Slashdot Mirror
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."
The annual National Geographic Survey had thrown up the sad fact that only 23 out of 56 young Americans knew the whereabouts of the Pacific Ocean
Oh, cry me a river--like the Pacific Ocean is some big, important thing. I mean, you need to drive all the way to Sweden just to see it!
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
"Marge, anyone could miss Canada. All tucked away down there."
Perhaps the best known...was a colour-coded world map showing time zones, which showed the disputed Jammu-Kashmir region as not being in India...The mistake led to the whole of the Windows 95 operating system being banned in the country, losing large sales. For its replacement, Microsoft, Office 97, Microsoft removed the colour coding and sold 100,000 copies in India.
Office 97 replaced Windows 95? Yikes.
Cheers,
Ian
...they're failure to keep up with global geopolitical madness.
Most of the examples listed were problems that cropped up due to political reasons, not due to a lack of geography knowledge. No matter how you draw a map, where you place Kashmir is going to offend someone. The West Bank and the Gaza Strip are going to be contenious no matter where you place them. Microsoft did the only reasonable thing, they drew the maps to the favor of the richer countries (the ones that buy their software). Sorry Pakistan, no disputed territories for you.
I read the internet for the articles.
From the article, it seems that Microsoft programmers have gotten in trouble because... wait for it... THEY READ A MAP. That's right, THEY READ A MAP. The results of their map reading have lead them into several political situations that there was little possibility of them being aware of. (Talk to the ***holes who make this stuff illegal and ARREST foreigners for READING A MAP.)
Americans may have a poor understanding of Geography, but I don't really see that being an issue in this case. All Microsoft could have done is more thoroughly research the area.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Pacific islanders objected to the label "Here be Dragons!".
Several Arab countries resented being called either "Oil" or "Just terrorists".
Several former Soviet Bloc and Warsaw Pact countries objected to the name of their countries being followed by "(or whatever they are calling themselves this week)."
${YEAR+1} is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop!
As much as we'd all like to think that this is just a case of MS screwing up again, I'm pretty sure this isn't just an MS problem. Besides, the article talks not just about simple geography, but of mistakes made about highly disputed geographic regions. There are a few in there where microsoft could have gone either way and still offended someone. Granted, stuff like that should have been checked, but the mistakes really aren't as simple as the post makes them out to be.
...no two people are not on fire.
Insensitive computer programmers with little knowledge of geography
If you read the article, you'll see the computer programmer's problems have nothing to do with geography... and everything to do with understanding and respecting differences in the cultures that may purchase MSFT products. I think showing the programmers where the Pacific Ocean is isn't going to do very much to make the software more culturally acceptable.
It's not like MS specifically hires programmers who have no clue where the Pacific Ocean is.
I hope not. Especially since Seattle is essentially on the Pacific Ocean.!
Things to do today: See list of things to do yesterday
Although something rings true in this about many USA citizens not having a 'global' view (World Series Baseball, World Wide Wrestling....erm, I don't think these are worldwide sports actually!), many of the points in this article would not be known without some pretty thorough investigation of political/geographical interests.
I did partly RTFA, and unless I'm way off on my understanding, Microsoft is blaming their lost business on people who have little right to be blamed for what they are being blamed for. Do the programmers really need to know about the world affairs - I thought that would be the job of the marketing or PR people.
Anyone else have a problem with governments detaining software engineers for something as trivial as a mis-marked map?
There are over 30,000,000 functional illiterates here in the United States. 29,302,757 represents 10% of our population, rendering that a staggering figure.
And because it has been widely speculated that they are more responsive to advertising than any other demographic, the networks are probably catering to them.
Do you like German cars?
...I'm going to rant. :P
Usually, I'm an american that makes every effort to be understanding of cultures different than my own, and to try to understand why it is that the US is frowned upon by other cultures. We have a foreign exchange intern here from Europe right now, and we've had long conversations about why and how americans take their relative wealth for granted (even our citizens on welfare tend to be wealthier than many in smaller european countries!)
But this...this isn't a lack of sensitivity on Microsoft's part. It's a lack of toleration on the part of other cultures. Knowing full-well that this software was written by programmers of another culture, there should be a degree of toleration and patience that goes along with the process. Make the developer aware of the issue and give them a chance to fix it.
Honestly, if someone in another culture (India perhaps?) that wasn't sufficiently versed in US geography made a map that, oh...I don't know, put St. Louis in Illinois rather than Missouri, or show the Arch crossing the Mississippi River or something equally stupid, I suppose some might be offended (I can think of other, more controversial examples...), but more than likely we'd give them the chance to fix it first.
