[Mailman-Developers] English (USA)

[Norbert Bollow]

> Since John, Ken, and I are all American, I think it's only mildly
> surprising <wink> that all the source code human readable text, and the
> en templates are written in American English.

>From my European perspective I'd say that that's not a problem for
most people around here.  Well it's possible that some folks in the
UK might care enough to do what it takes to "fix" the spelling from
their perspective, but in the majority of Europe (where English is
not spoken natively anyway) the locale-dependant details of spelling
don't matter at all.

> I'm not in favor of changing the label from "English (USA)".

The "English (USA)" label *is* a problem.  Please don't underestimate
the strong anti-USA feelings in significant parts of the world.  For
example here in Switzerland, many people feel that US politicians and
lawyers have blackmailed the Swiss banks for a couple of billion
dollars a few years ago.  Many other countries have their own historic
roots for bitter feelings towards the USA.  Then there are *many*
people in many countries who are upset about more recent events that I
don't want to mention explicitly in order to avoid sparking a flame
war.  For example, think of an Arab with a good command of the English
language who'd like to subscribe to a technical mailing list.

Wouldn't the "English (USA)" label feel like a slap in the face for
such a user?

Greetings, Norbert.

-- 
Founder & Steering Committee member of http://gnu.org/projects/dotgnu/
Free Software Business Strategy Guide   --->  http://FreeStrategy.info
Norbert Bollow, Weidlistr.18, CH-8624 Gruet (near Zurich, Switzerland)
Tel +41 1 972 20 59        Fax +41 1 972 20 69       http://norbert.ch