Discussions

Facing this internationalization effort, a few users expressed their concerns. Some of these doubts are presented and discussed, here.

• Smaller groups Some languages are not spoken by a very large number of people, so people speaking them sometimes consider that there may not be all that much demand such versions of GNU packages. Moreover, many people being into computers, in some countries, generally seem to prefer English versions of their software. On the other end, people might enjoy their own language a lot, and be very motivated at providing to themselves the pleasure of having their beloved GNU software speaking their mother tongue. They do themselves a personal favor, and do not pay that much attention to the number of people beneficiating of their work.
• Misinterpretation Other users are shy to push forward their own language, seeing in this some kind of misplaced propaganda. Someone thought there must be some users of the language over the networks pestering other people with it. But any spoken language is worth localization, because there are people behind the language for whom the language is important and dear to their hearts.
• Odd translations The biggest problem is to find the right translations so that everybody can understand the messages. Translations are usually a little odd. Some people get used to English, to the extent they may find translations into their own language "rather pushy, obnoxious and sometimes even hilarious." As a French speaking man, I have the experience of those instruction manuals for goods, so poorly translated in French in Korea or Taiwan... The fact is that we sometimes have to create a kind of national computer culture, and this is not easy without the collaboration of many people liking their mother tongue. This is why translations are better achieved by people knowing and loving their own language, and ready to work together at improving the results they obtain.
• Dependencies over the GPL Some people wonder if using GNU gettext necessarily brings their package under the protective wing of the GNU General Public License, when they do not want to make their program free, or want other kinds of freedom. The simplest answer is yes. The mere marking of localizable strings in a package, or conditional inclusion of a few lines for initialization, is not really including GPL'ed code. However, the localization routines themselves are under the GPL and would bring the remainder of the package under the GPL if they were distributed with it. So, I presume that, for those for which this is a problem, it could be circumvented by letting to the end installers the burden of assembling a package prepared for localization, but not providing the localization routines themselves.

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