Microsoft Plans to Create Local Language Software

zensufi writes "CNET News has a story stating that Microsoft has announced plans for a program to help governments produce local language versions of key Microsoft applications, giving the software giant a hedge against a growing international threat from open-source software." The piece explains: 'The Local Language Program will provide local and regional governments with "language interface packs" that government and academic developers can use to produce localized versions of the Windows XP operating system and Office 2003 productivity package.'

Comments

Wow translating their software to other languages?

[stratjakt]

What antimonopolistic evil behaviour!

Actually customizing their products to different markets. UN FRICKIN BELIEVABLE.

Now throw yer tantrum kids.

open source challenges??

[Anonymous Coward]

Please, like it or not, MS is already light years ahead of OSS in terms of localization and supporting foreign languages. We've got a lot of catching up to do before we're even in the ballpark!

Re:open source challenges??

[System.out.println()]

Open source, bad? HOW DARE YOU!!!11one!!!! ....but seriously, Apple has M$ completely stomped. Not only is almost every app multi-language, but they make it very easy for the third-party developers to make their own apps multilingual - it's as easy as creating a Spanish.lproj file (or whatever language). Although you do have to actually translate it....

Re:open source challenges??

[el-spectre]

Out of curiousity... how does that work? Does an error message (say, "file not found") point to message #XXX, which is then just referenced in the language specific file? Is it that simple?

Re:open source challenges??

[Vicegrip]

A vague unsupported statement by an AC moderated to +4 ..... But hey, MS astroturfers like to shoot fast and make a lot of noise, so I guess I'm starting to get used to it. Anyways, when was the last time you used KDE?
FYI: KDE now supports 49 languagesand the list is actively growing. On an other note, I seem to recall a story just recently about Microsoft refusing to update Microsoft Office for Hebrew on the Mac...

Re:open source challenges??

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm I'm not sure about that, but anyway, Linux-on-the-desktop has not done localisation very well. It seems to be one seriously strenuous effort to translate KDE to another language, let alone the actual applications. The problem with Microsoft's approach is it will only yield translations into official languages.

Syllable's (freesoftware desktop OS, fairly mature, hardly anyone has heard of it I know) translation system will work along the lines of having external content catalogues. This means both the OS and software apps won't need to be altered or recompiled in any way in order for text and images etc to be translated to another language. You could create a new translation and have the app switch languages without having to restart the program. This is good because you won't need a programmer to perform translations, and there's a great deal of fexability in the system. You could create your own contructed language and character set, translate the OS and all your apps, and just use it.

Re:open source challenges??

[stephanruby]

FYI: KDE now supports 49 languagesand the list is actively growing.

I don't think it's fair to count Elvish and Klingoln.

Re:open source challenges??

[PacoTaco]

Modded insightful? Office doesn't even support right to left languages.

Yes, it does.

Re:open source challenges??

[Anonymous Coward]

> Modded insightful? Office doesn't even support right to left languages.

What version, Office 95 before Unicode? Office 2000 works just fine with Japanese text letting me enter horizontal or vertical right to left. It even came with all the fonts and IME. And it's just the normal US version.

The localized versions have worked since the 3.x days.

Re:open source challenges??

[Shados]

its a bit more than that though...to localise software, you have to do a bit more than just translate stuff... think like...some languages need to be written from right to left...need to support that... Or how you can write japanese with a qwerty keyboard by pronounciation, and it will write the kenjis for it...etc. That takes more than just a text file to translate... I dont know if thats what you meant though.

Re:open source challenges??

[droleary]

Open source, bad? HOW DARE YOU!!!11one!!!! ....but seriously, Apple has M$ completely stomped.

Then open source developers have MS stomped as well, if they were smart enough to chose GNUstep. It uses the same methods for localization that Apple's Cocoa apps do.

Re:open source challenges??

[beren12]

Actuaclly all it does take is a text file. Not an ASCII file, a utf-8 one. The system has built in support for many, many languages. The app needs to be written with localization in mind, yes, but once the localized strings are tagged as such, you only need to translate the messages and put them in their appropriate directories. Just look at all the specific localizations for Safari, for example. These people dont need access to the code, just the localized.strings file.

Re:open source challenges??

[Rick Zeman]

Modded insightful? Office doesn't even support right to left languages.
Yes, it does.

Get with the flow of the discussion, chum. Office for the Mac doesn't support right to left languages. That's a big reason why Israel's government has their ban. Of course, being adjudged a monopoly was the other reason.
Yeah, the original poster should have been a touch more specific but....

Re:open source challenges??

[Trejkaz]

Klingon software is not released, it escapes! Leaving a bloody trail of quality assurance testers!

Re:open source challenges??

[davegust]

Yea, and in typical volunteer FOSS fashion, of the 79 language teams, 11 have done enough work to be considered useful. Chinese and Japanese, the two most important, are only half translated.

You can bet the 35 Office XP localizations are a bit more polished. That's what profit can do for you.

Re:open source challenges??

[zurab]

Excellent point about KDE. Just adding that you can even translate KDE apps to whatever you want on your own using a GUI app called KBabel. I also disagree that Microsoft is way ahead in internationalization - it's not. Most areas I had experience in like adjusting keyboard layouts, application support for international characters has been generally more consistent on my Linux systems than XPs.

Re:open source challenges??

[sbryant]

... MS is already light years ahead of OSS in terms of localization and supporting foreign languages.

That's not quite true. Certainly, their translated versions of Windows, Office and so on are very well done, but there's one very major problem with them: they're each separate versions.

I want English, my wife wants German. It's not possible to install a Windows box so that we both get what we want - we have to choose one and we're stuck with it. OpenOffice is the same (both Windows and Unix versions). Other software is designed to be more flexible. - see KDE, for example.

While I'm here: a lot of (non-Microsoft) Windows apps break language related things by hardcoding them. "Program Files" is "Programme" in German, and the "Startup" folder in the Start menu is called "Autostart". These names are dynamically available from the system, and it's annoying when badly coded programs put things in the wrong places.

I find it interesting that Microsoft recently refused to do Hebrew and IIRC Arabic, but suddenly announces Welsh, which doesn't have as many users. They lost business to Linux because of their earlier refusal, and I'm sure that that loss, coupled with the recent KDE announcements about Niedersaechsisch has forced a rethink.

There is a lot of work to do before OSS catches up, but there is a lot of local interest in things like translations - you don't need an IT background to get involved, which was a big barrier for many. At least one German university is actively involved in translating KDE, as part of its language studies. I'm sure that a fair amount of OSS will overtake Microsoft in this area, now that well designed frameworks are in place.

-- Steve

Northern Californian Localization

[Anonymous Coward]

The NorCal local language pack will add the words hella and and shit in as many places as it can.

