Talk:Internationalization and localization/Archives/2013

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Title

I think the current article, and probably the above essay too, is a bit to software-centric. Internationalization and localization have existed for at least 100 years, and yet the article deals with the topic from a software-engineering standpoint through-out. Of courrse, my expertise also lies in software engineering, so I'm unable to contribute a different point of view, but perhaps someoen else can. — David Remahl 04:42, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC) I agree. when i came to this page, I hoped to find some of what can be found on the Globalization page. I think this article should try and focus on the wider meaning of the word, software really is not what 90% of the world population associates with the term. TrACE666 21:39, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Then what do you propose as a title for the current material? "Internationalization and localization" is a standard term in the software industry. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:17, Jan 8, 2005 (UTC)

i18n

"Internationalization is often abbreviated as I18N (or i18n or I18n), by IBM and others, where the number 18 refers to the number of letters omitted."

After some basic counting, it was revealed to me that only 16 letters are omitted in this abbreviation, 18 being the number of letters in the whole word. However, in the next example (l10n), 10 letters are omitted. This needs to be clarified somehow. [[User:Livajo|力伟|т]] 17:02, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

So does "basic" counting mean "in base twelve"? Yes, there are 18 letters. Assuming we write all our numbers in base 10. -- Jmabel 19:16, Oct 9, 2004 (UTC)

Learn to count. I am splitting "the inside" of internationalization in groups of 3: [i nte rna tio nal iza tio n]. 6 groups * 3 chars in group = 18 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.6.160.92 (talk • contribs) 14 Jan 2006.

This discussion of i18n is really diversionary - moved to the end of the article - people surely want to read about the concept, not some discussion of l33t ways of spelling this terms. Dunxd 14:05, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

While I find this to be a6g j4n—that's "annoying jargon" to us humans—it is pervasive, especially i18n. 40,800,000 Google hits and, as you can quickly see, at least the first several dozen are pretty much all on-topic; just arbitrarily, I looked at numbers 201-220, and those were, too. - Jmabel | Talk 06:14, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Commercial link

I cut the link Quick Translation Service. It looks commercial. It also looks not terribly useful in the current state of that site. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:23, Jan 16, 2005 (UTC)

Is this not against MoS policy?

The first words of the article were recently changed from "Internationalization and localization" to "Internationalization (or internationalisation) and localization (or localisation)". Given that no human being could possibly understand one of these spellings and fail to understand the other, and given Wikipedia's relatively laissez faire policy about which dialect of English is used for any given article, isn't this counter to the Manual of Style? -- Jmabel | Talk 04:56, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)

I agree, and will revert the changes. Seriously, people, it's not that big a deal. Meelar (talk) 05:04, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)

I agree also. Maurreen 02:55, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I don't agree. My eyes go all funny when I see all the 'z's instead of the 's's. Is there no way we can make everyone happy? Sjetha 14:44, 08 Jun 2006 (UTC)

Modify the wikipedia to cope with language dialects? --Paulmorriss 15:18, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Michael Kaplan

I'm happily amused to see Michael Kaplan's blog added to the list of external links. My current contract job is with the same group he works in. One sharp guy, knows i18n about as well as anyone, and is unafraid to write (publicly!) even about shortcomings of his own employer's software. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:43, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

locale

Shall I remove the merge tag from locale? We can expand more on the various locales (ICU, glibc, bsd,etc.,), while a para about what locales is enough here. pamri 07:13, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

I think so. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:38, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

internationalization != localization

The difference between these two concepts is not simply understood by considering their literal meanings, but the approaches and practices that go into enabling a particular product for internationalization or localization. Internationalization is a process that is vastly different from localization. Internationlization includes processes and practices make a product or a service compatible or acceptable in majority of countries and economies. Adding local lingo support or local policy support is not an example of internationalization. Internationalization and localization are different concepts and more often than not in contradiction with each other. The article on internationalization deal primarily with software development where the procedures to internationalize a software are often the same as the processes to localize it. The intent and philosphy behind these concepts is nevertheless, quite different and any overlap that occurs like in the case of software, should be taken as an exceptional circumstance and not be generalized. Therefore, in my opinion the localization and internationalization pages should not be merged. Rather they should be expanded to explain the difference between the two ideas. Regards, Samarth (9 Sept 2005)

