Writing Software for Worldwide Distribution Proves Difficult

lupa1420 writes "Insensitive computer programmers with little knowledge of geography have cost the giant Microsoft company hundreds of millions of dollars in lost business and led hapless company employees to be arrested by offended governments."

Comments

Re:obligatory simpson quote.

[kbmccarty]

in true slashdot bashing style. Haha!
i kinda wonder if linux offends accidentally or not tho.

Actually, the well-known Debian developer Herbert Xu resigned recently due to being offended by project members discussing (in the context of the new Debian installer) whether or not to refer to Taiwan as "Taiwan, Province of China" as it is officially designated in ISO 3166.

So this sort of problem is certainly not restricted to commercial or proprietary software.

Re:Of course not!

[LaCosaNostradamus]

Once people decided that the spin axis itself would be vertical, then N or S being up was a coin flip. In that sense, it was arbitrary, but one or the other had to be chosen; hence, not arbitrary, but inevitable.

But let's say further that you were a globe-maker from the 1800s. Since we have gravity, hence mounts, and simple mounts at that, then your globes had to have a set orientation when placed in a room. Which way up would you have chosen? Yes, that's right, North ... so that all the important geography (as far as your European heritage would be concerned) would be clearly seen from the room light falling from above.

One thing which mystifies me is why the spin axis was chosen to be vertical. If the axis were horizontal, the light used in illuminating rooms would fall on the globe as the sun's rays do ... essentially perpendicular to the equator. There must be some sort of uppedness bias when reading a round object; perhaps linked to the orientation of ancient scrolls.