Richard, I see your point, but I still disagree.
The large multinationals will probably have an English language requirement in their purchasing spec. But what does it hurt if a (local) Japanese or French coproation uses local language exclusively? Rainer > -----Original Message----- > From: Richard E. Perlotto II [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Monday, July 21, 2003 6:56 PM > To: Rainer Gerhards > Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; 'Andrew Ross' > Subject: RE: Syslog Internationalization /UDP > > > I was not arguing in favor of locking the spec for English > text only, but that the spec that we write must have > conditions on how the internationalization is utilized so > that it is all done consistently. I wanted to bring up the > issue of having a multitude of character sets now available > and to ensure that we are not compounding the problem. > > Because of the current market, you can assume that all > devices will be used all over the world. This means that > those in Argentina are very likely to be using devices from > China. If the logs are set for Chinese, then they will be > useless for those attempting use the logs. > > I just want to make sure that whatever we suggest it is > actually useful and will work across the board. French just > for the sake of French is not sufficient. > > > Richard > > -----Original Message----- > From: Rainer Gerhards [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Monday, July 21, 2003 12:51 AM > To: Richard E. Perlotto II > Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Andrew Ross > Subject: RE: Syslog Internationalization /UDP > > > Richard, > > > While I agree that some sort of internationalization would > be good, we > > lose the most important part of logging and that is a > certain amount > > of expected output. Will German devices only start > producing logs in > > German? Japanese devices in only Japanese? > > > > Whatever we propose will need to be able to be useable to > the majority > > but extensible enough such that those with non-English > character sets > > can still gain more than what is currently available. Do > we require > > these types of devices to be able to produce two types of logging > > output? We need something in between the two solutions. > > I would like to stress one motivation behind > internationalization. I think there are two motivations behind this: > > #1 local names > Local computer and user names are not uncommon at least in > the European environment (I am not sure about Asia). What > happens is we have an otherwise English message, but it will > pick up some local e.g. system name with non US ANSI > characters. Right now, this is simply not supported in any of > the standards. In reality, most syslog clients (I > know) don't care and send 8 bit data. With I18N, we can > easily and "cleanly" include these local characters into our > language stream. > > #2 localized messages > In my point of view, this is radically different from #1. > Here, the whole message is local text and English is > potentially totally absent. The motivation behind this is > obviously to make the message understandable to some > non-English speaking folks. I agree that this poses a big > problem to log analysers - they must support different > languages in their parsing. However, it may not pose a > problem to human readers... > > I think it is very dangerous to assume that everyone in IT > speaks English and does so fluently. Granted, if you are with > an international vendor OR with an international > organization, chances are good you are not hired if you don't > speak English. But even then, I guess (no real > knowledge) that if you are with a French multinational, you > may need to speak French as the official first language. > > However, as soon as you leave the multinationals, things > change dramatically. You may find it surprisingly how few > admins - even in large organizations - do not or only very > weak speak English. I know this for sure for Germany and have > the strong feeling it is also the case for Japan. My > experience also tells me it is most probably the case in > China, France, Italy and Spain. I don't have any real-world > backed experience with other countries, but I assume you > could easily extend the list. So I think we must be *very > careful* when saying that non-English messages pose a > problem. In fact, for those people, the English messages are > useless. And keep in mind this goup of people is by far > larger in size than the "mutlinational admins". So I would > not jump on the wagon to say "it must be English to be good" > (sorry for over-stressing the point a bit too much - my > intension is to make the point very clearly visible). > > Given this philosophy, I honestly don't have any problem with > Japanese devices only emiting Japanese messages and German > ones only German. These message will make far more sense to > those in the native language environment. Even think about > low-end home users strugling with the routers... > > I think we should provide the necessary standard enabling > vendors to create such devices. Then, let them (or better: > the market) decide if it actually makes sense to them. Right > now, we have *no* standard and do not leave the vendor any > option to do this in a standards-compliant way. What happens? > Everybody emiting local messages does it in a non-conformant way. > > I firmly believe: We can't and shouldn't tell vendors and > customers their choice of doing logging. If they like local > logs in multiple languages, let them do it. If they don't do > that for good reasons, that's fine. But if we do not provide > a solution to do it, they'll do it their own (and > vendor-specific) way. Remeber: ultimately, it is not the ISO > or IETF or evel local government (and least in the free world > ;)) that tells them what the have to do: they decide > themselfs based on market needs. The only thing we can do to > get it in an interoperable way is to help them with a > standard. Fortunatley, really bad ideas are sorted out > quickly in the market ;) > > Comments? > > Rainer > > > >