"Ah man, now I get it. The help files are hella easy to understand 'n shit. So if you wanna shut down, click the start button, and select Shut Down And Shit"

Meanwhile, the Southern Californian Localization will feature such items as "Shut Down - It's Just Called Shut Down"

Re:Northern Californian Localization

[Eberlin]

SoCal could use a stereotypic smattering of "Dude" and Valleyspeak's "Like" and "Totally" if not the "Foshizzles" and "Shizznits"

On a "Help" tab that nobody uses, I wrote:

"You, um, push buttons and like stuff happens. Sometimes it's like totally cool stuff but sometimes it's like 'oh man, there's no undo button? Mega bummer!'"

Not sure if anyone has noticed it here yet.

Re:Northern Californian Localization

[aosgood]

Ebonics anyone? Does an Ebonics version exist at all for any office pack?

Re:Northern Californian Localization

[prockcore]

Sweet! And I tried to open a file that didn't exist and XP said "Dude, where's my file?"

Re:Northern Californian Localization

[Imperator]

On a "Help" tab that nobody uses, I wrote:

"You, um, push buttons and like stuff happens. Sometimes it's like totally cool stuff but sometimes it's like 'oh man, there's no undo button? Mega bummer!'"

Not sure if anyone has noticed it here yet.

Man, so that's what I miss out on by not installing the kernel-doc package.

Re:Northern Californian Localization

[Joe5678]

You can NOT have a SoCal language pack without including the work "Stoked"

right..

[SillyNickName4me]

Heh.. that sounds liek them wantign the OSS kind of workforce without payign the price...

Now there's a job I wouldn't want...

[Anonymous Coward]

...the schmoe who has to translate all the stupid shit Clippy says into other languages.

Re:Now there's a job I wouldn't want...

[Chief Technovelgist]

The open source article says "The language spoken by most Rwandans has no word for "computer" ... the Rwandan [open source] developers created their own: "mudasobwa," which roughly means "something or someone that does not make mistakes."

Microsoft should have no problem localizing in Rwanda ;)

Re:Now there's a job I wouldn't want...

[Eskarel]

While this is stupid, it's nowhere near the level of replacing the word "french" with the word "freedom" as was popular amongst Americans of the more moronic classes(not to say that people don't have the right to disapprove of the French, but that they think renaming their food is an adequate way of expressing this dislike). In any event e-mail is probably too well established to be ousted in use by any but the most arrogantly patriotic.

They'll be lucky if they can even keep their government officials using it for more than 6 months without some sort of very serious repurcussions/rewards.

Has to be asked:

[irokitt]

Where can I get my hands on these development tools so that I can start on a ROT13 version of Office?

Vg nccrnef lbh ner gelvat gb glcr n yrggre. Jbhyq lbh yvxr zr gb uryc?

Re:Has to be asked:

[el-spectre]

V'z na naablvat navzngrq cvrpr bs gva. Jnag zr gb trg orag?

Re:Has to be asked:

[J-B0nd]

For the lazy: It appears you are trying to type a letter. Would you like me to help? I'm an annoying animated piece of tin. Want me to get bent?

Re:Has to be asked:

[Idarubicin]

Vg nccrnef lbh ner gelvat gb glcr n yrggre. Jbhyq lbh yvxr zr gb uryc?

That's not ROT13; that's the Welsh localization.

And everyone knows there are two ells in 'gllcr'. :D

Hedge?

[zensufi]

I don't know exactly what this "hedge" is. Open-source software has been translated by locals for a long time already. It seems that something even more important to these locals would be the price and reliability of their machines. GNU/Linux might be the better system for them to run, given limited resources.

Re:Hedge?

[el-spectre]

Right. Acknowledging that OSS has a decent international presence, MS is trying to compete, hence the "hedge" comment.

Well

[CptChipJew]

Countries like China have local regions which don't speak either Mandarin or Cantonese, yet these are most likely the only 2 Chinese languages that Microsoft localizes their products for.

Re:Well

[kdb003]

So now they can pirate copies in their own language!

Can't resist.....

[the.jedi]

How Do you say General Protection Fault in swahili?
EEEEeeeeeeeeeee!!!!

Re:Can't resist.....

[Maserati]

[image of computer flying out an upper-story office window]

Australian for "reboot".

Re:Can't resist.....

[G-funk]

Windows has detected a balls-up in kernel32.dll. Would you like to:

(Fuck it)

(Avagoyamug)

(email the lousy poofters that wrote this software)

Freeloading

[chrispyman]

So Microsoft is giving us the priviledge of letting us translate their products for them. For some reason I don't think this will work well commercial product. You paid for it, why should you work more? Obviously for open source, it's diffrent.

Re:Freeloading

[abscondment]

sounds like a good opportunity for some mistranslations, too

>:D

Re:Freeloading

[Anonymous Coward]

I've done translations for open source projects and I'll be happy to do translations for Microsoft. My hourly rate is simply 0.1% of Bill Gates' income last year.

What Gall

[bstadil]

that government and academic developers can use to produce localized versions of the [snip] Office 2003 productivity package

For $400 a pop you would have thought they could have done this themselves.

Re:What Gall

[irokitt]

Government and Academic institutions would be more than happy to pay extra. It isn't their money.

Re:What Gall

[GMFTatsujin]

Er... as an employee of an academic institution, I really must protest.

First, you're an insensitive clod.

Second, the money that we get comes from a mix of payments made by students and funded legislated by the state. Neither of those sources are eager to part with their cash, and in order to earn it, the institution has to provide value.

Part of proviing value in our case is delivering the maximum service for the smallest outlay of cash. In other words, you're damn skippy we have to pinch our pennies, often to the point of under-funding projects, begging for grant money, and underpaying the staff and faculty. This we do in the name of providing a higher education, because there's no money to be made here. Only reputations.

The trick is to pinch the pennies in ways that appear extravegant and bold, to "show" that we're a competitive, forward-thinking institution with the future in mind.

Uhhh, how is this news?

[still_sick]

The MUI (Multi-Language User Interface) Pack has beena available for the US-English version of Windows for years.

Localized versions of Windows have been available for years as well.

Now they DARE to Localize Applications?! THOSE BASTARDS!!!

Re:Uhhh, how is this news?

[HalfFlat]

So ah, tell me. How do I convince my Japanese version of Windows XP Home to display OS messages in English?

The last time I tried to search for an answer, the only one I found was: buy an English version, back-up everything, install English version, restore from backup. This is a far cry from setting your LANG envvar.

While I'm at it, I can complain that under this version of the OS, a whole bunch of English-language software seems to have uglified small fonts, sometimes to the point of illegibility.

Oh, and how do you enter full-width katakana from the command prompt? It seems impossible. Which makes entering the localized name of the Local Area Connection tricky in netsh. (As far as I can tell, you have to cut and paste the name.)

