*BSD News Article 9095


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From: goer@kimbark.uchicago.edu (Richard L. Goerwitz)
Subject: Re: Dumb Americans (was INTERNATIONALIZATION: JAPAN, FAR EAST)
Message-ID: <1992Dec18.235809.15484@midway.uchicago.edu>
Keywords: Han Kanji Katakana Hirugana ISO10646 Unicode Codepages
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Reply-To: goer@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
References: <id.M2XV.VTA@ferranti.com> <1992Dec18.043033.14254@midway.uchicago.edu> <1992Dec18.212323.26882@netcom.com>
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 23:58:09 GMT
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messina@netcom.com (Tony Porczyk) writes:
>
>>One of the big criticisms leveled at US Engineers is that they are either
>>too dumb or lazy to build into their software support for non-Western
>>scripts.  Given that Linux originates in Europe, can we look forward to
>>better support for Unicode and ISO10646?  At least for "long" charac-
>>ter definitions?
>
>Yeah, that's probably why NT supports Unicode, it's those dumb US
>Engineers...  Could we lay off idiotic generalizations and stick to
>technical aspects of the software?  It's business that dictates what's
>included in the package.  If it makes economic sense, it will be there.

Don't be so quick to criticize.  The December issue of UNIX world has
a few funny stories about American gaffes in Europe, and I've personally
heard many stories from Europeans myself along the same lines.  I'd be
willing to bet that less than 5% of US software engineers even speak a
foreign language beyond the level of a few parlez vous.  One of the big
problems we have is precisely the attitude that you display, namely that
most localizations should be done on-site.  This is fine if multilingual
support is built into the basic distributions, but really stupid if it
isn't.

As for economic sense, I have the same feeling about American's in the
mid- and large-range computer business that I have about Detroit.  They
simply aren't as aware as they should be about what their customers
really want.  NT will be a welcome departure from the past, if in fact
it offers true multilingual support.  We'll see.

-- 

   -Richard L. Goerwitz              goer%midway@uchicago.bitnet
   goer@midway.uchicago.edu          rutgers!oddjob!ellis!goer