From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S264517AbTDPSIb (ORCPT ); Wed, 16 Apr 2003 14:08:31 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S264518AbTDPSIa (ORCPT ); Wed, 16 Apr 2003 14:08:30 -0400 Received: from watch.techsource.com ([209.208.48.130]:667 "EHLO techsource.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S264517AbTDPSI1 (ORCPT ); Wed, 16 Apr 2003 14:08:27 -0400 Message-ID: <3E9DA244.2030108@techsource.com> Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2003 14:34:44 -0400 From: Timothy Miller User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.0.1) Gecko/20020823 Netscape/7.0 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Bruce Harada , Linux Kernel Mailing List Subject: Re: kernel support for non-English user messages References: <3E9D688F.5040204@techsource.com> <20030417020413.49af6390.bharada@coral.ocn.ne.jp> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Bruce Harada wrote: >Suggestion: Chop your CCs. I sus pect Linus gave up on this topic a long time >ago, as (most likely) have the majority of the others. > >On Wed, 16 Apr 2003 10:28:31 -0400 >Timothy Miller wrote: > > > >>The Japanese are taught to read and write English as school children. >> They also are taught how to write their own language in Romanji, which >>is an adaptation of the Roman alphabet. >> >> > >No, they're not (taught to write Japanese in Romaji, that is). > > Perhaps I was mistaken on that. > > >> How much you want to bet that >>the Japanese use English when they write error messages? >> >> > >Well, it rather depends on the person... try setting your locale to >ja_JP.eucJP, and you might be surprised by the applications that give you >Japanese messages. Certainly, some Japanese people prefer messages in >English, but that can hardly be generalized across the entire userbase. > > Applications. Far more people work on applications than on the kernel. I'm not saying I don't think Japanese would benefit from Japanese messages. I'm saying that, in my humble estimation, i18n kernel messages would lose in the cost-benefit analysis. > > >>Linus Torvalds isn't the first Finn I've encountered who speaks, reads, >>and writes English impeccably. >> >>I've also never met a German who didn't speak English. >> >>When we have Asian vendors from various countries come visit where I >>work, even the ones who need a translator speak English better than we >>speak their language. >> >> > >My only answer is, you have only had the opportunity to meet people from >overseas who have some English ability... really, your argument is on the same >level as "I've got lots of foreign friends who all like , so all >foreigners must like ." > You make a good point. > >Bruce > > >PS: I'm against translating kernel messages, but for technical reasons (simple >== good) rather than some wild idea that everybody else in the world can >understand English. > I agree that an objective technical analysis, not personal opinion, should be the basis of our decision on this matter.