Not to mention the way that the IME taskbar widget regularly gets obscured by other taskbar widgets making changing input settings a pain in the neck. Microsoft's own deskswitcher application is a particular offender in this regard.

Sure it has localization, but it doesn't appear to be especially well thought out (infamously bad translations aside), and certainly its internationalization quality leaves something to be desired.

Credit where credit is due

[Anonymous Coward]

Give them some credit where it is due. Microsoft has always pushed multi language support at every level long before OSS was a serious contender. All their OS API's support unicode, multi language versions of their OS's and many applications have been around a long time.

Re:Credit where credit is due

[NanoGator]

"Give them some credit where it is due. Microsoft has always pushed multi language support at every level long before OSS was a serious contender."

Isn't it cool how profit can drive a company to make their products more accessible to break into new markets?

Re:Credit where credit is due

[Tiro]

Ever tried Office on Mac OS X? If you want to use Unicode, better fire up TextEdit, the free Apple-written app, because Office won't let you use Unicode characters.

future misery

[segment]

I wonder if somewhere down the line MS will turn around and lock up users into only opening files made under a certain language something a-la DVD "scheme" (yea dual use term that word scheme). So user Wong in China creates files in China to send to his brother Ming in America. Will user Wong also have to buy an addon somewhere in the future?

Linux forced it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft didn't even want to support Icelandic,
in spite of the government wanting to fund the
whole project.

Now, with Linux supporting all sorts of weird
stuff like Welsh and a zillion Indian languages,
Microsoft is losing out in places. All those
little annoying-to-support markets add up.

Re:Linux forced it.

[Temsi]

Actually, it's not.

The old myth that Columbus thought he was in India when he came to America, is just that, a myth. Not true.

The fact is, the term Indian is actually more accurate than most people think it is.
First of all, there are no Native Americans. Never have been. Every human on earth originally came from Africa if you believe that whole evolution theory... The Indians originally came here from Asia.

The following is from George Carlin's Braindroppings, as it explains the origin of the term Indian a lot better than I can:

Native Americans are neither, and the term is an ironic slight against the people that many of us piously try to protect by revising our language. In fact, this term was invented by the Federal Department of the Interior in 1970 when they were catching grief from some Indians who were discovering their tribal identities (remember Alcatraz and Wounded Knee?). Why would an Indian feel good about an ethnic label that refers to one of their European conquerors?
Columbus did *not* call them "Indians" due to his navigational error. He called them Indians, because our Italian explorer tried expressing in Spanish his characterization of them as "Una gente in Dios." A people in God. in Dios. Indians. It's a perfectly noble and respectable term. At least he did better than our government.

Re:Linux forced it.

[donutello]

No. South Asian Indians are called that because the civilization was based around the Indus river valley. That is also the root for the word Hindu.

Native Americans/Indians were called Indians because the purpose of Columbus's excursion was to discover an alternate route to India. When they got here they realized it wasn't India but decided to call it the West Indies anyway. They also realized the people here weren't Indians but called them Red Indians.

Re:Linux forced it.

[hplasm]

Linux supports Apache, yes.

Is MS 'Seeing th Light'?

[femto]

It almost sounds like the begginings of a 'bazaar' development model (albeit a miniscule step in that direction).

So, what license is to be used for these translations, written by third parties? Will Microsoft try and demand ownership, or at least commandeer a right to unlimited use of the translation?

If it is legally possible, it would be a really interesting experiment to write a translation and release it under the GPL, then sit back and watch the reaction.

Re:Is MS 'Seeing th Light'?

[femto]

Not the whole app. Just the translations you wrote.

You would have to distribute the translations on their own and let each individual user pair it up with their copy of the MS application. It would just be a curly situation for MS if your translations became a 'defacto standard', then MS decided it wanted to officially distribute its own translated application. (Or if MS, or a local distributor, mistakenly distributed a copy of your translations with their application.)

Aren't they just outsourcing

[Stevyn]

This sounds to me like they're just outsourcing the task of translating their software to different languages to other small countries that wouldn't make it financially worth it for microsoft to do it.

Isn't that backward?

[YouHaveSnail]

Microsoft has announced plans for a program to help governments produce local language versions of key Microsoft applications

Shouldn't that be the other way around? Why should governments be doing Microsoft's work? If Microsoft wants to sell in upper Mongolia, it ought to make the effort to localize its own damn software for that market.

If you ask me, this is just one more example of Microsoft's incredible hubris.

Re:Isn't that backward?

[bomblaster]

Just another example of twisted OSS thinking.

MS is going about it in a brilliant strategic way. They realize that it is not financially worthwhile for them to do it themselves. Instead they are getting the help of user who might want to use their product.
Right now upper Mongolia doesnt have a customised version of Linux or Windows. There is nothing to stop Upper Mongolia from creating a language pack for KDE. What MS has done is to provide an alternative to that, maybe at a lower cost.

Re:Isn't that backward?

[YouHaveSnail]

Aside from costs, I think knowledge of the language is good reason for them to let local programmers write the software in their own lanuage

And considering how much Microsoft stands to make when a whole new market opens up, it might consider paying a few of those local programmers for their time.

I'm not saying that anything about this plan is stupid or even dishonest. Frankly, it's a pretty smart move, but it's also arrogant and greedy. And that's pretty much par for the course.

Profit abroad

[DryBaboon]

I'm in China and I've never seen a non-pirate version of any piece of software, including on computers of reputable companies. Not only is there no respect for copyright, there is no understanding of the concept. The increase in profit will not be that great because everyone will use the new localised software... but in pirate copies with no money going to MS... but I guess that's ok if you rate it by convenience to humanity.

Re:Profit abroad

[fermion]

I think this is about maintaining long term control of the desktop. As long as MS has this control, they can also control the protocols. As long as they can control the protocols, they can minimize threats from competitors.

For instance, if China were to start using OSS, that would mean that IE would not be dominant browser. This would mean that web designer would not just be able to buy a copy of Frontpage and use the templates to design a site, but would have use tools that could create effective content for open standards compliant browsers. Many of these designers might choose to leave MS OS and tools altogether and just use OSS. This could lead to defections in other areas as MS protocols become less dominant.

It is quite arguable that MS can afford to give away software to every person in Asia just to make sure that it's monopoly is maintained. This however would be dumping, and illegal. So, like in the 80's, they turn a blind eye to unlicensed software until the day they decide they need the money.

Re:Wow translating their software to other languag

[DaHat]

There is nothing monopolistic about making your product available to as many people/organizations/governments that you can.

Where I come from... we call this competition! You know, where different organizations tailor their products to a given market and duke it out to see who succeeds.

Just translating may not be enough...

