Free software for languages big and small: multilingual openness
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Librecon 2014 BilbaoFree software, langs big & small2014.11.12
1ULMA web ataria
Azitain Poligonoa 3 - KE-20600 EIBAR
Tel: ++34 943 821 780Fax: ++34 943 820 669
1
Internet Solutionswww.codesyntax.com
Free software for languages big and small: multilingual openness
Luistxo Fernandez
Bilbo 2011.11.12
1
15 years ago
A personal story. 3 types decide to work in the internet. We happen to be bilingual
Business case: Well, bilingual sites will be needed locally; multilingual sites will be needed globally.
We'll learn how to do it right, we'll become rich.
Not rich yet, but hey, it was a good plan
Web platforms in the year 1999 were nor really adapted to multilingualism, really
There was a niche... there was really work to do.
Platforms had to be transformed, tinkered, changed from the inside...
It had to be free software.
Free software was the obvious choice
Code had to be tinkered and improved, you needed access to the tools to change them and make them work multilingually
And the free software community had already its own tools, its own metodology: GNU Gettext
Choices (back at the times...)
Python.
Zope.
A way to adapt the GNU Gettext methodology into Python, Localizer, a creation by a web-programmer in a university (Juan David Ibez, of Universitat Jaume I, Castell).
Choices (back at the times...)
Today.
Python.
Today.
Python.
All we learned about i18n & l10n, locales, unicode, .po files...
Ad-hoc solutions not so necessary(Plone and Django, the platforms we use today are, like all decent modern day tools, well adapted to i18n)
We still friends with JD Ibez, a brilliant programmer
Today. Django.
Today. Django. Any Django install.
All we learned. The things we did.
We fought the Unicode errors...
Blogging platforms in Basque...
The particular needs of multilingual CMSs...
As Plone or Django rose, the localised Basque versions of those platforms...
From multilingual to... Multisite, multicountry
Plone, and other open source CMS are prepared to manage a situationlike this one.
But you need the know-how.
Meanwhile, as i18n advanced in web development thanks to free software...
Meanwhile, as i18n advanced in web development thanks to free software...
Ubuntu is wonderful. Enjoying Ubuntu in Basque is great.
As a working environment.
As the family OS at home.
However, as i18n advanced in web development thanks to free software...
Web ecosystems rose: Google, Facebook, Twitter
Basque and many other languageshave a partial presence there...
Mixed feelings: collective translating (work for them for free)
no sharing of the strings...
the importance of having those in your language
However, as i18n advanced in web development thanks to free software...
Mobile platforms, unclear situation
iOS closed to small languages, and Apple a clearly hostile company to us.
Android is free, and Android localisation attempts have been made by the community... but, distribution and control issues complicate the matter
Google just released Basque within Lollipop, yet...
SoLoMo
Social Local Mobile
An extra lesson:
It's not about the menu, it's about the food
An extra lesson:
It's not about the menu, it's about the food
A conversation in Facebook in Yucatec (interface in Basque)
It's not about the menu, it's about the food
Big languages take food for granted.
Small languages... tricky. Social interaction easier in some networks than in others.
Efforts are announced, but language death is a fact for many languages...
Are there memes in your language?
Meme
'A meme (/mim/; meem)[1] is "an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture."[2] A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols, or practices that can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena'
A term coined by Richard Dawkins.
Yep. It does have a serious meaning, but memes are also this....
Meme
when they give me notice of 'needed changes' one day before the report/project must be delivered
Basque memes are alive!
what the Basques feel when they see the Catalans lead the way
Basque memes are alive!
'impossible Basque compact verbs meme': dizerdit, datsegit, dalovit, narruskioke...
Not easy to grasp. Language knowledge level (also Spanish, in many cases) and experience with Twitter humour
Social and mobile interaction: key issues for language reproduction.
These things depend more on
The big powers of the Internet: Google, Facebook, Twitter
Increasingly, mobile experience
Do these things depend less on free software?
In the SoLoMo environment...
And yet,
we must try
Twitter can't tell Basque from Indonesian
But Langid can.
And with Langid, and more, you may build things
And with Langid, and more, you may build things
Trending topic detection, twitter user rankings, automated aggregation of news...
Trending topic detection, twitter user rankings, automated aggregation of news...
...with languages big & small
Eskerrik asko
Luistxo Fernandez - [email protected]/luistxo - http://www.codesyntax.com