I think International Mother Language Day is relevant to a portion of our mission -- we're not just producing open source software for free distribution to the public. But it has been our longtime practice to try to support all languages, not just the major "commercially-profitable" languages. We make an effort to support regional and minority languages as well, to help reduce the "digital divide". That is a large part of what OpenOffice is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Mother_Language_Day http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/cultural-diversity/languages-and-multilingualism/international-mother-language-day/ So maybe we should plan something for March 21st? (and a few days before as well). I'd like to avoid the problem we've had before, where there is a sudden enthusiasm to do something the day before or even the day of an event. We need to plan ahead if we want to do something. A full commemoration could involve things like: 0) Reach out to UNESCO in advance, to get information about local events, themes for 2013, etc. 1) A special blog post about the importance of support for mother languages in open source software, like Apache OpenOffice 2) Replacing our website logo with a specially designed logo for the occasion (like we did for Christmas). 3) Helping promote International Mother Language Day via our social media accounts. 4) Where local events are held, participate there, maybe even give a brief talk about AOO. 5) A contest? A challenge? Something that encourages user-submitted content? 6) A special call for volunteers? 7) Press interviews? Is anyone interested in this? Is it worth pursuing? Personally, I can help on this, but I would need someone else to volunteer to take the lead, in terms of planning and coordinating. It is not too early to start the preparations. Thanks! -Rob