[soullessbastard]

Disclaimer: I work on OpenOffice.org for MacOS X

Unfortunately MS fails to realize that simple translation may not be enough. Take Office v.X on the Mac for example. It's lack of full RTL and Unicode support means some languages can't be supported, even if just the interface is translated. Rubi for Japanese is another language feature that may require access to the source code itself. Not to mention other tasks like modifying their English grammar checker to support new languages...

Merely providing the ability to make a "Language Pack" and translate the strings on the screen does not provide enough access to really support foreign languages. Without full access to the source code, foreign languages will still remain second class citizens

ed

Re:Just translating may not be enough...

[Stevyn]

Not necessarily, they could break it down into a really generic format that would allow others to code new grammer settings in. I don't think you need access to everything to simply change the language around. They're not going to open it up and that's their choice. They spend the money to develop it and it's their right to keep it closed. If you don't like it, then don't buy it.

Re:Just translating may not be enough...

[soullessbastard]

Probably misunderstood terminology from my old FrameMaker days. I am not a Japanese speaker myself and am unfamiliar with what it is actually called in Japanese. From the FrameMaker 5.5 manual, page 93:

Rubi text is made up of small characters (usually kana) appearing above other text, called oyamoji. You can control the size of rubi text as well as how it is spaced and aligned with respect to its underlying oyamoji text. Your settings affect rubi text throughout a document.

While I never used it myself, I always was struck how FrameMaker offered more control over this type of text then every other application. I never saw anything like it in any other app (including OOo!).

ed

(offtopic, but I wish FrameMaker was OSS as well so I could run through and Carbonize it...)

Re:Just translating may not be enough...

[commodoresloat]

I agree. Lack of unicode support in Word can be crippling for a scholar writing about ancient Greek texts. MS simply doesn't allow such a scholar to look up ancient texts on perseus and just copy and paste a couple of lines of the Greek in a Greek font with accents. Too bad - you gotta retype every letter and hope you know the language well enough to get the accents right.

Re:Just translating may not be enough...

[soullessbastard]

I think they are well aware of what it takes.

Just because they're aware doesn't necessarily mean they take their own knowlege into account. Does Messenger support vertical text for Japanese (or AIM, or iChat for that matter...I honestly don't know)? Is the user interface assumed for these apps even usable for vertical text input and display? I know my IM text input line is at the bottom of the chat window and near assumes top to bottom text ordering.

It's easy for programmers who know no language aside from English or a Romance language to make these fundamental assumptions about language orientation. Nothing aside from changing the code or design of the program is going to help.

Mozilla still doesn't support the standard

At least Mozilla provides concerned governments or localization teams the source code to the program so they can try to fix the problem. The potential for full localization is present in OSS apps even if not yet fully realized.

ed

Dialectizer Office?

[PetoskeyGuy]

Dialectizer Wizard

Please choose a language...

( ) Elmer Fudd
( ) Redneck
( ) Jive
( ) Cockey
( ) Sweedish Chef (my favorite)
( ) Moron
( ) Pig Latin
( ) Hacker

(BTW, this is from The Dialectizer site - Microsoft currently blocks them - no sense of humor)

As if that was going to change a thing!!!

[Goeland86]

Funny that it took so long for MS to realize they'd been had... I remember a friend of mine translating KDE documentation in french about 4 years ago... Not to mention the fact that asian fonts have been almost constantly present under linux, as far as I can remember. Besides, China already has Dragon Linux, and they wouldn't switch back to windows for anything else than a nuclear war threat... and even then it'd be a tough challenge! So guess what: that's not going to make a difference in the long run. MS has lost the initiative, and they're trying to make believe they still have it... I hope we can prove they're behind the Opensource community, and have been ever since linux came to being!

OSS or best practices challenged?

[fermion]

I have worked on a couple projects that allowed language localization. If the code is designed with modern standards in mind, it was quite easy to localize (at least for western languages) as all text was kept kept in separate resource files. The same for icons, et al. On the Mac such things could be changed, from day one, by resedit, a free and very usable application. This resulted in various themes based on Bloom County and other topics. It also allowed offensive icons to be modified. Of course, Unix has been providing packages at customizable levels of complexity for more years than MS has exists.

So one wonders what kind of antiquated practices MS is using that requires a 'special' program to allow localization. Could it be that perhaps MS is not competing against OSS, but is continuing it's fight against best software engineering practices. [And I know that many at MS know how to write code. I have their books. OTOH, we see many cases where corporate and monopoly market interests contraindicate best practices.]

What about other software?

[leandrod]

When Alpha was struggling, MS helped kill it by porting only part of its portfolio, and making difficult for other people to port theirs.

Now, MS WXP and MS Office... what about countless other apps? And is it as easy for ISVs to translate theirs? Then, can they ship a binary with multilanguage built in as in POSIX systems?

And even if people could translate all that mass of software, will they do proprietary software vendors' work? Perhaps for MS Office and WXP, but I doubt for anything else.

In the end, we still have an edge here. MS actually progressed just a little.

Re:Good on Microsoft - mod PARENT UP

[Mr Very Angry]

Yes, very witty PARENT ... however, it really goes to show how Open Source has really rocked the industry (especially Microsoft),

I think this will be the first of a whole series of changes, which should be good for everyone who doesn't depend of closed IP.

BSOD

[enrico_suave]

pantalla azul de la muerte!

e.

unless i'm missing something

[ozric99]

The Amiga did this over a decade ago with it's "locale" settings. Anybody could produce a localised translation of application menus etc. In fact there are hundreds of such "locale" settings on aminet.

What languages?

[tuxlove]

Their language packs wouldn't be complete without these languages/alphabets:

- Ebonics
- Pig latin
- Esperanto
- Elvish
- Klingon
- Linear B

I guarantee you Microsoft won't support any of these. But the open source community is certainly not above it, and will surely be the only recourse for anyone needing to localize software in those languages. And I'm sure there's more I haven't named here.

If windows localization is so good

[Anonymous Coward]

why does localization in .NET suck so hard? compared to how Java handles internationalization (not perfect by the way), the support in .NET feels weak. In fact the project I'm on now has completely foregone internationalization because it isn't sufficient. Instead, there's development teams in other countries, who localize it for other languages. Often, they end up rewriting most of the application. Internationalization is hard and isn't simple, but having a good framework isn't just supporting Unicode. Supporting Unicode is the minimum requirement.

This was finally got me off Microsoft.

[wltack]

I read an account in 1999(?) detailing how the government of Iceland wrote to M$ about when they expected to develop packages to run the OS in Icelandic. M$ replied "Well, hmm, never". Not enough by itself, but I just remember that this was the straw that broke the camel's back for me.

Because, like EF Hutton...

[smittyoneeach]

...when the market speaks, even BeelzeBill listens.

Qt Linguist?

[Anonymous Coward]

So this is a lot like the Qt Linguist, right? Only Qt Linguist is here already, open source, and good for any Qt/KDE application.