Americans may be stuck up, take a WHOLE lot of freedoms for granted, have lots of money, and think too highly of themselves at times to bother learning about other cultures, but I'll give you one thing:
Even some of the most annoying pricks I know seem to be more tolerant than some other cultures are to the average Joe. How pathetic is that?
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
There are over 30,000,000 functional illiterates here in the United States. 29,302,757 represents 10% of our population, rendering that a staggering figure.
Yes and one of them is your President!
.
[/sarcasm]
Re: the grandparent post, that quote from the article got me too. I was wondering if they were showing an upside down map or something...
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
Yes and one of them is your President!
"To the C students, I say, 'You too can be president of the United States.'" - George W. Bush, 2001
Do you like German cars?
I mean, really, how is a programmer in the states supposed to know that a valid spanish word, used in the spanish version of the program, is an insult in central america?
This sounds much more like a "lets point out all the funny fuckups from M$" article, and much less a diatribe on the difficulties of writing international software. Yes, they've made a few mistakes, and the occasional horrid judgement call (I mean, really, insulting all of Islam? Well, at least now we know better...). But some things, like the evil spanish word, referring to breakaway states as countries in their own right, or other such silliness, are just an "oops", where you wouldn't expect them to rightfully know better.
On that note though, what's up with the rabid nations emasculating anyone who dares suggest that Kashmir or Taiwan are separate countries? I generally find foreign media less crazy than US, but try reading an article from a chinese newspaper on taiwan sometime... it's almost frighteningly evangelical in it's belief.
And, finally... come on, AoE2? I thought the muslims replacing the churches was a cute touch, not insulting... I mean, it's a game, you have to change the game elements to fit the theme of whoever is winning... and you wouldn't expect westerners to know the details of how the muslims handled conquered peoples and their religion during the crusades...
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
Actually this needs yet another correction in a long successions of trying to shut down this myth.
the NoVa story isn't true, see Snopes for details http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/nova.asp
A game called Age of Empires 2 offended the Saudi Arabian authorities because it showed victorious Muslim armies turning churches into mosques. The game was withdrawn from sale in the kingdom
*cough*hagia sophia*cough*
Here in Canada, we consider this color as "puke yellow", not "IT color". What a geographical mistake!
I will not stop until the color changes!
perception is reality
The article made it out to be very negative to Microsoft, when in fact most of the problems seemed to be government pissing matches. A few examples include refering to the "Republic of Tawain", which everyone but China recognizes, or making mention of the disputed Kashmir region, which 3 different countries seem to believe belongs to them.
Notice that the fix for these problems wasn't to fix the map in windows, but to remove it entirely. That shows that it wasn't an "error in geography" on MS's part but that you can't get 2 governments to agree on geography and Microsoft was stuck in the middle.
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.
- Kevin B. McCarty
Come on - a US product is getting flamed for not knowing every fucking quirk of all other countries religeons, customs, languages, etc... I dont love MS by any stretch, but this is ridiculous - if you dont like it, dont fucking buy it.
And people didn't fucking buy it and so Microsoft fucking changed their fucking code so that the fucking people would fucking again buy the fucking product.
I mean its hard enough, isn't it?
All those pointers and 0 based arithmetic. I swear if I ever have to write another link-list routine, I'll go postal.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
The writer talks about how the average person has trouble with minor challenges in geography (true enough), but then goes on to talk about Microsoft programmers:
1, Not knowing where Jammu-Kashmir is, exactly, and not knowing that Indian law prohibits considering it part of anything but India. (Never mind that the law has its own counterpart in Pakistan; you can't avoid breaking the law on this one.)
2, In a similar vein, having to offend Kurds so as not to offend the Turks with regard to the depiction of Kurdistan.
3, Offending the Saudis by showing churches turned into mosques by invading Muslim armies...never mind that the exact opposite happens when a Christian army takes over a mosque in the game.
4, Didn't know that "woman" in one dialect of Spanish means "bitch" in another.
None of these things seem to me to be so hard to imagine. Do Nicaraguans know that the word "cracker" can be used as a racist term here? Do Indians know that the Argentines go completely apeshit when you refer to the Faulkand Islands as such, rather than by their preferred name for them? And his assertion that Microsoft leaves their employees facing arrest in other countries seems baseless; he didn't mention a single instance. The worst he came up with was "questioned," and that was for calling Taiwan by it's real name. It's not Microsoft's fault that China has a wild hair up their ass over that one, either.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
http://weblogs.asp.net/oldnewthing/archive/2003/08 /22/54679.aspx
The time zone map met a similar fate. The Indian government threatened to ban all Microsoft software from the country because we assigned a disputed region to Pakistan in the time zone map. (Any map that depicts an unfavorable border must bear a government stamp warning the end-user that the borders are incorrect. You can't stamp software.) We had to make a special version of Windows 95 for them.
