Comments on: Responding to Walt’s rhetorical criticism

By: Tristan

Tristan — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 10:35:16 +0000

Great article, Seth! One thing I’d like to add here is that relying on volunteers enable us to cover languages that would not make sense to do if we were a commercial venture. I remember the Netscape days where I had to argue a lot with the management to get a version of Communicator for Spanish. Now with Firefox and the localization volunteers, we’re able to have Firefox available in the four official languages of Spain (Basque, Catalan, Galician and Spanish). I’m pretty sure that it would not make commercial sense to cover all four languages (no return on investment). But for local users, having a browser in their native language is very important, particularly if there are a small number of speakers of this language…

By: AndersH

AndersH — Sat, 30 May 2009 08:22:35 +0000

From your quotes, it seems Walts criticisms of translations are exactly the same that use to be used against open source software in the past. If he hasn’t come father than that, why is he still relevant?

And having worked on a project with professional translations into 20+ languages and seen how bad they can be, I really don’t Mozilla would have anything to gain by buying that part of the development process.

By: Kadir

Kadir — Fri, 29 May 2009 23:10:25 +0000

I loved that part. And a huge thank you to Mitchell and John, it was awesome how they turned his argument upside down. He was apparently not expecting that And it was great to see how both of them were thinking exactly the same thing. And by the way: just because you are not paid to do something, doesn’t mean you’re not an expert. It’s sad that being a volunteer is still confused with being an amateur.

By: Dan Ketterick

Dan Ketterick — Fri, 29 May 2009 22:21:58 +0000

Great response, Seth.

If I could use Firefox in another language, I’d say “keep up the good work.”

I assumed Walt would have digested “Here Comes Everybody” or “The Cluetrain Manifesto.”

By: seth bindernagel

seth bindernagel — Fri, 29 May 2009 21:31:11 +0000

Axel also weighed in on his blog:

http://blog.mozilla.com/axel/2009/05/29/the-folks-we-know/

By: Staś Małolepszy

Staś Małolepszy — Fri, 29 May 2009 21:26:06 +0000

To comment on Mossberg’s disbelief in the power of community wrt localization: the fact that the translations are made by volunteers only increases their quality. The localizers take pride in the end product they contribute to. Its popularity, visibility and the mission behind it are they real motivation, which makes them polish the translations to the very last minute, if possible. I’d argue that this is less true for the majority of commercial translators, though not all of them, obviously.

Another thing is that our localizers are also very active users, many of them using nightly builds to test both the product and its localization. So even on Saturday evening, checking movie showtimes for the night, they have their eyes open for any l10n bugs. It’s about the passion the localizers have for this project, something that’s possible thanks to the community and the volunteer spirit of it.

By: Justin Dolske

Justin Dolske — Fri, 29 May 2009 19:30:46 +0000

It’s been my impression that most “expert translation” is sub-par, so I’m glad we don’t just push the problem onto some hired company, and assume money will make it perfect.