Hetz Ben Hamo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > We're Israelies, most of us use Linux as their primary OS - and > almost all of the mailers supports hebrew - one way or the other..
<a very short list of mailers snipped> The list is a loooong way from being exhaustive, and I don't think it's a good idea to force someone to use a different mailer or a different editor or a different pager just for linux-il (I would likely find myself in such a position). And Hebrew support is still young, and who knows what supposedly unrelated features of the relevant software it breaks. I don't have to explain to anybody here that Hebrew and Arabic have a much greater chance to break anything than Western languages or, say, Cyrillic. > So what are the reasons for not switching our official language here > from English to Hebrew (not in a day, but rather in a month->2 > months time period)? Please reply and explain your position... I agree with the sentiment that drives this suggestion, and I think it's worth at least a discussion, but I think I will vote against it, for the following reasons. 1) There are currently foreigners on the list. Some Arabs. Some Iranians. Probably quite a few people from other countries. I would like them to stay. 2) The list will become inaccessible for people who don't know Hebrew, nor would be the list's archives. 3) The list will become inaccessible to Hebrew-speaking people who never bothered to teach their computers Hebrew. For the record, I never did because I never needed it. It is not too farfetched to say that some will need to buy new hardware (hint: keyboard), and even that might be not feasible (laptops). People who need a third alphabet (Arabic, Cyrillic) will have to choose between being able to communicate electronically with their friends and relatives abroad or with their friends or colleagues on linux-il (I don't think keyboards with more than 2 alphabets are easy to find). While it is quite reasonable to assume that the population of linux-il is proficient, if not fluent, in English, the same cannot be assumed about the population of the planet in general. So (some of) the multilingual people with interests beyond linux-il will be forced to choose. [For the record, I don't have such needs]. 4) This is a technical list, technical discussions will be rather strongly English-bound anyway. When was the last time you used Hebrew terms for "compiler" or "linker" (I am sure some of us used one of them the day before yesterday, but I think there is no question it's an exception rather than the rule). As a technical list it has a broader interest than covered by Israel/Hebrew (see items 1 and 2 above). Hebrew would be appropriate for a list discussing Hebrew poetry or Israeli politics or sth of the kind. 5) I don't think that any major distribution can be counted upon to provide full, consistent Hebrew (Arabic, Cyrillic, Cantonese, etc) support for all or most software out of the box. Not any time soon. Not with all the diverse components produced by different teams in different countries that go into them. This means that it is likely that one would need to 1) reconfigure parts of the system; 2) change one's working habits. To give an example: I use GNUS in XEmacs to read/write emails, I think this combination has too many advantages over any other MUA/editor I've used in the past, so I have no intention to switch, and I have no idea whether they can speak Hebrew (maybe). My vote is: stay with English. It has worked very well so far, and the quantity or quality of flames have not suffered because of that. ;-) -- Oleg Goldshmidt | [EMAIL PROTECTED] If it aint't broken it hasn't got enough features yet. ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
