From: "Tony Ingenoso" 

I got a chilly/hostile reception suggesting that the Linux kernel would
profit by being morphed so internationalization would be as simple as
makefile switch to build any language you wanted (at least for
non-BIDI/oriental languages)

Wait till these countries get a firm grasp on where the Linux development
community stands WRT internationalizations and what that implies in terms
of release maintenance.

Bottom line is that Linux developers think internationalization is someone
else's problem, not theirs...which in a twisted way is true.

If you want a truly international release from the top to bottom, it is
YOUR responsibility to produce it and the kernel crowd isn not even
slightly interested in making your job easier by segregating translatable
text into seperate headers so code need not be altered for translations. 
This means YOU need to grope every source file and header and translate it.
 Of course, THEN your source tree no longer matches the standard
development trees and standard patch applications can fail.  That puts you
in the unenviable position of doing multiple (and frequent) manual
maintenance to keep in synch.

Once you branch off YOUR translated tree, your maintenance effort increases
geometrically until the pain is so great you give up and cut another branch
from a more current release and retranslate.

Actually, the whole thing is pretty damn hostile and it doesn't need to be
that way other than that at its roots, there are a bunch of amateurs doing
the work who simply don't know any better or simply don't care.

App level internationalization is much easier of course, but with the
kernel and drivers all belching out english messages, you force your
organization into having an english speaker on staff to deal with any core
issues.


"Adam"  wrote in message
news:42a4673b$1{at}w3.nls.net...
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4602325.stm
>
> ...there are hundreds of thousands of people working to improve free
software.

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