Microsoft have just posted the details of which languages IE 7 will be available in. It’s interesting to compare this with the list of locales currently available for the latest Firefox 2 beta, which hopefully is a good proxy for what we will have in the final release.
We both seem to agree on what the core locales are – with the exception of Hebrew, which I’m sure is brewing, we can match them on all of their “Fully Localised Languages”. Funny, though – if you are on XP SP2, you are fine, but if you are on any of the other current Microsoft OSes, such as Windows Server 2003 or a 64-bit version, you may well be out of luck. IE 7 on those platforms is only available for a small subset of the “fully localised” set. And, of course, it’s not available for earlier versions of Windows at all such as Windows 98 and Win2K. Firefox language packs, on the other hand, work everywhere Firefox does.
And we do have a wider coverage of full language packs. There are 13 languages we provide full packs for that they don’t – with three (Mongolian, Byelorussian and Frisian) which they have no provision for at all. As far as IE is concerned, the Frisians have been frisian out.
Next, they have this thing called the “MUI version” – with MUI standing for Multi-language User Interface. This has a load of languages in one big bundle, and you can switch between them at will. Great for internet cafés, but if you speak Slovenian, which is only available in this form, then you have to download 32 other languages in order to get yours. I hope they don’t have slovenly internet connections in Slovenia. There are also several other languages which are only available in full form as part of this download (e.g. Thai and Slovak).
Our coverage of the extra languages available in the MUI pack is spotty – we have Slovak and Bulgarian fully localised and shipped, but don’t even have an Estonian team. Then again, there are only 1.3 million people in Estonia, whereas there are 18 million Malay speakers and they only get a LIP (see below). I wonder if the choice of languages here is partly dictated by the official languages of the EU? Microsoft’s relationship with the EU could probably use some improving, so perhaps this is one small contribution. If so, they’ve missed Maltese (and, from January 1st, Irish). I envisage a last-minute panic at Microsoft HQ; after all, you don’t want to make the Maltese cross…
Lastly, they have what they call LIP (Language Interface Pack) versions. As far as I can tell, this is where you get the interface translated, but not the Help or anything like that. Definitely second-class status. On the other hand, with the addition of these packs, they do have a wider coverage than we can manage. If Hindi or Farsi (Persian) speakers, for example, want a web browser in that language, then a LIP version of IE 7 is the best they’ll get. Except that they won’t get it until after January 2007, because Microsoft don’t do simultaneous releases like we do. Hopefully those language speakers can see that far.
We have localisation teams for far more languages than we ship, but there are many volunteers where we don’t seem to have yet managed to translate willingness into finished, checked in and shipped translations. Perhaps that should be a focus post-2.0?
Still, I think we’re in a good location with localisation. Well done to everyone who is part of a l10n team, and to Axel for coordinating it all. :-)
I still don’t see a British English, errr, “localization” for IE7… :)
– Chris
No indeed – it’s my irritation at being part of an overlooked and neglected minority, combined with the historical language power complex common to all British people, that causes me to have such an obsessive interest in localisation ;-)
I think that AmigaOS’s “Locale” system still is the most elegant developed to date: one main binary, and a subset of small ‘.catalog’ files, with the GUI being “translated” on the fly.
It seems that we sadly have to axe Punjabi for the initial release and take it later on. I failed to fix an xml parsing bug in that locale :-(.
Anyway, we’re about to ship 38 locales including en-US in one go. That’s pretty fly.
As of Hebrew, Firefox 2.0 has Hebrew translation but it can’t make its way to the CVS tree due to post-freeze. With a little help we can get Hebrew version of Firefox 2.0 available with the other 38 languages in the release date of Firefox 2.0 or few days after. (See bug 352116)
LOL.
Luckily we don’t. Our dsl and cable offerings start at 1 mbit/s, which is not the world, bot not slow either. Prices are ok too, I pay 26.25 Euro monthly for a 4096/512 kbps connection, which also gives me a static ip, 50mb webspace and six email addresses with a 1GB mailbox each.
Also maybe interesting, we are the smallest Microsoft market that have all their products translated into our language.
Yer Gusar, must be that EU thingy.
I found something interesting that Gerv didnt touch:
“Windows Internet Explorer for Windows 64 bit Client/Server (x64)
English, Japanese
Windows Internet Explorer for Windows Server 2003 IA64 (ia64):
English, French, German, Japanese ”
More l10n for the server than the client? On what kind of system would you more likly use a browser?
And yeah.. their support for x64 seems to have not immproved. OR do they want to urge x64 users to move to Vista quickly?
The Hebrew translation would be all very good, if it weren’t for the fact that the OSX theme is even more broken in RTL mode in 2.0 than 1.5. Aren’t you guys supposed to be making the product _better_?
funny thing with that estonian localisation. there is kde and openoffice translated almost nearly 100%, gnome translated about 70% and there is even a open source spell checker for estonian, but no firefox localisation team. but firefox is quite popular here about 15-17% market share.
but maybe firefox should ship that estonian spell checker anyway, it is a packaging issue afrer all?
“You don’t want to make the Maltese cross…”
WORST PUN EVER. I’m not even sure Jesus can forgive that one. :)
> We have localisation teams for far more languages than we ship, but there are many volunteers where we don’t seem to have yet managed to translate willingness into finished, checked in and shipped translations. Perhaps that should be a focus post-2.0?
It’s been a consistent request from localization teams to make it easier to slip in localizations after the release, but it takes a lot of work from the release teams. I think its a great goal though.
Has anyone recently enumerated what steps are involved in adding a locale after the release, why it’s more difficult than simultaneously shipping that locale or adding it before the release?
No hindi firefox if I want to develop how will I can anybody tell me
ashuvashu: read the localisation website, or ask in the newsgroup mozilla.dev.l10n. Note that we may already have a Hindi team, I don’t know. You need to check.