Michelle Olson wrote On 01/17/06 15:02,: > But _why_? Why is it Sun style to use US English? My guess is that we use US > English spelling because that is the standard required by our translation > tools. Am I correct? >
Steff's out of lurking mode. For you in the Open Source community, I'm a tech writer at Sun who works with Michelle Olson. It's been my understanding that Sun style requires US English because Sun's business license, stemming from way back in 1982, designates that Sun does business in US English. This was an issue in the early 1990s, when Sun opened a plant in Grenoble, France. Although the plant was in France, official business meetings were conducted in English. In your own office in Grenoble you could speak the language variant of your choice, of course. The documentation team in Grenoble authored their documents in US English, a bit of a trial because most of the writers were from the UK and Ireland. Today the tech writing team in India is required to turn out final documents in US English. I hope this helps. A legal rep from Sun could probably give you a more definitive answer. - Stephanie Brucker