Bibliography: Internationalization of the firm

Somebody went to the trouble of making a section/bibliography "Internationalization of the firm", but I don't think it belomgs in the entry, so I'm moving it here -- 200.141.105.210 16:34, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

User Winter apparently aka User:Pilotguy posted to me -- "Regarding Internationalization and localization the bibliography should stay on the main page, since that is where most users will see it."

-- (I replied on his Talk page) -- I really do not agree. I don't think it's appropriate to have long bibliographies like this in Wikipedia articles (except for bibiographies of sources actually cited in the entries, of course). On the other hand, I'm not going to fight with you about this, since Internationalization and localization isn't a topic that I have any special interest in. I will, however, post a copy of this note to Talk:Internationalization_and_localization, in case anyone else there wants to discuss this further. Happy editing to you! -- 200.141.105.210 16:47, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Internationalization of the firm

A sphere of literature in management science focuses on the process of internationalization of the firm.

The internationalization process (Johanson & Vahlne, 1977; Davidson, 1983; Kayna & Dalgic, 1992; Andersen, 1993; Eriksson, Johanson, Majkgard, & Sharma, 1997; Erramilli, Agarwal, & Dev, 2002) involves the accumulation of strategies, intangible assets, experiential knowledge, learning, and capabilities across foreign markets (London & Hart, 2004; Rugman & Verbeke, 2004; Hoskisson et. al., 2000; Chang, 1995; Delios & Beamish, 2001; Craig & Douglas, 1995).

Andersen, O. (1993) On the internationalization process of firms: a critical analysis. Journal of International Business Studies 24, 209-232.

Chang, S.J. (1995) International expansion strategy of Japanese firms: Capability building through sequential entry. Academy of Management Journal 38, 383-408.

Craig, C.S. and Douglas, S.P. (1996) Developing strategies for global markets: an evolutionary perspective. Columbia Journal of World Business 31, 70-82.

Davidson, W.H. (1983) Market similarity and market selection: Implications for international marketing strategy. Journal of Business Research 11, 439-456.

Delios, A. and Beamish, P.W. (2001) Survival and Profitability: The Roles of Experience and Intangible Assets in Foreign Subsidiary Performance. Academy of Management Journal 44 1028-1039.

Eriksson, K., Johanson, J., Majkgard, A. and Sharma, D. (1997) Experiential Knowledge and Cost in the Internationalization Process. Journal of International Business Studies 28, 337-360.

Erramilli, M.K., Agarwal, S,. and Dev, C. (2002), Choice of Non-Equity Modes: An Organizational Capability Perspective. Journal of International Business Studies, 33, 223-242.

Hoskisson, R.E., Eden, L., Lau, C.M. and Wright, M. (2000) Strategy in emerging economies. Academy of Management Journal 43, 249-258.

Johanson, J. and Vahlne, J.E. (1977) The interantionalization process of the firm: A model of knowledge development and increasing foreign market commitments. Journal of International Business Studies 8 23-32.

Kayna, E. and Dalgic, T. (1992) Internationalization of Turkish construction companies: a lesson for third world countries? Columbia Journal of World Business 26, 60-76.

London, T. and Hart, S.L. (2004) Reinventing strategies for emerging markets: beyond the transnational model. Journal of International Business Studies 35, 350-371.

Rugman, A.M. and Verbeke, A. (2004) A perspective on regional and global strategies of multinational enterprises. Journal of International Business Studies 35, 3-19.

Profanity?

Focal points of internationalization and localization efforts include:

(...)

