Quoting Greg Zartman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > > silly Question is anybody talking to http://free-eos.org/ about joining > > efforts? > > Charlie pointed these guys out last week. The biggest issue I see is > the language barrier. ;o) > > Greg
This really is a non issue. I have 21 translators who worked on SmoothWall GPL that are itching for something to do. We just need to organise it into a proper working convention. Every UI has issues, when I started designing SW I wasted two weeks making cool buttons in Photoshop till I remembered that not everyone speaks English. One issue is real. If you commit to languages you will slow down everything - maybe as much as 75%. You have to draw a line. You can say ok we're going to be the best kick ass server distro and its in English (never did Vax/Unix or Sco any harm...). 95% of the world realise that English IS the first language of the web and as SME is a web based distro you have to take it as red thats where to go. If you want to be critical think: 1) it's not just the UI, the libnewt installer, the help files but also any FAQ's, patch updates, CERT advisories and releases that you commit to. Don't just do the bare min. 2) realise that you havent the time (you may have the skills) to do all this AND logistically tie into dev time and release schedules. 3) that even with the best will in the world languages are important, but not as important as a kick ass distro that moves ahead fast and securely and robustly. Decisions have to be made. Thats why I took SW pure English in the end, and let IPCop go multi lingual. The difference became that we were able to kick ass and get distros out fast and helpfiles up to date quick. It enabled us to move and work diligently and to have fun doing it. The more you make this like walking through mollasses and build brick walls it becomes a pain. If every time we add a feature or a fix it needs 21 people to all commit a language text file think how long it would add. It's so not doable. Secret to this being a success: think local, behave global, and make up for the fact that some people may need a dictionary by offering them the nice warm feeling from them having just downloaded FREE product. Just my 2p worth - I have after all only done this 19 times. Richard -- Please report bugs to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] (only) to discuss security issues Support for registered customers and partners to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Searchable archive at http://www.mail-archive.com/devinfo%40lists.e-smith.org