Once again, Microsoft at the forefront...

Translate Everything Except....

[ptelligence]

The BSOD. It's universal.

Re:Translate Everything Except....

[EndlessNameless]

Not so... in Spanish, WinXP's IRQ_NOT_LESS_THAN_OR_EQUAL bluescreen would be QIR_NI_MENOS_NI_EGUALDAD (I think).

Even for the newest, most stable version of Windows, it is very important for users to have equal access to the content of their error messsages. Really, you ought to be more culturally sensitive.

Debian Linux Already has a lot of Language support

[cyber_rigger]

PO files in Debian for each language

http://www.debian.org/international/l10n/po/

How many new security holes?

[jenkin sear]

How many new buffer overflows will all these previously fixed-length strings introduce? A zillion?

Finally, Mi|Xro$0f7 31337 5P34k

[rock_climbing_guy]

joo MU57 4CC3PT teh T3RM5 0f 7hIs 4GR33M3N7 B4 537U9 wi11 C0N7INU3. 913453 S313C7 "I AGREE" 70 1ND1C473 joo 4CC39T teh T3rM5.

[ ] I AGREE.
[ ]I DO NOT AGREE.

How do you say "security hole" in Swahili?

[Anubis333]

What about languages that don't have direct translations for key words like "security hole", "patch", "bug", "unstable" and "hotfix"?

Re:How do you say "security hole" in Swahili?

[Mr_Icon]

Well, to re-calc back from Russian, which has had precisely this problem:

security hole: a hole in defenses (dyra v zaschite)
patch: a clothes-patch (zaplata)
bug: officially, "a problem in software," but unofficially "a hallucination" (gluk), or direct usage of English "bug"

Other fun translations:
firewall: inter-network screen of defense (mezhsetevoi ekran zaschity), though "fayervoll" is used far more commonly
hard drive: firm disk (zhestkii disk), though among techies the word "vint" is commonly used because of a very old popular brand of hard drives: Winchester.
Macintosh: that other thing they use in the US

Overall, techie jargon tends to use words directly borrowed from English, though you won't find it in official language, because when Russian techies talk, it's completely incomprehensible (Ya emu fscknul partisheny, zapatchil parochku daemonov, sdefragmentnul hard, i posle reboota vse bylo okei). :)

This reminds me of a joke: an old Russian russophile professor was complaining that his students use a lot of foreign words in their works. "Why, why did you needlessly use this English word 'slide' during your presentation? There is a wonderful Russian word for that -- 'diapositiv.'" (which, of course, is German).

Maybe it's ugly, but "fayervoll" is far easier to understand than "inter-network screen of defense," which makes you think of something uttered on Star Trek. :)

Re:How do you say "security hole" in Swahili?

[ghakko]

You could do what the US Army did with Navajo.

besh-lo (iron fish): submarine
dah-he-tih-hi (hummingbird): fighter plane
atsah-besh-le-gai (silver eagle): colonel
tsidi-ney-ye-hi (bird carrier): aircraft carrier

So ...

(laxative medicine): hotfix
(soccer ball): support request
(durian): in-house helpdesk staff
(mongoose trap): upgrade program
(Jesuit missionary): Microsoft Sales

So, while we argue about licenses...

[jarich]

While many many people debate the value of one X server's license over anothers...

While we argue and sue each other over dinosaur mascots...

While we debate Open Source versus Free Software versus GPL versus LGPL...

Microsoft is adding more features to their products...

What percentage of the desktop does MS own now? 90%? 95%?

Wonder why? I don't.

We could always stop majoring on the minors and make better software... but's that just me.

Re:So, while we argue about licenses...

[lxs]

Microsoft is adding more features to their products...

You make it sound like Microsoft is leading the pack, when in fact they are trying to catch up with the rest. All big Linux distro's have supported localisation (including the most obscure languages) for years. Mac OSX is even better in this respect, as all OSX apps support localization (you can even write your own by creating an XML file with the translated strings and adding it to the app) and uses unicode throughout, so I can just cut-and-paste Japanese text from some odd robot site from my browser into a translator and have systrans translate it for me.

Since a large proportion of desktop users is forced to use windows, this is a step in the right direction, but don't try to spin this into MS innovation hype.

I'll be impressed when windows comes multilingual out of the box like all sane operating systems (just choose your language at install time), or when it doesn't complain when I try to network two computers using the same build of the OS, but different language editions.

Re:Wow translating their software to other languag

[Anonymous Coward]

Yay! now we can get the:

pantalla azul de la muerte

(Blue Screen of Death - Spanish from the fish)

They're worried about free software

[geckoFeet]

For a while now, they've actually been producing local-language software, in a desultory and half-assed way, specifically in response to (usually much better) local-language free software. See, for ex., http://www.kyfieithu.co.uk/item.php?lg=en&item_id= 79 for Welsh, Nynorsk (the *other* Norwegian), and Catalan.

Localization is written-- not spoken...

[Anonymous Coward]

Countries like China have local regions which don't speak either Mandarin or Cantonese, yet these are most likely the only 2 Chinese languages that Microsoft localizes their products for.

Actually you're confusing the spoken language with the written language.

Most computer program uses the written language rather than the spoken language. After all, how often do you ran a program that had a southern accent...

But there are two versions of written Chinese-- they're called traditional and simplified. The latter was created in the middle of last century.

Unlike spoken Chinese, you don't have the numerous dialects to deal with. So it is a reasonable thing for Microsoft and RedHat to target just these two versions of written Chinese.

-cmh

Yes and no

[Felinoid]

Microsoft is far ahead of open source projects in terms of language support in products BUT...

There is usually a version in your local language.
Microsoft Windows China version compleate with anti-Chinese slurs.
One of the first things local governments do with open source is translate the error messages and directions into something the staff can understand.

American companys are legendary for exporting crap. They don't even begin to understand local sensibilitys and insult or piss off everyone.
Microsoft is known for ignoring the sensabilitys of people INSIDE THE UNITED STATES and end up insulting or pissing off anyone who dosen't use Microsofts products and a larg part of the people that do.
American trampling of local culture plus Microsofts apathy twords anything not directly related to Microsoft culture equals an unholy nightmare in the error messages, system prompts, docs and anything else any Windows user has to deal with on a daily basis.

American:
Hit Ctrl+Alt+Del to log in

Vogon:
Punch the guy next to you to urinate on the system

Annother example: "All your base are belonging to us"
It sounds like the bad guy is saying "We captured all your military instalations" or something like that.
Now would YOU want to deal with "All your base" every freaking time you logged in?
And that presumming you didn't bumble into a cultrally significant notion.

Picture a Vogon pushing Control then Alt then Del.. not all at once but in sequence as if Control, Alt and Del were each letters to a word.
(Did I mention Vogons are stupid?)
Purely becouse of the context...

