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Say that again in Urdu.
It doesn't matter if you speak English (or American). If you don't speak English, then the application is unusable.
Translation is a very significant part of software development, and one which is frequently ignored.
It's also an area where F/OSS software regularly beats commerical, closed-source software, because of the "itch-to-scratch" approach.
I run a minor Free Software project (speedtouchconf.sf.net) and have had a number of contributions of translations, and a little bit of code. The translations have a huge impact. Being able to use software in Portuguese, Spanish, German, or (better still) multi-byte languages like Traditional Chinese, is a huge factor.
I think you'll find, in all reality, that localisation just doesn't count. The vast majority of the actual -application- is written by Sun staff. Its that that matters, not the translations.
It actually does mean alot to me...as OpenOffice.org has been translated from German into English.




Member since:
2005-06-29
I think you'll find, in all reality, that localisation just doesn't count. The vast majority of the actual -application- is written by Sun staff. Its that that matters, not the translations.