   * Profanity

What's does this mean? Translation of swear words? It looks like a piece of vandalism to me, but maybe I've misunderstood something... :-)
-- Steverwanda | Talk 16:06, Jan 26, 2006 (CAT)

I doubt that it is vandalism, but it could probably be spelled out. There have, in the past, been cases where an effort at translation or at porting software has accidentally resulted in culturally offensive images. Images of hand-gestures are particularly susceptible to this. - Jmabel | Talk 22:19, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

NLSO

Seems to me like we now have an awful lot about NLSO, especially because it is a project that has not yet released a product. It reads to me a little like promo. I don't necessarily object to it being there, but if we are going to describe a proposed system in such detail, shouldn't we have comparable coverage of existing systems, such as those currently shipping from Microsoft? - Jmabel | Talk 02:20, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree, the mention of NLSO is ridiculous. Nothing is using this system, and it appears to be the ramblings of one guy (who also added all the information to Wikipedia), who has released nothing useful, and likes to spell Microsoft with a "$". I'm going to remove the information. If Microsoft does have a (working, interesting) i18n/l10n system that doesn't fit into the methods currently described in the article, please do add them. piman 20:39, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

A bit too American Centric? Why not Global Design?

Hi...Just to comment that overall, this article appears to be a bit too American centric to me and the article text itself isn't 'internationalized.'

It's important to remember that Wikipedia is used Worldwide. The examples in much of this text relates in a uni-directional manner and does not appear to take into account the diversity of the English-speaking world. I exclude other languages for now only that I have only read this in English.

Where is the discussion on Simplified English? Why use contorted abbreviations with letters and numbers combined as a form of acronym that isn't even a proper acronym? This is not easy for a non-native English speaking person to decipher (for that matter as we've seen in some of the other discussion - English speaking people). It appears to me totally inappropriate to talk about this concept without keeping in the mind the global audience to which it is intended.

For that matter, it seems to me the whole notion of internationalization (in the context of these articles) begins with the fact that you create something - then DO something to it. I quote "Internationalization and localization1 are means of adapting products such as publications or software for non-native environments." Why not talk about "Global Design - the means by which you consider global implications of a publication or software for non-native environments." Or,the premise that before you put any paper to pen (or fingers to keyboard) you consider that it will be a solution designed for:

- a single language audience worldwide. - easy translation. - localization.

I understand this as a bit of symantics, but I think the nuance is important. Internationalization implies you do something later in the process than saying we are creating with a blank sheet of paper and we are going to do a 'global design' from the outset

Otherwise, it is good to have many of these well-understood concepts documented in one place. There are more we can add, though. —This unsigned comment was added by Craig Yetter (talk • contribs) 24 March 2006.

I think some of your points are well taken. On the other hand, i18n, etc., are simply common terms used in the industry; we can't ignore them. - Jmabel | Talk 06:23, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with this latter point. It may be "silly" to do this kind of abbreviation - especially "r3h" - but it is a fact of life. It's not like the author of the article made it up. Besides, it has a quite understandable basis: for those working in the field, it is unbelievably tedious to constantly write out "internationalization," etc. I18N became a natural abbreviation. I also agree that eschewing "internationalization" in favor of "global design" *might* be a good exchange in the long run; but only if it became common usage. It seems to me that wikipedia is not here to push new expressions on people, but rather to capture existing practice: descriptive, not prescriptive. It thus seems reasonable, if the term "Global design" is indeed in use in a number of places, to mention it; but from what I've seen, "internationalization" is still the generally-accepted term, and not using it because you don't like its implications does not seem like the right thing to do. fool4jesus 14:30, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree. This sentence stood out to me as written with a very US-centric worldview / grasp of English: "In some regions outside of the United States, the spelling variants internationalisation and localisation are more common." This spelling is common primarily to the US, but defines the rest of the world as being "outside of the U.S.". Xurizaemon 22:27, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

So why not just fix it rather than complaining about it? It doesn't seem so bad to me, but if you think another way of stating it would be more culturally sensitive or something, why not just change it? I seriously doubt the original writer was being intentionally US-centric, and I doubt anybody would mind being it being changed, as long as no information is removed. fool4jesus 14:30, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

