[native-lang] Re: [l10n-dev] N. Korean localization : Impossible?

charles-h.schulz wrote:

>Hello Jeongkyu,
>
>The problem is a legal problem. Since Sun is a US company, StarOffice and OOo alike (since Sun commits engineers to it) cannot even distribute code to NK. There are a lot of international sanctions on NK and embargo + export prohibitions are only some of them. 
>In this I feel that Sun engineers are a bit embarassed in phrasing out an official explanation, but E. Rathe offered a valid answer imho. 
>In this context, hosting the problematic patches on a separate (non official) server may be the only  solution, albeit tedious and difficult, unless sanctions against NK are cancelled and abridged. 
>Let me know if you need any help.
>
>Regards,
>
>Charles.
>  
>
Hello Charles and others,

I want to clearly state here that I do not blame Sun (or any employees 
working for Sun). I have been working for one of US companies, so I 
fully understand how critical such a legal issue is to them. Also, I am 
not talking for NK localization team. I have not been involved in it at 
all (As a citizen of Republic of Korea, it might be illegal to be 
without permission from government).

However, as one of volunteers, I want OpenOffice project to make one 
thing clear - Is this project bound to U.S. law? It seems to be due to 
practical reason, right? Then, let's state it in main webpage or at 
least NL webpage so that there is no more confusion. Also, I believe 
OpenOffice project should give an apology to IlYong. When he started his 
working through L10n mailing list, nobody mentioned about it and even 
his patches had been accepted. If my patch or contribution was turned 
down not by technical reason but by political reason, it might be enough 
to make me upset.

By suggesting formal explanation from Sun (in my previous mail), I 
wanted to figure out what is exact problem. The comment in IZ only says 
that employee working for Sun is not allowed to assist in the 
development of North Korean version. Is that all? Did everyone know 
OpenOffice.org source code is hosted by Sun? I knew that Sun is major 
player but I did not know Collab is US based company so North Korean can 
not have their NL project. Let's clarify those issues. Again, this is my 
personal suggestion _as one of volunteers_.

I thought OpenOffice.org is for everyone. I feel sorry that it is not.

Regards,
Jeongkyu