Re: I18n recharter should address localizability

Hi, Tex, et al.,
I really think that you've raised some critical issues here. I'm in the
process of writing one of my recurring articles on language industry
standards, and am tracking the W3C i18n evaluation of its mission at the
same time that LISA/OSCAR is trying to redefine its goals for the near term.
Whenever I delve into these issues I'm struck by the activity that's going
on in a variety of venues, which brings up concerns about long-term
interoperability of different standards efforts. There's even the problem of
providing information in such a way that everybody involved knows what other
players are up to. I see duplicated effort in some regards (not right here,
but in some other areas), and the initiation of very similar projects in
different contexts. Duelling standards sometimes evolve and
inter-organizational rivalries sometimes exist (Group X members for instance
may represent companies that stormed out of Group Y at some time in the past
...). Somewhere we need to have an entity that if nothing else keeps track
of what's going on and monitors interoperability issues. Heaven save us from
anything like a cohort of "standards police", but the diversity of projects
that are out there underscores a real need for the kind of liaison you are
suggesting.

Lurking as usual
Sue Ellen



----- Original Message -----
From: "Tex Texin" <tex@xencraft.com>
To: <www-international@w3.org>
Cc: "Yves Savourel" <ysavourel@translate.com>
Sent: Friday, July 16, 2004 2:20 AM
Subject: I18n recharter should address localizability


>
> The technologies of the W3C have become very sophisticated, enabling the
> development of complex, powerful applications. Although these technologies
make
> some provision for language and culture through the internationalization
> efforts of the organization, it is not at all obvious or easy to
efficiently
> localize applications using these technologies.
>
> There are no guidelines within the W3C for architecting applications, or
for
> that matter designing W3C specifications, to insure
> localizability, or recommendations for processes supporting localization
of
> applications.
>
> This is a significant deficiency. There have been some external efforts,
such
> as XLIFF and TMX, which make use of XML in support of exchanging
localization
> data, but that does not address insuring that the design of an application
> supports localization of that application. Application developers are
> discovering when they face their first localization effort that some
> rearchitecting is called for. Other technologies and platforms for
development
> of applications come with a recommended architecture and support for
> localization, so that if the recommendations are adhered to, the
application
> can be efficiently localized.
>
> Web Services is certainly an area where localization requirements will be
> significant and this is exemplified in the Web Services
Internationalization
> Usage Scenarios draft
> (http://www.w3.org/International/ws/ws-i18n-scenarios-edit/Overview.html).
>
> There are some industry experts that are developing guidelines for using
XML so
> that contents can be localized. Yves Savourel (ENLASO) has published
> information in that regard. (See his paper in the next Unicode conference
> http://www.unicode.org/iuc/iuc26/abstracts.html#a006). Richard Ishida
(W3C) has
> published localization considerations for DTD design. However, the W3C
should
> raise awareness within its organization of the need for specifications to
> support efficient localization in proposed technologies, and there should
be
> architectural recommendations for achieving this.
>
> To accomplish this, some resources need to be allocated to work on it.
Either
> the I18n working group or perhaps a separate Localization Working group
should
> be tasked with defining requirements, and recommending appropriate
localization
> architectures. A separate group or task force may be called for, as the
skills
> and tasks for localization may be different from those used for i18n.
>
> There should be liasions between the localization group and the other
standards
> organizations in the localization and linguistics space and coordination
with
> related standards e.g. XLIFF, TMX, etc.
>
> The team should have some members that are experienced with localization
of
> documents and applications.
>
> Please consider this in the rechartering of the i18n wg.
>
> tex
>
> --
> -------------------------------------------------------------
> Tex Texin   cell: +1 781 789 1898   mailto:Tex@XenCraft.com
> Xen Master                          http://www.i18nGuy.com
>
> XenCraft             http://www.XenCraft.com
> Making e-Business Work Around the World
> -------------------------------------------------------------
>
>

Received on Friday, 16 July 2004 10:50:18 UTC