From: Adam Flinton 

Tony Ingenoso wrote:
> 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.
>
>

It's a global phenomena & not just in s/w. In s/w look at the whole W3C
& OAGI etc.etc.etc. (esp the W3C XML Schema). In h/w look at the whole
dvd bollox (to the degree the chinese want to go their own way), blueray vs
hd-dvd (& that's not mentioning the old stuff e.g. mca/isa etc.etc)

& then in politics......oh let's not even go there.....

So you're a great lawyer/soldier/doctor.....etc....why do you think you're
anything other than an amateur PM/President/dictator etc.

People are people. Healthcare is.......nicely described as the largest
cottage industry in the world & the IT side of it is truely
astonishingly amateur (not that you'd like to know that...). There you have
the lovely concept of "clinical safety" where I have been told
"no it doesn't work....but because it doesn't work & everyone
knows it doesn't work then it's clinically safe....it's only if it doesn't
work but people think it does that....& so long as it's clinically safe
it can be used....even though it doesn't work...."

Eye-watering stuff.

The worst are not the keen amateurs but the tenured academics. They screwed
up the W3C XML schema so badly that they should have been dragged out onto
the street & shot pour encouragee les autres.




Adam




Adam

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