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

[Steve Swinsburg]

I think the point is that having a fallback to a language that is at least
pretty similar, like 'fr_CA' falling back to just 'fr', is better than
falling back to a completely different language, like 'en'.

As mentioned earlier, switching on a new language (like fr_BE) would
currently just render in English and every single properties file in Sakai
will need to be changed because there is no sensible fallback default that
is at least partially consistent. It may be that a certain tool has
translations that don't even need an override.

But Sakai administrators can control the locales available in Sakai, so if
they are concerned about how this appears to uses, as part of their
configuration should be restricting the list to those that they know are
fully translated.

The takeaway is that the Java locale system is designed to fallback down
the hierarchy by default, ie  xx_YY_variant > xx_YY > xx, system locale.
Deviating from this industry accepted practice can just be confusing.

cheers,
Steve



On Tue, Jul 15, 2014 at 8:09 PM, Jean-Francois Leveque <
jean-francois.leveque at upmc.fr> wrote:

> Le 11/07/2014 15:49, Sam Ottenhoff a écrit :
>
>
>>     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?
>>
>
> So far the only French locales available in the default settings are fr_FR
> and fr_CA. If you want to work on another French locale, you can do
> whatever you want locally. When you want your locale available in the
> preferences with your overrides in the official release, you get to the
> community and the discussion happens about French default.
>
>
>      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
>>
>
> If you promote fr_FR to fr, you force-feed the fr_FR for parts that are
> not translated in fr_CA. I don't want to force anyone to do anything.
>
> I don't know which is better but I want people to be able to choose, not
> decide for them beyond providing the default English when the translation
> hasn't been done for their locale which is more information than policy.
>
> J-F
>
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