erinja:(and language note - you lend your laptop to someone, and that person borrows it from you. I don't normally like to correct people's English but your English is good and I figured you might appreciate the feedback)

Of course I do. Thanks.

colindean:I chose to post in English because most of the software I find needing translation is written in English.

I'm trying hard to find the logic behind this, but no matter how hard i try, i don't succeed.

colindean:My audience for this post is English-speaking translators of software.

Oh, well, then: Good bye!

colindean:Moreover, I chose English because I could write my message across significantly faster in English, a welcome thing given the amount of time I had available to write the post.

That's an honest answer.

evanamd:Also, I don't see how contributing to the Eo Wikipedia is any more useful than Eo software, since as you pointed out, there are no monolingual Esperantparolantoj.

Because Wikipedia articles are not translations of each other. If an article is better in Esperanto than in all other languages it exists in, or in all other languages that a particular reader understands, then that means that to learn about that subject, you have an advantage if you can read Esperanto. This makes Esperanto more useful.

Fenris_kcf:

colindean:My audience for this post is English-speaking translators of software.

Oh, well, then: Good bye!

Is this not the In English section of the forum? It bears the description "This is a place for discussing various topics in English."

Perhaps rather than spend time criticizing my choice, you could start a discussion of your own about this in the Esperanto section and interlink them. If not, perhaps when I get a little bit more time, I shall.

You know, I have to dissent from the view that a software user's native language will always win-out when selecting operating system language.

Here is an easy example:

Where I live, whenever I visit an ATM cash machine I have two language options: English, which I understand, and Spanish which I do not understand.

By contrast:

Where I used to live, if I visited an ATM cash machine I would often be prompted to select one of about a dozen languages--a full screen's worth to choose from. Anything more than that would be unwieldy from a usability perspective. It's in this sort of scenario where I think that Esperanto really should have a seat at the table.

Before you say that's not related to the issue at hand. Realize that an ATM cash machine is just a computer with a cash dispenser attached. Terrifyingly from a security perspective, many of these things run Microsoft Windows in kiosk mode.

Now, about Esperanto and the open source movement. I really think it's a perception issue. Not just that end users are never making use of Esperanto as their language interface of choice. But also that few other open source software products make use of Esperanto. I find that at least a few of the software packages I use support Esperanto. Some don't, and I sure haven't checked everything. Of note, I tried to use my Bitcoin client in Esperanto without success.

I do, however, think there is a relatively simple fix for this problem: organization.

I think the way you solve this problem is by attacking the "nobody localizes programs into Esperanto" premise. If there were one or more high visibility projects that submitted patches (and just as importantly, documentation translations) to open source projects, I really think things would change. Because, not only would individual software projects see Esperanto patches being committed, they'd see a large number of patches being committed to other software projects as well. Once that gains visibility, the underlying assumption will become that the translations must be getting used.

This would also give recourse for Esperantists who use a specific software package that has no Esperanto support and will not accept the patch. You could simply publish the patch with compilation instructions outside of any specific project's source code repository.

As a side note: I really do think Wikipedia is the poster child of Esperanto's strength and value. I can't find the specific Transparent Language, Esperanto blog post to cite my sources. But, it seems that Esperanto Wikipedia has been used as the basis to "seed" minority language editions of Wikipedia. Now, when I see an article on Wikipedia that isn't available in Esperanto, I actually tend to get slightly irritated.

I actually have the inverse experience, even though I haven't been translating software into Eo more than a year.

My main concern is Joomla 2.5 (and 3 upcoming) and quite a few extensions for it. Cindy McKee made the translation for joomla 1.5 but the difference between he versions is huge. I have not met anything less than approval and help from the joomla community. The reaction varies from surprise that Eo is used and works, so I had the opportunity to inform some developers about it. One guy actually petitioned a translation into Eo for his extension.

Somewhere I saw Transifex being mentioned. There's a section called Open Translators were I actually head the Esperanto group.

Lately I have started thinking that it would be useful to have "translator's website" in eo to gather all possible translations and links to the programs. If that is something more esperantists are looking for, I'm sure I can add the service to our new eo site in Sweden, if nothing else.

On the usefulness of translating, I can see two major reasons;
* eo software is very useful in international cooperation for esperantists.
* the backwards advertising value of just being present in non-esperanto circles. (I'm even thinking of an ad campaign using the catch phraze "Open Source Since 1905".