External links

I removed a lot of external links that were either about localizing a specific piece of software, a specific piece of localization software, or were basically ads for localization services. But I think there's still too many, e.g. RFC 3490 should probably be in the Punycode article rather than here (and this article should reference Punycode). piman 19:08, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

There are, indeed way too many external links, including the ones embedded in the paragraph that begins "New methods are evolving all the time…" Does someone want to go on a search and destroy mission? - Jmabel | Talk 07:33, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, since the last 10 edits were external links additions, and no one seems to have cleaned it up recently I've cleaned it up by the oldfashioned method of wholesale nuking. No external links -> no linkspam :-). I saw no links that the article absolutely couldn't do without. Henrik 17:46, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Making this software-centric again

The article has lost focus. It rambles on about all sorts of unrelated things now. We should split the non-software stuff off to another article where it can't just be deleted (like the stuff about globalisation can). Chris Cunningham 10:32, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

No reply in a month. I've started on this. Chris Cunningham 14:32, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Please discuss before cutting large sections

Stagalj - please join us in the discussion before removing large sections. You've made a number of cuts which, it seems to me, were relevant and on-topic. The whole article probably needs wordsmithing from top to bottom, but, please, let's not cut out pertinent information. Let's simply rework the existing content to make it better. Your thoughts? MickeyWiki (talk) 22:33, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I do not think that the reference used to support the 'standards problems' are related directly to this subject. What I see in the reference - is just a list of the how-to-do problems - which shall be kept out of this subject. I am a professional with considerable experience in internationalizing many web applications and I find this paragraph meaningless.--Stagalj (talk) 02:36, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. i don't think that deleted material will be missed; it was mostly unsourced commentary, or duplication of existing sections. Chris Cunningham (talk) 12:12, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think we need to get into comparing resumes. I've built internationalized apps for 7 years up until 2005, so my input has at least as much merit as anyone's. The cited article, in its entirety, is about constructing an app - yes. But it directly addresses lapses in the HTML and HTTP standards (as well as the lack of browser standards). It's the source material for the paragraph. This article brought together a lot of the loose ends that had me stymied at one point. It's an important facet on the subject of internationalization and localization.

This entire article is almost completely uncited. Can we please add *something* that's verifiable? If you're gung-ho about improving the content, add citations. As it is now, it's just an editorial.MickeyWiki (talk) 21:15, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Agreed — Preceding unsigned comment added by 14.139.93.242 (talk) 11:31, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Cleanup

I renamed Methods into Practice and moved it above Difficulties. Also, removed completely

"In making software products, internationalization and localization pose challenging tasks for developers, particularly if the software is not designed from the beginning with these concerns in mind. A common practice is to separate textual data and other environment-dependent resources from the program code. Thus, supporting a different environment, ideally, only requires change in those separate resources without code modification, greatly simplifying the task."

from Difficulties for the reason that the first sentence does not sound informative at all. Content of the next two sentences is already in the Practice.--Stagalj (talk) 22:43, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

muegge's external link

Regarding the addition [1], deletion [2], restoration [3], deletion for second time [4] and more that probable restoration of the link to Uwe Muegge's website.

On favour of its inclusion of the article:

it could be included per to be considered 4) "Sites which fail to meet criteria for reliable sources yet still contain information about the subject of the article from knowledgeable sources.",

Against its inclusion:

does not appear to have info related to the article theme. It contains information especific to controlled natural language. (please indicate the location of this material if I am wrong)

it is already linked on controlled natural language and as source for a paragraph there

controlled nature language is linked right there, so anyone really interesed on it can just click on it and read that article and its long list of links including Uge Muegge's.

duplication of links. The first addition added the controlled natural language link, which was preserved on the link deletion, untouched on the re-addition, and I have also preserved. The article relevant to the topic and contains already a link to Uwe Muegge's website, so why add both the article and a link that appears on that article?.

