Re: [PATCH] Use localized websites in gnome-about

[Christian Rose <menthos gnome org>]

sön 2003-10-05 klockan 22.44 skrev Carlos Perelló Marín:
> > >   IMO this is a good start, but users should also have an easy way to
> > > get from www.gnome.org to www.it.gnome.org, www.es.gnome.org,
> > > www.gnome-de.org, www.gnome.se, etc.
> > 
> > How about using those oh-so-lovely-jimmac-icons at
> > http://jimmac.musichall.cz/i.php3?ikony=60
> > for links to the national pages?
> 
> That's not valid. For example www.es.gnome.org is not a webpage about
> Spain, it's about Spanish (Spain, Mexico, Chile, etc..) so we cannot use
> a flag to identify it.
> 
> That's the same problem we have with the GTP logo :-(

And flags are sometimes also often politically and historically loaded
stuff and sometimes even downright offensive in the wrong environment
and to the wrong audience. There are many areas in the world where
showing or carrying the wrong flag can be a problem, since flags are
symbols for specific countries, or historical or current regimes(*). And
cultural ore regional offensiveness is one important part of what we
should be trying to avoid with internationalization.

The problem with the above suggestion as I see it is two-fold. One
problem is that, as Carlos points out, the role of the local GNOME web
sites is diffuse at best. Most local GNOME web sites are per-country or
at least most related to one specific country, while the Spanish one is
the other way around and per-language and country-agnostic instead.

The second problem is what method would be used for displaying the sites
and flags. Translations are almost always per-language and not
per-country, while it's the locales that are per-country. So tying a
specific site and flag to a particular translation can be very
problematic for all the reasons mentioned above. A proper solution would
have to be made on the code level by choosing on the locale instead. And
that's a bit more complex.

Any solution where this is only determined by the translation and hence
what language is used is in my opinion, unfortunately, a step back for
internationalization.


Christian