Dear Pascal, First of all, sorry for the long message below.
IMHO, I think the question should have a wider scope. Putting German language as example, in my previous messages I have cared about Alsatian or Saxon Transylvanian users which may want to have their phone in German, but the same could be applied for an Austrian expat who lives in Brazil and purchases a phone there. As a main point, FirefoxOS users should be able to enable any of the available Mozilla locales: https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/gaia/blob/master/locales/languages_all.json FirefoxOS works as a browser in the end, so it exposes a series of Accept-Language values: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_negotiation for telling websites and webapps which languages are to be shown. Therefore, even if the partner does not provide full translations for all possible locales, users may get them in third-party applications. As example, before Mac OS X was translated in Romanian around one year ago, users could choose that language from OS settings. This entailed that Safari displayed preferentially content available in that language and third party apps could be displayed in Romanian as far as a translation was available. In Android world, some users have been able to escape locale blockage performed by some OEM by using an app like this: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.co.c_lis.ccl.morelocale I would not like that FirefoxOS phone users will have to recur to hacks (or external app, I don't even know if that would be possible) for having their locales enabled. Default interface should allow this (maybe distinguishing between OEM 'supported' and non-supported locales). If this makes sense, UX conversation should be somewhere else… Of course, we still have the translations, specially FirefoxOS shared strings among applications (notifications or time) would remain an issue that something such as a language pack and/or fully multilocale 'vanilla' webapps installable from Mozilla could solve. In brief, regarding language in Firefox OS, I think Mozilla should enable freedom of choice for users beyond what open source 'per se' offers. Best, Al 20/01/13 01:11, En/na Pascal Finette | Mozilla ha escrit: > Dear Toni, > > Thank you for taking the time to explain - makes perfect sense and I > believe I get it now. So this seems to be (at least partly) a question > of: In which countries will FxOS phones ship and making sure we support > all languages in those countries? > > Warmly, > P > > > On Sat, Jan 19, 2013 at 10:29 AM, Toni Hermoso Pulido > <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > > Al 19/01/13 17:59, En/na Pascal Finette | Mozilla ha escrit: > > Hi, > > > > The builds shipped with the phones are the ones with fewer locales, > >> which is the main concern for localizers. And also my main concern to > >> discuss here if this is something OEMs are asking us to do and if > so, why. > > > > > > I am not 100% sure I understand the specific concern around Telco's > > shipping (only) a specific set of locales tailored to the market > they sell > > the phone in. As this is a piece of hardware which is tied to a > Telco and > > sold only in one market - why would you want to have all possible > languages > > on the phone? If, say a Telco would sell the phone in Russia > > (hypothetically), that particular phone would only be sold and used in > > Russia (as it's tied to the specific Telco). You would want to > have all > > languages on the phone which are relevant to that market (plus > probably a > > set of "global" languages such as English, Spanish, etc) - but why > would it > > matter that you have Scottish Gaelic on the phone? > > > > I would love to understand that concern better. > > > > Hello all, > > first of all, thanks to Nukeador for bringing the issue here. > Let me help you to understand a bit the concerns from a point of view of > a speaker of a minorised (not necessarily minor) language. > > As example of what Ruben explains, I can tell you about what happened a > few months ago with some Android-shipped Samsung devices in Spain. Even > Android was localised in Catalan for long enough, the company didn't > ship it in that language in the Spain market for whatsoever reason > > (http://www.324.cat/noticia/1665832/ciencia/Samsung-Espanya-veta-el-catala-als-mobils) > After that, there was a public outcry and, AFAIK, new Samsung devices > are currently shipped in Catalan. However, I'm not sure if other > potential languages (in the Spanish market) were lucky enough to be > included as well. > > Focusing on Mozilla, assuming that there is a partnership involved > —ergo, Firefox brand and logos are used—, can we know whether a FirefoOS > phone to be shipped in UK will include Scottish Gaelic? And, let's say, > the same for Ligurian in Italy? > I can understand that some telcos or third parties may not have > 'resources'/will to translate their own extra/custom apps in these > languages, but I think there should be an easy way that interested users > might enable these locales (and ideally also have their localised > vanilla apps). Third parties might always offer a disclaimer of not > having a fully localised experience for some locales but, at least, I > think they should not block/remove them. > Allowing these locales to be enabled, you are also facilitating that a > webapp ecosystem considering these languages can exist. > > From a localiser point of view, I would love to have a clearer idea of > the real product expectations for the different involved locales. As you > can understand, telling our voluntary localisers that their > contributions might end up being only accessible to a super-reduced > geeky public does not help to motivate them. -- Toni Hermoso Pulido http://www.cau.cat _______________________________________________ governance mailing list [email protected] https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance
