Localization (commonly referred to as ‘l10n’) is the availability of software messages in more than one language. Clearly, it would be simpler with one language used by everyone, but this is clearly a problem beyond the scope of this blog, so I limit this post to problems with localization, not its cause.
Clearly, the most obvious problem is lack of localization. Most software is written in English, but for many people other languages are more appropriate. But should everything be translated? In my opinion it depends on the software:
- templates for text
- things like text inserted to documents by LaTeX packages or publicly visible messages of web applications clearly must be in the same language as text (it may be different in multilingual documents)
- software with a GUI
- using these in non-native languages may be slower for some people, for others it may make the software more difficult (or impossible) to use; hence a translation should be provided (except for Emacs which currently does not support translated messages, the programs with GUIs which I usually use have at least partial Polish translations enabled)
- command-line interfaces
- now these are probably used only by people who read English documentation or participate in English fora where showing non-English software messages may lead to getting less answers, so a translation is less necessary; also a good command-line interface does not use too much text
- programming languages
- clearly writing a program in languages other than English makes it much less useful, hence it is explicitly stated in coding standards for e.g. the GNU Project (I write all my programs in English except some unpublished LaTeX code for documents written in Polish)
The above opinions assume that the localization is perfect. This is obviously false, but free software using Gettext or Qt do not have the largest problems with localization (e.g. I haven’t used a non-free program with correct support for the three plural forms in languages like Polish).