Microsoft is offering to let local governments to do the translations instead of doing it themselfs to address cultrally significant issues in the way things are put.
Open Source projects automatcly do this becouse the translations are handled by locals.
On the other hand....
Yes most Open source projects don't support more than one language for lack of someone in a diffrent locality than the project leader.

Please help us increase our profits!

[Starky]

I can understand the spirit of community service that inspires people to volunteer their time and resources to open source localization projects.

But here we have a company with over $60 billion in the bank, pulling in more than $1 billion per month in pure profits, raking in unheard of profit margins on their products, and they are asking local and regional governments to provide them with gratis localization services.

Shameful.

Esperanto? Klingon?

[handy_vandal]

The Local Language Program will provide local and regional governments with "language interface packs" ...

Oh, so it's only "governments" that rate, hmm?

No help for the Esperanto community, I guess.

Though it wouldn't surprise me to find Microsoft courting the Klingon-speaking community ....

-kgj

Yes, so what's up with this announcement?

[Politas]

Is this MS saying "We're sick of all your complaints about incorrect rtranslations, so we're going to let you do your own translations, so we don't have to pay these translators any more."

MSS: Microsoft Support, how can I help you?
Non-US User: Hi, there are three buttons on this dialogue box I'm getting which translate to "Next", "Yes" and "Ok". How do I know which one to press?
MSS: I'm sorry, we don't support foreign language issues. Please call your local technical support and talk to your translation team.

Just enough to hold off the competition

[smiff]

Not to mention other tasks like modifying their English grammar checker to support new languages...

Microsoft is doing this to compete with Linux. Since there aren't any decent grammar checkers for Linux, they are not going to worry about it.

Re:Just enough to hold off the competition

[soullessbastard]

Check out the Link Grammar Parser. I've found it pretty good at locating erroneous phrases, but it's not perfect and doesn't have the ability to make suggestions to correct grammar. Integrating it with OOo/Neo is one of my pet projects now that it has more compatible licensing.

Getting really good grammar checking in English is difficult enough and it's a shame that other "lesser" languages like Estonian don't have tools anywhere near the caliber of those for the English language. Even if MS made all of the rules of the system are made available for folks to work within, I'd put a bet on the fact that there's some language that just can't conform to those rules. To really work with languages it may be required to extend the underlying system, not simply conform to it. Not to mention debugging such development without some type of source code/symbols/dev tools would be hell...

ed

But you can't switch languages

[26reverse]

I've been following the Welsh translations of KDE (odd hobby, I know), and they've been discussing these "Language Interface Packs". Apparently, installing them converts Windows into that language, yes. But that doesn't mean that one user can use Welsh (or French or German) and another individual use English (or German or French). So, you're locked into ONE LANGUAGE PER WORKSTATION. Other projects (like KDE) allow users to switch languages back and forth.

There's an article (in English) on their website.

There more to L18N than just translating

[ashitaka]

Years ago I sold a package called Win/V that allowed you to run native Japanese applications on Windows for Workgroups. This was significant since there was never a Japanese WfW but the Japanese users wanted the networking features.

What made Win/V different is that it didn't just modify the interface to support a different language as the MultiLingual Packs do, but added the underlying code that localized versions of applications need. This way you could run the Japanese version of Excel for example and get all the local features like rubi and Japanese dates but still be running on an English version of the OS. Embassies loved this system as the underlying OS and network would be supported from the home country.

Macs have had this for years with their Language Kits and I don't think Windows has ever matched it. What happens if you try to install Japanese Office 2K on English XP?

Re:There more to L18N than just translating

[Neo-Rio-101]

A load of junk characters equivalent to the two-byte Japanese kana characters appear on the screen, reducing the display to jibberish. That is, if you are lucky to see anything at all.

Been there and done that.

yeah, that sounds like a "microsoft innovation"

[corban.elektrolite]

m$ really knows how to sell simple (and already established) solutions as innovative, simple because their products did neglect such needs till now. the l18n issue is soooo damn old, and everyone knows that it takes such a little effort to implement (it's mostly about externalizing strings from your source and managin' formatting objects in a centre place, like dates). it's nothing what i couldn't do with my eclpise in 5 minutes. but the average business person will still think that m$ did invent the whole thing. (which they didn't, btw)

Microsoft battles Free Software in Rwanda

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's what I've heard on the street, and I could be highly inaccurate, but here it is anyway:

Some weeks ago, CNet came out with an article on localization, using Rwanda as an example.

Within a day or two, Microsoft had reps in that country, and offered the government all the MS software it wanted at $2 (US equiv) a CD. Also, resellers would get a sweet deal, to either increase profits there, or lower the cost of computers.

So, news of providing hooks to make locally localized versions seems natural. Microsoft isn't stupid, and it isn't sleeping either. These are decidedly tactical moves.

You can look at it this way, also: Competition between Linux and MSoft is resulting in a boon to poor countries: much cheaper software.

Eh..

[segfault7375]

Sounds to me like they are just trying to outsource some work. Nothing comes from MS with no strings attached :)

Re:Wow translating their software to other languag

[hdparm]

Can I still hate Microsoft, regardless?

Why doesn't Microsoft pay for it?

[Michael B. Davis]

Hi,

With all their billions in the bank, why can't they just pay for the translations? I can't believe that a government would spend resources doing translation work for Microsoft.

Of course, M$ is going to try to get away with not having to pay for it. But I doubt governments (and of course just those of relatively low-population countries) will want to assist funding for them, seeing as how they have such a huge war chest.

I feel confident that gov's will prefer to fund translation on Linux, and M$ will be forced to pay for the their own translation anyway, if they want to get into the market.

tlhIngan?

[starphish]

DichDaq pa' taH tlhIngan?

It probably has more to do with the Asian market

[Phidoux]

With a pair of Chinese and Japanese software companies developing a version of Linux for the Asian market I'm sure that M$ can already see their potential market shrinking. I'm also pretty sure that many at M$ are worried about the desktop deal that Sun has struck with China. So M$ tries to counter these moves with a language pack? I'm sure that M$ is going to have to try a lot harder than that!

Re:Your sarcasmometer is broken

[Anonymous Coward]

Sarcasmometer? Oh, that's a useful invention...

Re:+1 Insightful

[_Sprocket_]

The Parent poster made an Insightful quip - pointing out that Microsoft's advancement will no doubt draw Linux-Zealots crying foul.

Despite the fact that first bunch of posts to this thread HAVE BEEN Linux-Zealots crying foul, the parent poster gets modded down.

Where? Perhapse you'd like to post links to the "first bunch" of crying-foul posts? And keep a close eye out for claims of monopolistic or anit-competative behavior. After all, that's what the "insightful" post claimed would be the complaint (I think).