per [Wikipedia external links guidelines, links to be avoided section] 1) it's not an unique resource for Internationalization and localization (but it could be one for the controlled natural language article) 2) unverifiable research (while its content appears to be correct, I couldn't find that he gave any verifiable sources for it. If you know where it is please tell here so we can link to it instead of linking to the main page) 4) it's to promote the website 5) it's to promote a product (CLOUT) 6) too many ads, about 19 text ads on each page (3 google ads blocks with 5 ads each and 1 block with 4 small ads) 12) it's a personal web page, and Uwe Muegge is not a recognized authority on Internationalization and localization (but he could be one for controlled natural language) 14) not directly related to the article topic

(note: this point is all speculation by me and not a proof or accussation of anything) possible conflict of interest WP:COI. All [contributions from 144.15.11.131] are to Uwe Muegge article, so I suspec it's a person very related to him (but not Uwe himself, since User:Uwe_Muegge already exists). That IP seems to belong to User:Autoterm because of the way they correct the article on the same ways, reposting the link [5] [6] but that's just speculation. If they are the same person, then the same person added the link twice. I left a message Autoterm's talk page to look at this post.

Okay, now that you are pushing so hard, I see myself forced to respond in detail, which I am typically to busy for. First of all: What makes Enric Naval an expert in L10N? I checked the last two years of his posts, and there were some in Mother's Day and the like, but none in any translation/localization related articles.

Yes, until proven otherwise, muegge.cc is the only website that is completely designed for "self translation", and it is recognized as such.

Also, if you actually read what's on the website, you'd know that 'CLOUT' is not a product, it's a set of rules, and Muegge is giving it away for free!

And yes, I wrote much of the entry on Uwe Muegge, as I have for other people, too. It's very easy to do as there is a lot of material available on this guy (just google '"uwe muegge" translation'.

Finally, before you speculate about user's identity: Why don't you disclose your's for starters. Enric Naval has no verifiable personal information whatsoever. But I guess that's how the inceptors of Wikipedia meant this space to be. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Autoterm (talk • contribs) 18:07, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

I am not the one that could be infringing WP:COI by inserting a link on wikipedia that there is suspicion I could have written myself. *You* are the one suspected of WP:COI. *You* should be proving you are not infringing WP:COI. And, sorry for being harsh, but I will revert that link insertion again because of WP:COI if you evade answering those questions, since it only makes you more suspicious of WP:COI --Enric Naval (talk) 19:28, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

I put other stuff not really related to the article on your talk page, to avoid filling this page

I updated my user page, but wikipedia is not to be edited only by experts on the matter of the topic, I'll find the reference later to that, g2g --Enric Naval (talk) 19:28, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Here's the reference WP:EXPERT Wikipedia:Expert_editors. I urge you to read it in full since it refers to all that I told you. Mind you, it's not an official policy or guideline :) --Enric Naval (talk) 09:20, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Finally, link to Uwe Muegge also belongs to controlled natural language and not here since he seems to specialize on that topic. --Enric Naval (talk) 12:57, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

One of the problems with this article is the absence of references. So if you say that the new approach of avoiding references to history and culture etc. and using a controlled language is relevant, and I haven't heard anyone disputing that, then the reference is not only relevant, too, it is absolutely required. Autoterm (talk) 14:37, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

The text does not provide any "references". it adds a few more wikilinks, but there already are a couple of wikilinks. The real references are at the bottom and cover the entire article. Wrs1864 (talk) 14:45, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

True, there is a lack of formal references in this article. Added one to meet this requirement. Autoterm (talk) 16:16, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Whoa, wait a minute: since when do references in wikipedia have to be peer reviewed? I think Enric Naval is going a little overboard here. How is an example of a self-translating website not related to localization? Please explain. Autoterm (talk) 17:09, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Since WP:V Verifiability official policy "Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy [...] In general, the most reliable sources are peer-reviewed journals", etc. It doesn't have to be "peer-reviewed" but it would help.

