On 02/04/2006, at 5:31 AM, Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña wrote:
I would really appreciate if others could forward me patches improving that document. Notice there are still some FIXME and TBDs there (specially in the last chapter), if somebody wants to tackle those fully (i.e. writting themissing sections) it would be great!
Chapter 1. IntroductionThe following document describes the rationale and management of internationalization and localization in the Debian project, including the infrastructure and tools available for translators and package maintainers, as well as the work done by members of the different translation teams.
1.1. English as an universal languageEnglish is often regarded as the official language of most of the existing free software projects. This assumption affects users of free software and, in general, users of information systems, to the degree that "They should all just speak English!" is not an uncommon reaction to internationalization projects. On behalf of the majority of the world's population, who do not speak English, a great deal of work is done voluntarily in the Debian project, to ensure that program interfaces do not only present their messages in English and that most documentation available is not written only in English.
Although a single common language would help coordinate work of multiple developers worldwide, and help people exchange their ideas, we don't actually have one. Currently, using English only disadvantages most potential users. It's an accessibility issue, as well as a usability issue. We want everyone to be able to use their computer effectively, and that's what internationalization is about.
___If you like, I can keep going, and proof the whole doc. I don't anticipate making changes in meaning after this point, but this point was inaccurate. ;)
from Clytie (vi-VN, Vietnamese free-software translation team / nhóm Việt hóa phần mềm tự do)
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/vi-VN
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