What I've seen are quips about translating clippy and the infamous BSOD. I've seen claims that this "advancement" is a reaction to Linux's current abilities. And I've seen the question of whether this kind of community effort / pro-bono work should be done for commercial software with premium fees.

So here's the counter-issue for you. The "problem" being highlighted here doesn't exist. It was a knee-jerk reaction to criticism often generated by a company who, frankly, deserves criticism.

Now - I will agree there are complaints I disagree with. Heck - there are compliments I disagree with. But please. Do us all a favor. Attack the issue at hand. Avoid sounding like the zealots you decry.

Even when you use small words.

Re:Wow translating their software to other languag

[Black Parrot]

> Can I still hate Microsoft, regardless?

Yes, in more languages than ever before.

Re:And Microsoft did the same - in 1987

[davegust]

Umm, you have to either ship a seperate language DLL for that, or you have to ship a new exe (depending on whether the string tables were in it or the dll). A localized version.

No, you don't. Win16 resources supported multiple string tables within the binary, one for each supported code page. One binary can support multiple localizations, with the Control Panel configuration specifying the default code-page for the application. The app could use the API to format dates and times. Many of the important localization tools debuted in Windows 3.1.

You're right about the dialog sizes. Dialog metrics have always been a problem, even for plain old ASCII apps.

In Win16, nothing was Unicode - they used code pages (an IBM standard I think), which did support multi-byte characters.

You also have to worry about "unsupported" characters in some language versions when you're using anything that's not unicode (CString anyone?).

CString has supported Unicode and other multi-byte sets since MFC 3.0 - when NT 3.1 was released. When was that - 1994?

I feel Microsoft finally got their act together for locale support with NT - an OS that was natively Unicode, and then with Office 2000, which properly supports Unicode. As for the defense of Win16 -- I was just rebutting the assertion that string tables are something new for Windows. They're not.

A global Linux localization effort?

[magi]

It sounds incredible to me that Microsoft actually tries to get governments to translate their software for them free, while Open Source localization groups are desperate with getting governments to participate or provide even little funding.

Perhaps we would need to organize better?

For some time, I've been trying to find out if there exists a collective effort for localizing open source software, which covers both all softwares and all locales.

Currently, we seem to have two types of localization efforts: software-specific and national efforts. For example, the major OSS softwares, such as KDE, Gnome, and OpenOffice have organized translation efforts. Then there are some national efforts. For example, in Finland, we have organized a joint national effort as a working group, which gathers the different Finnish localization teams together and aims to provide them publicity, recruiting, funding, other resources, and generally a channel for cooperation. We currently have KDE, Gnome, OpenOffice, Debian, and some other translation teams working together on common issues such as quality, vocabulary, and tools. I have noticed that there exists also some other national or language-specific efforts, such as for Arabic and South-African languages. However, I haven't found any cooperation effort between these national efforts, where we could participate.

So, what I'm looking for is a universal effort that covers both all the different localization projects for different softwares, and for the different languages (or nationalities). There exists some more-or-less generic efforts, such as the Translation Project, but those which I've seen cover only a limited set of software products (TP covers some 100 but it's still rather limited).

If you know about such an universal cover effort, please tell me.

Otherwise, perhaps the time is ripe for starting to plan for such an effort. I'm not talking about any massive organization, just a loose, light-weight organization that would serve as a center for information sharing and cooperation. Well, basicly a well-structured web portal would suffice.

I begun to wonder about this last fall, when I started designing a portal-based information system for the Finnish national localization effort and did preliminary organization analysis. I noticed that many of the tools we would need would also be useful for others. Well, of course it may be difficult to unify such tools between different efforts, as different efforts have their own preferences, but it would be nice to get to know what other efforts need and what they could contribute.

Our Finnish national effort is still slowly forming, but we are quite active in certain areas such as quality assurance. We have had one joint workshop event so far and have planned to have one twice a year (next one is scheduled for May). Last year, we produced a 26 page report about the status of different Finnish localization projects. We have also tried to make contacts with translation departments of universities. Our effort for getting funding is still in infancy.

We would very much like to share "patterns" of organizing national and software-specific efforts and serving the actual translation teams.

So, is there anyone interested in world domination?

Re:Wow translating their software to other languag

[LarsWestergren]

Now throw yer tantrum kids.

Tantrum? I'm delighted. In order to protect their monopoly on all fronts they are spreading their resources thinner and thinner in order to combat the various threats from competitors, open Source and open standards (for instance Linux, Open Office/Star Office, Java, XML, Mobile platforms) This means loss of focus, low quality, delayed releases. And hopefully their downfall.

LIPs are not full Localisation

[divec]

In Wales we have had experience of this - Microsoft recently announced that they would make a Welsh LIP available. However:

• The LIP only translates a minority of strings in the UI. OTOH most Open-Source software lets you do a full translation.
• It is monolingual - once Welsh LIP is installed, all users of that computer get the Welsh interface. This is almost useless in a country like Wales, where most businesses are bilingual. Most Open-Source software supports UI language choice at start time, or at least lets you install multiple copies for different languages.
• It is unsafe - there is no guarantee that Microsoft will continue to make this available in the future. When planning IT for a large organisation, you need more security than 2 years into the future. Open-Source licences guarantee that governments, or volunteers, will always have the power to translate software, at a predictable cost.

Having said that, it's certainly a start. I think we will see Microsoft, and other proprietary software vendors, forced to provide localisation in the future, to compete with Open-Source software which enables this.

Which will include IE and Media Player, right?

[Rogerborg]

What with them having argued so strenously (in USia and EUia) that these are "an integral part of the OS". Let's see how that assertion pans out in practice.

Microsoft feels the heat in Malaysia

[arclynx]

Few month ago, Microsoft released Bahasa Melayu (Malay Language) language pack for Windows XP and Office 2003, a clear fight against Open Source in Malaysia after they saw we do some demonstration of Red Hat, GNOME, KDE, Abiword, Nano, OpenOffice and others in Malay language during LinuxWorld Malaysia 2003.

We used the local language support fact to persuade our government to use Open Source. Now, Microsoft feel the heat and tried to pursue the same path as ours!

Shame to them! They are really a cheap imitator. ;)

Me - Fedora, Mandrake, Nano and Abiword translator

Language skins

[artymiak]

The current localization efforts are so lame. I want my language skins. Please...

Re:Wow translating their software to other languag

[rifter]

What antimonopolistic evil behaviour!

Actually customizing their products to different markets. UN FRICKIN BELIEVABLE.

Now throw yer tantrum kids.

Actually it is likely a smokescreen. Microsoft has long touted their localization efforts while in reality avoiding numerous locales even when they have lots of customers in those locales. In the case of Hebrew, they declared there would never be Hebrew language versions of their software even though the Israeli government offered to pay for the development and ultimately even to supply the developers if that is what it took. Microsoft said NO.

