[Anubad] Fwd: Firefox for Android L10n Roadmap

[sankarshan]

FYI.


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jeff Beatty <jbeatty at mozilla.com>
Date: Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 1:02 AM
Subject: Firefox for Android L10n Roadmap
To: dev-l10n at lists.mozilla.org


Hi everyone,

I'm writing to bring you up-to-date on some research I've done as part
of updating the l10n roadmap for Fennec
(https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mobile/Projects/Localization).

In determining the next locales to include between Fx 27 and Fx 32, I
had to make a number of decisions based on some research. Here are
some of my findings and the assumptions that came to play here
(forgive me if you already are familiar with these):

- Google delivers Android in 52 languages, not including
region-specific locales (like en-IE).
- OEMs deliver Android in anywhere between 10-30 additional languages.
Some will even add to this language set for some regions and not for
others.
- Carriers filter availability of these 52-82 languages using a
language.xml file, ultimately keeping languages utilizing certain
locale codes from being available to the end user.
- Getting locales codes right when delivering localizations of an app
in Android is critical. Being that carriers control the languages
available to the end user, if the app localizations utilize locale
codes that the carrier has blocked, then the user will not have access
to those localizations (hence the problem in bug 933315).

Understanding all of this, it becomes clear, in the current ecosystem,
the carrier and OEM have the ultimate control over what languages the
end user is allowed to use via the Android sys prefs. Any app whose
language settings are dependent upon that infrastructure subjects
their users to being controlled by the carrier and OEM's preferences.
The Fennec team is discussing the right path toward enabling user
language choice for Fennec. Some options have been to add language
switching to the multilocale build. Others have discussed continuing
to add locales to a multilocale build and distribute them through the
Play store, and shipping single-locale builds through mozilla.org.

In the mean time, I have opted for creating a temporary l10n roadmap
that focuses on adding all 52 of the languages that Google delivers by
default, as that seems to be the lowest barrier with the highest
gains. I've scoped out this work through Fx32 based on each locale's
current progress on localizing Fennec. If your team feels like they
can prepare a localization of Fennec sooner than what is described in
the roadmap, please get in touch with me and we'll discuss shipping
you sooner.

Please let me know if you have any questions about any of this.

Thanks,
Jeff

--
Jeff Beatty
Localization Engineer
@mozilla_l10n
801.367.3763
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-- 
sankarshan mukhopadhyay
<http://sankarshan.randomink.org/blog>