And the website is more an example of using controlled natural language to facilitate mechanical translation, and is not an automatic translation (the website cites it was reviewed by a human editor after mechanical translation), and mechanical translation is not the same as localization or they would be on the same article. So, no, it's not a good example for this page, especially since it would fit better on controlled natural language.

And anyways, the real problems here is: why don't you just put the link on controlled natural language where the article's topic fits better? --Enric Naval (talk) 17:46, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

P.D.: Autoterm, I posted my concerns about possible WP:COI on your talk page to avoid filling this page with stuff not directly related to the article --Enric Naval (talk) 17:46, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Finally, since the point of the website appears to be the fact that it's auto translated by a machine, i looked up Machine_translation and turns out it also has already a link to the website, so there's no need to add the link again on a less especific topic like this --Enric Naval (talk) 09:58, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Citations getting deleted - here we go again...

Can we please stop the bickering and turn this article into a well polished discussion and not a digital wasteland? A few weeks ago, large sections of this article were deleted without community involvement - including the *only* portion of it (at the time) with a citation. The lone cited paragraph was restored - then deleted again by a wikibully (wearing a pirate hat on his Talk page, no less).

Can we please start adding some legitimate third party citations first - and then improve the content with better citations? Until we add citations that stick, this article is worthless as a reference.

Peace, brothers! Let's collaborate as a community. MickeyWiki (talk) 16:11, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

For the people who arrived late, and just so we can evaluate the deleted material, the deletion you are referring to is this one? [7] and the deletion of the lone cited paragraph is this one, right? [8]. I'll try to discuss them paragraph by paragraph, so we can discuss the merits of each one on its own.

(It looks like the three paragraphs under Game localization were moved almost verbatim to Game_Localization, so those wouldn't need replacing) --Enric Naval (talk) 19:00, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

The "Software localization" paragraph on the first deletion appears to have been merged into the article introduction, so no need to restore. About, "Relation to globalization", the article is already inside the "Globalization" category, the statements on the paragraph were unsourced anyways.

Both "Product localization" and "Relation to localization" appear to have actual info not on other articles, but it's unsourced, so they could be sourced an re-added.

more possible WP:OR

I looked at the source of the lonely link paragraph, and then I just noticed that this is not the only place that Mickeywiki has insisted links to Mike Gavaghan's articles [9] [10] [11], and then I realized:

     (RL person) 'Mike' Gavaghan's == 'Mickey'wiki ('wiki'pedia user)

So I say that the reference for that paragraph is invalid for probable WP:OR Original Research so the paragraph should not be restored? --Enric Naval (talk) 19:22, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't part of the debate on game localization, so I don't know the history there. As for the other deletions, I think there's room for civil discussion. My point wasn't to address specifics. My point was that this is a community forum where many qualified contributors have the experience to add value. Unfortunately, I'm a bit reluctant to rejoin the fray since I've seen a flurry of random, unilateral edits devoid of any verifiable source. This is not a forum for new research or editorials. It's a reference guide.

Of course, I recognize it's not a link farm either - and some references deserve prompt deletion. But, with such a large body of published material on the subject, can we get some citations to backup the text? Can we add the citations without sparking an add/delete war? MickeyWiki (talk) 19:33, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Sure enough, you can add citations, but they should adhere to WP:V or they risk getting deleted by other editors independently of their usefulness. What you were doing on the lonely cited paragraph, however, was adding material whose source failed WP:V (because WP:OR is part of WP:V and you appear to fail it).

And yes, this article lacks references on the already existing text, so you should ask the editors that added the unsourced stuff about the source of their statements, or find verifiable sources for the material, or find equivalent verifiable material that can replace the unsourced statements. --Enric Naval (talk) 21:23, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

As for flurry of random unilateral edits I looked at the article history all the way back to july 2007 and I only found a bit of vandalism [12] [13], which were done by an IP, and restored here [14]. Can you point us to the edits or tell us what unsourced information was added on them? --Enric Naval (talk) 21:23, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Difference between "adaptable for different places" and "supports multiple places/global"?

