Re: [native-lang] Opening of an Eurasian Languages Native-Lang Group

Hello Sophie, all,

On Fri, 2005-06-10 at 23:13 +0100, Sophie Gautier wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> First, I'm happy to see this native-lang group too :)
> I'm answering here just to give my point of view. I plainly agree with 
> Charles, these groups are formed to ease communication. Imho, adding new 
> mailing lists would puzzle this communication, we are the NLC first, 
> aren't we :)

yes. And remember that the dev@native-lang is primarily used for
communication between the NL project leads... So , this list fits very
well with the groups. 
> 
> However, I think that having a news page about our groups or communities 
> would be great. I'm often asked about what's happening in the other 
> groups or about the OOo representativeness in other countries and it's a 
> bit difficult to answer (and I don't know who have done this page 
> http://www.openoffice.org/files/documents/148/1599/NewsCtr.html, may be 
> Erwin ? but this is really needed infos and thanks to the author :). Lot 
> of news are published in the newsletter (thanks to Deepankar) but it's 
> sometimes difficult to follow.

I think the Ja NL project and/or myself proposed the idea of a "NL
project of the month" not so long ago. The idea is that one NL project
would volunteer to set up a page (external or internal to the site
doesn't matter for the moment) telling more about the language, culture
and the community it represents. I'm all for relaunching such an idea.

> 
> We have a communication issue, I think that most of the time it's 
> because we have so much to do that we don't have any time left to 
> communicate, but this is really important. There is currently 53 NL 
> projects and I must say that I don't know what is happening in most of 
> them. This is not only about what's happening, but also about the 
> difficulties, the motivations, the disappointments or the willing of the 
> communities.

+1.  Now that we have found an effective use of the com@native-lang
(monthly news) although the majority of NL projects still need to post
there :-/ , it's time to invite every NL project lead to express its
feelings/motivations here, its likes and dislikes about what we do in
the OOo community and how the NLC could better help in these matters.

> I have realized that in France, advertising the community is almost as 
> important than advertising the product, companies are really interested 
> by our economy/ecology/ecosystem. I would like to know if it's the same 
> elsewhere.

NLC is truly unique in the FOSS world. We managed to do much more than
localization and localized documentation. We brought these two tasks
together, added users support in native-languages, local marketing and
promotion, community building and even support to businesses, QA of
localized builds, and here you have, genuine native-lang projects out of
the box, spreading OOo and giving MS a run for its money on a worldwide
scale!
To get back on what you said, Sophie, I would like to add that OOo in
France is a hot topic in every IT department of public administrations
and private companies. I can't speak for everybody here, but I think
that at some point we got over the stage of "customers willing to know
more about the product" to another stage where some of the large OOo
users are now aware that there is a worldwide community of users,
developpers, marketers, fans, and that they are themselves part of the
community. It's very good, but all too seldom for the moment...

Best,

Charles.