Geopolitics is a very sensitive subject.
Not All Who Wander Are Lost
My favorite stat is that %25 of US citizens think New Mexico is not a state.
Just imagine if someone invaded New Mexico and 25% of America were upset that we were sending troops there.
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
"A game called Age of Empires 2 offended the Saudi Arabian authorities because it showed victorious Muslim armies turning churches into mosques. The game was withdrawn from sale in the kingdom."
Just as a minor, semi-offtopic comment: Um, wasn't that precisely what happened to the Hagia Sofia? You can still see the faint traces of the crosses that were removed when the whole thing was turned into a Mosque. So even if turning churches into mosques wasn't normal practice, it did happen. To quote from a website about the Hagia Sophia:
"On Tuesday, May 29, 1453, Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror entered the vanquished city late in the afternoon and rode to Hagia Sophia. He was amazed at its beauty and decided to convert the Cathedral into his imperial mosque."
(Disclaimer: No, I'm not trying to be inflammatory about religion, I'm just making a historical point.)
When I hear the word "Slave" the first thing that comes to mind is white women with blonde hair and big tits dressed up in leather that doesn't cover any of their goodies and strapped to a cross or something.
Primary is the first IDE bus, and Secondary is the second one. You'd have Primary Primary, Primary Secondary, Secondary Primary, and Secondary Secondary. You don't think that would be confusing? I thought this was news for nerds.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Think about this for a second.
You are comparing ignorance of regional districts *within* a country (states) to ignorance of major world countries as a whole.
Europeans not knowing where Florida is is a totally different thing to Americans not knowing where Sweeden is. One os a district, the other is a country.
If you think Europeans should know where Florida is, then that means that Americans should know where South Wales is in the UK. Good luck on *that*.
It is pretty much accepted knowledge worldwide that the vast majority of the US population has little concern with anything beyond its own borders. Just watch your average american 6'oclock newscast and count the international references. Compared to other countries' newscasts it should be embarassing.
A game called Age of Empires 2 offended the Saudi Arabian authorities because it showed victorious Muslim armies turning churches into mosques. The game was withdrawn from sale in the kingdom
I've been to some mosques that were converted from churches after wars. I even have pictures. This happened. I could understand how some Christians could get a little miffed. Could someone explain how it is offensive to Muslims?
Also, the geography "mistakes" in the article appear to be more policitical in nature than some developer not knowing where the Pacific Ocean is. Would I expect some developer in China to know about the controverial border between Michigan and Ohio that led to the Toldeo (Ohio) War?
Speak truth to power.
If you don't intend to design for the quirks, languages, etc. of other countries, then don't market your product there. I think the UK would be pretty upset if a US auto manufacturer marketed a car over there that wouldn't drive on the left side of the road! And McDonald's would have serious issues with folks in India if they started selling hamburgers instead of vegetarian burgers they sell there now.
By not taking into account the differences between countries, Microsoft is sending a very broad message that they really don't know their market - something any first year business student can tell you is just plain dumb.
It is not the programmer's responsibility to be aware of these things. Public relations people should be there to supply them with information as well as check products before they are done. Programmers are paid to program, not be familiar with customs of other countries.
None of us like companies to become political agents in the world- but just doing business in certain parts of the world makes political statements- even if self-serving ones.
Logic, macros, and more
This is a good trick for you females. (There ARE some on /., dammit!)
A very attractive, accomplished, intelligent woman played a prank on me. As a party game, she had me close my eyes and trace the outline of "the ideal woman". I figured the game was to get the guy to lose track and laugh at the deformed outline. Something along the lines of "Her breasts are 2 feet above her neck!"
So I concentraited very hard.
"Ok, show where her eyes are."
"Show where her nose is."
"Show where her hair comes down to."
"Show where her breasts are and their approximate size"
"Show where her navel is."
"Show where her waist is."
"Show where her hips are."
I was focussing really hard as the bits got closer together, sure I was creating a monster.
"Show where her vagina is."
I put my finger out and felt a warm, moist cavity.
I fell over laughing - she'd knelt and put her mouth on my finger. I was pretty surprised. And a bit embarrassed.
A few years ago I met a seemingly worldly American in Australia (while the country was engaged in constitutional debate over getting rid of a foreign monarchy). He eanestly asked me, "Do you think Democracy would work here?"