Now they are claiming they will work with local governments in localizing MS Software? I will believe it when I see it.

Still no English version of Windows

[Renesis]

After all these years there is still no English version of Windows or Office.

Office has an English dictionary option but the application itself is in American (U.S. English). This is the nearest a Microsoft application comes to English.

60 million speakers of English in the UK and no local translation! We still have to put up with "favorites" and "color", while even the few Welsh speakers get their own version!

Crazy!

The Register, catalan and Microsoft

[YearOfTheDragon]

The Register On Windows, Nynorsk, Sami and Catalan:
Paul Taylor writes "So why Nynorsk, and not Catalan? Little chance of the Catalans getting their own language in Office... it's not a matter of economics, it's a matter of politics. Nynorsk is an "evolution" of Norwegian as far as I know, and M$ can hide behind the "Bright Shield of Progress" and getting some merit from the overall hack community. Catalunyan is really a political matter. Solved only with Madrid's approval ... First ask yourself if they teach Catalunyan in school, see if the government in Madrid approves of a Catalunyan version of the software (or would it be common-sense just to keep ALL offices Castillian and not create issues between versions), and then see if M$ would make money out of it. Basque is another thing altogether... :| (as well as Galician, Andaluzian etc...)"

Oscar del Pozo Triscon, Softcatala writes I've read your poignantly funny (article about Microsoft Office in Nynorsk. I couldn't help laughing out loud while reading the last paragraph, a sort of call to arms to us Catalans. Well, I'm happy to report you that we have been fighting to have a powerful, honestly-priced Office suite in our language, and we have succeeded indeed. Softcatala, a not-for-profit organisation that localises free software into Catalan and advocates its use (and to which I obviously belong), localised OpenOffice 1.0 to Catalan a few months ago in cooperation with Sun Microsystems, and recently distributed 70,000 CDs with it through a Catalan newspaper. As a result, the Education Department of the Catalan Government is looking very closely to OpenOffice to replace Microsoft Office in all schools throughout the country. So, surprise, surprise, despite all previous arguments and PR rubbish, Microsoft have promised the Catalan Government a localised version of Microsoft Office this year. Of course, we all know how strongly committed Microsoft Corporation is when it comes to minority languages. So we will keep releasing Catalan versions of free software, just to prevent their very strong moral fibre to be tested by the absence of competition. By the way, we'll be glad to give technical assistance to other organisations looking to translate OpenOffice or other free software to a "non-profitable language". OpenOffice.org catalan version

Miquel Strubell writes Dear Drew, Within 24 hours of your article "Windows comes to Nynorsk" being posted on the Internet, it received coverage in Catalonia. Thank you for raising the issue once again. Microsoft translated 1.0 versions of Windows 95 and 98, which they then failed to update. These versions were not introduced into their catalogue and were extremely hard to find in the PC corner shop. They also signed a third agreement with the Catalan government, this time without an exorbitant invoice attached to it, to produce a Catalan version of Windows XP. What they didn't say was that the vesion translated would be the network format, so it turns out out that the home user has been cheated! Nynorsk has achieved a version of Office, an area where Microsoft have entrenched themselves in refusing to produce a Catalan version. Good for Nynorsk speakers! More and more Catalans are turning to alternatives such as open code products, which www.softcatala.org distribute free of charge.

BBC:Boycott threat
In both instances, Microsoft pointed to the large cost of translating computer programs.
But the Norwegians had an ace up their sleeve.
The main organisation working for the Nynorsk language got most of Norway's high schools to threaten to boycott all Microsoft software if they didn't come up with a New Norwegian version of Office.
Many more users of minority languages will no doubt be inspired to fight a renewed battle for their

Re:Wow translating their software to other languag

[gnu-generation-one]

"In the case of Hebrew, they declared there would never be Hebrew language versions of their software even though the Israeli government offered to pay for the development and ultimately even to supply the developers if that is what it took. Microsoft said NO."

In some of the better software products, you can just take the messages file and translate it yourself, without any need to request that the vendor enables that feature for you.

"Free Software", I think they call it. Hey, you even get freedom of language thrown in...

Re:Wow translating their software to other languag

[4of12]

There is nothing monopolistic about making your product available to as many people/organizations/governments that you can.

Even if you do it at a net loss to your company?

You could call that "generating goodwill" and I'm sure there will be people calling it just that. Company shareholders will tolerate some goodwill as long as they can be convinced it translates into the bottom line at some point. OTOH, I could take a fair hit of ill-will as a company as long as I was making billions of dollars per year in profits, so goodwill is only so valuable.

But having been through the school of TANSTAAFL I would be suspicious of a profit-making entity just giving something away. They don't do it without a well thought-out profit-minded reason.

The air is getting thin for Microsuck...

[Qbertino]

...I'm just wondering when they're going to openly admit that to themselves and the public.
For years I've been wondering why Microsoft doesn't join the corporate fray of OSS, on the way mixing it with their branding and doing a branding variant of the 'embrace and extend' thing they're into. After all, nobody gave a damn about licensing until MS started ranting about the GPL being anti-american and at the same time screwing up their licensing as to piss everybody off.

Anyway, I've narrowed in on some optinal answers to this question:
1) MS is to big, slow and stupid and the chiefs are to Windows-focused that they don't see the light.
--I don't think this is the real truth. It fits into a typical MS rant and would fit to a megacorporation the size of MS, but considering that they actually are a software company, and a quite succesfull one I think this answer is to simple.

2) MS couldn't care less. Even if they only hopp on in 2 years from now when they've milked the last proprietary cow, they'll just throw in a few billion, by the one or other Linux company, mix in a little DirectX and Exchange for Linux and squish RH, SuSE and Madrake along the way.
--This seems more likely. But then again, if that's their plan, they would have started this much earlier. And I dont think they could gain foothold any more, neither now or 2 years from now.

3) The MS revenue stream relys so much on markting hype and exclusive Windows branding that MS has no other choice than to take up the fight, even if they're going to lose in the end anyway. They'd rather shoot themselves than admit that OSS has them by the balls and start an ordered retreat out of the proprietary software market in the long run. Taking every money they can get on the way and pushing forth into embedded and home entertainment systems.
--I would think this to be the best answer. Yet even this way it's a dead end for MS as a monopoly. No way in hell can they stand up to a Sony & Matsushita tag team who've just decided to use Linux as their prime embeded system for home entertainment - because it's cheaper and has less lock-in.

Either way you put it, MS as the master-blaster-of-all-things-Computer is done with. They'll either manage to get the curve into a major service and embeded vendor and strengthen their strong branding in that area or they're going to end up like Commodore or something simular.
My 2 Eurocents.