I am sorry I missed that post yesterday... I am a Québécois (please excuse my poor English, I will excuse your inexistent French), and I must say I am quite surprised to read comments that harsh about our supposedly nazi Premier Ministre coming from people who certainly cannot supply much substance to back their obviously cliché statements. If any (unfortunate and inapropriate) parallel is to be made with that part of German history, we sure are the ones who look more like the Jews. But then again, maybe we are just about to force our views of the universe down the throat of the rest of the free world with a few kind French words and a little maple sirup. First things first : technology should serve society, not the other way around. If anybody disagrees, then another debate is in order. I certainly would argue that the language(s) of a society is a bigger social phenomenon than any technology. Languages are, in essence, the founding technology of the human species. No doubt, English is the preferred international language for business. Our laws do not intend to change that, but rather to make sure french-speaking people can live in french without prejudice here in Quebec. This is a rather subtle and gentle way of asking a minimum of "savoir-vivre" from economic imperialists, yet most of the time they just don't care. Our poor attempts at self-preservation really pale in comparison with the history of economic protectionism the USA has piled up. All of you who openly hate Microsoft for leveraging its dominance in some areas of computing to gain control over the others should seriosly look at how your whole country uses the same methods with the rest of the (economic and cultural) world, with perhaps greater succes and total impunity. But then again, have you seen many M$ employees going through that introspective process? International relations held by the USA are often closer to date rape than friendship. But then again, bitching aside, are our laws so different from those of other countries, including the USA? As an example, I am quite sure that the USA make it mandatory for products sold within its borders to be labeled in English. That might be so obvious from a market perspective that no one even realizes that the requirement is the same as in Québec for products to be labeled in french. So please, let us agree that the stupidity is shared. Basically, we are simply guilty of being outnumbered. I will be nice enough to skip on the numerous counter-examples that would show our little cultural problems really are quite benign when compared to a few minor social "issues" observable in the USA (can you say primary school shooting?). Yeah, we sure are the weird ones. Please remember that global does not, and will likely not in the forseeable future, mean all-English or USA-owned, though plans about it certainly are being laid as I write. Frédéric Jean
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I am sorry I missed that post yesterday... I am a Québécois (please excuse my poor English, I will excuse your inexistent French), and I must say I am quite surprised to read comments that harsh about our supposedly nazi Premier Ministre coming from people who certainly cannot supply much substance to back their obviously cliché statements. If any (unfortunate and inapropriate) parallel is to be made with that part of German history, we sure are the ones who look more like the Jews. But then again, maybe we are just about to force our views of the universe down the throat of the rest of the free world with a few kind French words and a little maple sirup. First things first : technology should serve society, not the other way around. If anybody disagrees, then another debate is in order. I certainly would argue that the language(s) of a society is a bigger social phenomenon than any technology. Languages are, in essence, the founding technology of the human species. No doubt, English is the preferred international language for business. Our laws do not intend to change that, but rather to make sure french-speaking people can live in french without prejudice here in Quebec. This is a rather subtle and gentle way of asking a minimum of "savoir-vivre" from economic imperialists, yet most of the time they just don't care. Our poor attempts at self-preservation really pale in comparison with the history of economic protectionism the USA has piled up. All of you who openly hate Microsoft for leveraging its dominance in some areas of computing to gain control over the others should seriosly look at how your whole country uses the same methods with the rest of the (economic and cultural) world, with perhaps greater succes and total impunity. But then again, have you seen many M$ employees going through that introspective process? International relations held by the USA are often closer to date rape than friendship. But then again, bitching aside, are our laws so different from those of other countries, including the USA? As an example, I am quite sure that the USA make it mandatory for products sold within its borders to be labeled in English. That might be so obvious from a market perspective that no one even realizes that the requirement is the same as in Québec for products to be labeled in french. So please, let us agree that the stupidity is shared. Basically, we are simply guilty of being outnumbered. I will be nice enough to skip on the numerous counter-examples that would show our little cultural problems really are quite benign when compared to a few minor social "issues" observable in the USA (can you say primary school shooting?). Yeah, we sure are the weird ones. Please remember that global does not, and will likely not in the forseeable future, mean all-English or USA-owned, though plans about it certainly are being laid as I write. Frédéric Jean