In going over the archives, it occurred to me that a small clarification would be useful.
In OOo-land, we had two sorts of language projects. We had the classic l10n/i18n, which dealt with localization and internationalization. We also had "native-language" projects. This second sort set up heterotopias where discussions related to joining, contributing, using OpenOffice.org could take place in the person's native language. The idea was to expedite the learning processes and to promote OOo among these linguistic groups, as well as in the regions where the language dominated. The NL projects (which were later named, "native language confederation") were immensely successful and operated as one of the best marketing and promotion efforts ever. :-) I see compelling reasons to retain this structure, therefore, as the enduser (of varying degrees of sophistication) benefits immensely from these projects. What's more, the contributor who may later become a developer, also benefits, as the native-language projects lower the bar and make it easier to join the community. Given the codebase, and given our hopes here, to have a vibrant and sustainable community within Apache, I think the inclusion of these sorts of native language projects is important, and I urge their establishment. -louis
