| <html><head> |
| <meta HTTP-EQUIV="content-type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=UTF-8"> |
| </head> |
| <body> |
| |
| <h2><font color="#cc6600" face="Courier New, Courier, mono" size="+2">Community |
| Articles: Opinions, Interviews, Analyses</font></h2> |
| <p><a href="//lspintro.html" target="_blank">-Louis Suárez-Potts</a></p> |
| <p>25 March 2001</p> |
| <p><b>The International, II</b></p> |
| <P>Last <a href="ec15Mar.html" target="_blank">week</a>, |
| I summarized the issues at hand in the debate over what has come to be called |
| the "internationalization" of OpenOffice.org. In a nutshell, the <a href="//www-discuss/current/msg02156.html">advantage</a> |
| of "internationalizing" the site is that we might be able to bring in more developers. |
| The appeal, that is, is practical, not nationalistic. Opponents to this view |
| point out that success might be a form of failure, and rather than bringing |
| people <I>into</I> the project who would contribute to developing the software, |
| we might only end up "<a href="//www-discuss/current/msg02185.html">balkanizing</a>" |
| the project and ultimately stymie development. </P> |
| <P>The debate has been intense and productive. Numerous community members, from |
| several countries and langugaes, have participated, chief among them Bill Roth, |
| Guy Capra, Dietrich Schulten, Éric Savary, Michael S. Zick, and Adam |
| "Goolie" Gould, who clarified the issues and <a href="//www-discuss/current/msg02316.html" target="_blank">coined |
| the term for this debate</a>. Each has proposed, often in great detai (see especially |
| Mike Zick's <a href="//www-discuss/current/msg02481.html" target="_blank">comments</a>), |
| solutions to the problem of not only bringing in linguistically diverse people, |
| but how to arrange communication among the various groups whether English, German, |
| French or Korean, once they have joined the community. (You can read their interventions |
| in the <a href="//www-discuss/current/" target="_blank">discuss |
| list archives</a>.)</P> |
| <P>For the fact of the matter is that OpenOffice.org is becoming more truly international. |
| Or, perhaps I should write, we are commencing an experiment in which the international |
| constituents of OpenOffice.org will be more fully recognized. For, as I <a href="ec15Mar.html">observed |
| last week</a>, we already <I>are</I> extremely international, at least in the |
| distribution of the community. But that internationalism seems to be merely |
| an accident of geography, a sign of corporate reach, and an indication of the |
| extent to which English, for good or ill, predominates in both technical and |
| commercial communication. </P> |
| <P>That doesn't mean, however, that it is necessarily the preferred language of |
| everyone, especially for more general discussions. It may very well be the case |
| that quite a few nonnative English-language speakers feel disinclined to contribute |
| their views simply because they must wrestle with a language that, for all its |
| utility in permitting the flow of technical knowledge, is a beast to wrestle |
| with when it comes to expressing less technical things. As a consequence, we |
| may be unintentionally limiting the OpenOffice.org developer community to only |
| those developers able and willing to communicate in English.</P> |
| <P>In doing so, we are not alone. Yes, there are significant exceptions (and they |
| should provide the rule). Of these, Linux naturally stands out. The paradigmatic |
| Open Source endeavor is by and large quite international in its projects, implementations, |
| and user base. But Linux, unlike OpenOffice.org, is not corporate sponsored; |
| we can't, as a result, easily use it as a model for the evolution of a corporate-sponsored |
| Open Source project. Recently <a href="http://sourceforge.net/" target="_blank">SourceForge</a> |
| has announced a greater emphasis on providing site navigation aids to non-Anglophone |
| visitors. But SourceForge is a hosting company (similar to <a href="http://www.collab.net" target="_blank">CollabNe</a>t), |
| not a software project (such as OpenOffice.org or <a href="http://www.linux.org" target="_blank">Linux</a>). |
| It makes sense that they would provide services to as disparate community as |
| possible. </P> |
| <P>But, in the case of software projects, where coordination of effort is deemed |
| important, outside of Linux there are precious few projects that do what we |
| are seeking to accomplish (there may be more; I couldn't find any; but my research |