I've always been confused about what I see as two different approaches to "internationalization" and "localization" and I'm not entirely sure if those terms are intended to describe both approaches or if new terms are needed to distinguish between the two.

The two approaches I see I'll refer to as "adaptable for different places" and "supports multiple places/global".

The first instance is the more traditional approach to i18n/L10n and is exemplified by software such as operating systems (not necessarily all OSs), OpenOffice, etc. where different versions of the software are produced for different locales. If you want to use the software in French, you have to install the French version. If you want to use Italian, you have to install a different version.

An online example of this approach might be eBay: there isn't one eBay that is used worldwide, there's a US eBay, a French eBay, a Taiwanese eBay, etc. They might have similarities in appearance and share some data between them (you can by from the UK on the US site), but they seem to have a separate database for listings. (At least I remember it being that way in the old days... you had to log in to each site separately to list items in different countries.)

The second approach is one application that supports multiple languages/locales, etc. The most well known application like this that jumps to my mind is Facebook -- everyone uses the same platform, but can select a different language. I.e. the software is built to support multiple languages (locales?) simultaneously.

The first seems to be the traditional way to do i18n/L10n and seems a bit easier to do -- the differences between different locales can be separated out in the code, and selected during the install/compilation process. But the first approach also means having to maintain separate sets of code, possibly having separate sets of data, etc. In the second approach, you have one set of code to maintain, one set of data, etc., but the differences between locales must live together -- something that seems a bit harder to do (i.e. an address intake form might want to change based on the country selected).

Also, the first way seems more acceptable for isolated installations -- i.e. desktop software where your installation is separate from mine. The second way is more applicable for shared installations -- online (others?). I would argue/speculate that we will be seeing more and more of this second approach coming up online as we become more "global" and more "shared platform" (you might say "Cloud"-based) -- where rather than building separate platforms for separate locales, software engineers will attempt to build one platform for *all* locales.

Are the terms "internationalization" and "localization" the proper terms for both of these approaches? Is there a need to distinguish between these two approaches? I would argue that there is... I'm currently evaluating web application frameworks and CRMs and I'm having a lot of difficulty determining which approach a particular software package takes.

Say package X is labeled as supporting i18n/L10n ... does that mean I can change the language, but only to one language at a time? Or does it mean it can handle multiple languages at the same time? Without further investigation, sometimes requiring installing the software and digging into the code, it is often impossible to tell. If there were an label saying software package X is i18n/L10n-flavor 1, vs package Y which is i18n/L10n-flavor 2, it would make a huge difference in evaluating the packages.

Lcoffin (talk) 15:34, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Suggesting article specialized in the mac localization process

Hello everyone, I'd like to suggest the inclusion of my article "The Mac Localization Process (Xcode / iOS)" as an external link or Note. I think the contents would be interesting for many users visiting this term. The URL is: http://www.localversion.com/index.php/en/localization/55-the-mac-localization-process.html I'm quite a newbie in the wikipedia, so accept my apologies in advance if this is not the correct way/place to include this proposal. Thanks! Lv 2010 (talk) 08:40, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

KDE

The article says »Since open source software can generally be freely modified and redistributed, it is more amenable to localization. The KDE project, for example, has been translated into over 100 languages.« – many of those translations are incomplete, some to quite large degrees, though. So this probably highlights more of the problems in maintaining localization during product life than the benefits of OSS in this regard (one drawback of OSS is also that it changes quite often, while translations often lag behind). This might thus be written differently, I guess. —139.30.103.9 (talk) 15:04, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

page is good — Preceding unsigned comment added by 14.139.93.242 (talk) 11:28, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

IETF Internationalization projects

Is the IETF work on Internationalization, e.g., Email Address Internationalization (eai) in the scope of this article? Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 19:24, 26 June 2013 (UTC)