Comments on: A Look at Firefox’s Localization Growth Over Time

By: Gordon P. Hemsley

Gordon P. Hemsley — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 01:38:00 +0000

For the record, this somewhat-off-topic discussion led to further discussion on Bug 356038.

By: Axel Hecht

Axel Hecht — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 11:07:04 +0000

ja-JP-mac is historic evil, and just not evil enough to die.

Script codes will come soon, if there’s something that doesn’t work, please make sure that bugs are files and CC :l10n? Thanks.

Re zh-CN vs zh-TW, those are actually country specific, as the two have different country-specific search engine setups.

By: Gordon P. Hemsley

Gordon P. Hemsley — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 08:21:53 +0000

Why is it that Mozilla is using these non-standard codes to identify their locales, anyway? In particular, I’m referring to the aforementioned ja-JP-mac/ja-JPM, as well as zh-CN/zh-TW, which I presume are really just Simplified/Traditional. If that’s the case, that is long-deprecated notation: http://www.w3.org/TR/i18n-html-tech-lang/#ri20040429.113217290

(Then again, the Properties dialog box doesn’t even recognize script codes as being such; they get the default treatment of presenting unknowns as literals. By that I mean, “en-US” gets represented as “English (United States)”, but “zh-Hant” gets represented as “Chinese (Hant)” instead of “Chinese (Traditional)” or the like.)

By: seth bindernagel

seth bindernagel — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:25:40 +0000

MBM: yes, as we all know, localization is a lot more than just translating strings. I think from a user point of view, the en-GB localization matters quite a bit, and that’s an opinion that’s supported by thousands of downloads and active users. If it weren’t much different, why would users want it?

By: MBM

MBM — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 03:08:24 +0000

I’m sure that from Mozilla’s point of view, locales like ja-JP-mac and en-GB count just like any other locale because there is work involved. But from the user’s point of view, they don’t carry the same weight as the addition of an entirely new language.

By: Fuji-san

Fuji-san — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 01:13:49 +0000

seth:
It is OK. It seems that Mozilla has not been counting any platform-specific localization. Ex. all.html:
> Japanese 日本語 3.5 Download(Win, ja) Download(Mac, ja-JP-mac) Download(Linux, ja)
I’m glad you think Japanese localizers are creating two localizations at once.

By: seth bindernagel

seth bindernagel — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 21:10:35 +0000

maybe i have been putting in too much overtime. but, thanks for the corrections. i made the change!

By: skierpage

skierpage — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 20:32:17 +0000

“Over time” here is two words. “Overtime” is the extended work hours you contribute to the localization effort in exchange for bonus pay

By: seth bindernagel

seth bindernagel — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 20:04:36 +0000

Fuji-san:

Are you sure? The Mozilla team has to build it, test it, and maintain it just like any other locale. Why would we not count this? Using that rationale, I guess we should remove en-GB? What about any future “English” localizations that might arise? These would be dialects as well.

Measurable work goes into producing this ja-JPM “localization”, so I disagree with you, it should be counted.

Adding it to the other releases is something I will update.

Thanks!

By: Fuji-san

Fuji-san — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 17:32:12 +0000

ja-JP-mac is a dialect of ja for Mac users, so you should not count it. Moreover, ja-JP-mac localization is also available for previous versions, even for Firefox 1 as ja-JPM.