| was spotty). Thus, for instance, the project to which we are often compared, |
| <a href="http://www.mozilla.org" target="_blank">Mozilla.org</a>, is resolutely |
| Anglophonic. Yes, its <a href="http://www.mozilla.org/community.html" target="_blank">I18N |
| newsgroup</a>, which pertains to international issues (the "18" refers to the |
| eighteen letters in-between the "I" and the "N"), contains non-English messages, |
| some of which were wholly beyond my browser's capabilities to represent. But |
| nowhere on the Mozilla.org site did I find anything in any language other than |
| English. This doesn't mean that it doesn't exist; I just couldn’t find |
| it, and it certainly suggests a strong Anglophone bias, regardless of their |
| rather chaotically polyglot and spam-friendly (and seemingly entirely unmoderated) |
| I18N newsgroup.</P> |
| <P>So our experiment is unique, at least for a corporate-sponsored Open Source |
| project. It marks a milestone: We have achieved the point where there are enough |
| people interested in the project to create a space for their activities. We |
| are going to create a section of the site for a French component and an associated |
| list, also in French. The full details are still being worked out (and the devil |
| is in the details!), but the site will go live soon. This component will not |
| be a full duplicate of the site; rather, it will contain elements of <a href="http://www.openoffice.online.fr/" target="_blank">Guy |
| Capra's French version of OpenOffice.org</a>, and it will serve to encourage |
| Francophone participation in the community. </P> |
| <P>To emphasize, this is an experiment; a first and careful step; but if it is |
| successful, other languages will be included, and the most obvious of those |
| is German. (French has only gotten the step up--if that is the right term--because |
| Guy's site already exists, can be easily incorporated into the existing OpenOffice.org |
| site, and because Guy pressed his case hard.) Success, in this instance, will |
| be determined almost by a lack of failure (a lack, that is, of balkanization) |
| and by the entry into the site of more users, regardless of whether they are |
| Francophone or not. For the creation of the French components, as well as the |
| response by Sun to the proposal, is surely a welcome sign that OpenOffice.org |
| is a community effort. </P> |
| <P>But that effort will only remain a "community" effort--and not a chaotic mess--if |
| the community stays focused. On a functional level, the places where important |
| decisions--what Éric Savary called "<a href="//www-discuss/current/msg02405.html" target="_blank">the |
| core work"</a>--are effected will continue to operate under one language, English. |
| And on a more abstract level, community members need to have a coherent sense |
| of the goals of the project (and projects) they are working on. That is, a notion |
| of what OpenOffice.org is about, what it is doing, and where it is going. To |
| this latter end, I have proposed a<a href="//www-discuss/current/msg02467.html" target="_blank"> |
| new mission statement</a> and have asked for commentary, but that is but a start. |
| We also need an agreed-upon, up-to-date roadmap.</P> |
| <P>As always, please don't hesitate to send your comments to the <a href="//mail_list.html">discuss |
| list</a> or, if you really want, to me, <a href="mailto:louis@openoffice.org">Louis</a>.</P> |
| <P> </P> |
| <h4>Previous articles </h4> |
| <p>15 March 2001 <i><a href="ec15Mar.html">The International</a></i></p> |
| <p>9 March 2001 <i><a href="ec9Mar.html">Creating the |
| New Open Source</a></i></p> |
| <p>1 March 2001 <i><a href="ec1Mar.html" target="_blank">Interview: |
| Sander Vesik</a></i></p> |
| <p>22 February 2001 <i><a href="MSFTArticle.html">Allchin's |
| Demagoguery, by Bill Roth, guest contributor</a></i></p> |
| <p>15 February 2001 <a href="ec15Feb.html"><i>Interview |
| with Wilfredo Sánchez</i></a></p> |
| <p>9 February 2001 <a href="ec8Feb.html" target="_blank"><i>Organizing |
| Open Source</i></a></p> |
| <p>1 February 2001 <i><a href="ec1Feb.html" target="_blank">Open |
| Source and Its Culture</a></i></p> |
| <p>23 January 2001 <i><a href="communityaction.html" target="_blank">Community |
| Action</a></i></p> |
| <p>16 January 2001 <i><a href="ec16Jan01.html" target="_blank">Quo |
| Vadis OpenOffice.org?</a></i></p> |
| <p>9 January 2001 <i><a href="thebuild.html" target="_blank">The |
| 613 build: problems and opportunities</a></i></p> |
| <p>3 January 2001 <i><a href="SunsOpenDoor.html" target="_blank">Sun's |
| open door</a></i></p> |
| </body> |
| </html> |
| |
