openSUSE Globalization/Internationalization/Localization
Hello, Not sure exactly who to talk to, but felt this was a possible place to suggest/ask. During my recent research into providing multi-lingual capabilities to a mobile openSUSE application, I determined what is likely current "Best Practice" while also exploring pretty much most of the history of what has been "Standard Operating Practice" leading up to now. I determined that until a couple years ago, there were movements and enormous efforts dedicated to creating custom solutions for each application, although there were efforts to standardize rormats and methods(eg i18n), there was still the problem building a library of translations. Then, enter the major Search Engines. Although some Search Engines like Yahoo created tools like Babelfish more than a decade ago, only recently the leading Search Engines(primarily Google, and recently Microsoft) have recognized the treasure trove of multi-lingual data they store and also recognized their own needs to serve a multi-lingual world. That led to exposing their data for 3rd party use through APIs and in some cases even self-contained software components. Of course, this should be of extreme interest to a collection of Products and Services like SUSE and openSUSE... and also the way that different people communciate within openSUSE on Mailing Lists, Wikis and more... Everyone communicates using their own language but that always excludes people using other languages. Our Forums are segregated by language, the wisdom and knowledge in one forum isn't available to any in another language. A supposed International mailing list like openSUSE Marketing is only in English, and if someone actually posts in another language it's unlikely most people on the List would understand the post... All those and much more should be addressable by a comprehensive effort to integrate State of Art multi-lingual tools, fully integrated into Products (like the openSUSE OS), Services (like the Open Build Service), and communications (like Mail Lists and Help Forums). To see only a simple example of what I'm describing, you can see the demo I quickly whipped up at http://putztzu.github.com/demos/opensuse-translate.html For that demo, I used Google's translation service which supports over 60 languages. I can guarantee you I don't personally write or speak nearly all of them but anything I write using that technology would be instantly understood by practically the entire world's population. BTW - This particular demo also supports dynamic (changing) data in any variety of source language (the original text doesn't have to be just one language or any specified language). Based on the openSUSE mailing list archives, it also looks like the openSUSE OS struggles to be available in only a half dozen languages... Wouldn't it be cool to support practically any language in the world instead? If this is something openSUSE would like to explore and implement, I'm willing to manage an effort to implement full worldwide globalization in all openSUSE products and services... Of course something like this would be very big -- Although it would require considerable effort and collaboration, and of course touches just about everything about openSUSE, I consider this very achievable. Am open to building a roadmap, identifying necessary legals, people, projects and people who would need to be brought into such an effort. I feel I have a suitable background for managing this kind of project, over 10 years Project Management, Network Architect and Developer building cutting edge and bleeding edge software solutions, typically including mobile devices and distributed solutions involving data translations and Business Intelligence. Tony PS. Noting this List will be closed down in favor of using "opensuse-project" -- Should I re-post on that List? -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-boosters+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-boosters+owner@opensuse.org
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Tony Su