the other way around
>>> if fr_FR becomes the default. I would gladly create a shared fr locale if I
>>> had fr_CA owners who could meet with the fr_FR team to agree on shared part
>>> of the translation, but none are available AFAICT.
>>>
>>
>>  I don't understand why fr_CA owners need to be involved at all.  If
>> fr_CA doesn't keep their translation up to date, they get English text as a
>> fallback currently, right?  Is fr_CA so distinct that English text is a
>> better fallback than French?
>>
>>  I don't have investment in this area.  It just seems like this is bad
>> policy.
>>
>>  --Sam
>>
>>
>>
>
>
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-- 
***************************************
*Diego del Blanco Orobitg*
Spain & LATAM Regional Manager (*ANI Sakai*)
Apereo LATAM Representative (*Apereo Foundation*)

P: (+34) 653 683 489
E: ddelblanco at anisakai.com
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