RE: [ubl] UBL, localization (customization)

["Vint, Dan" <DVINT@acord.org>]

Is this "customization" to add tags that are need for their business
purposes? Then customization agrees with our use in ACORD. We have
service provider extensions (IFX term) that customize our schema for a
trading partner by adding and removing elements and code values.

OR are you talking about changing the name of an existing tag from an
English word to a Danish word? This I would call something different.

Pardon my ignorance here, but related to this
localization/internationalization question is; How would be issues with
currency and units of measure and even presentation of data values when
they are displayed be handled or considered in this question. Is that
already somewhat handled by the international nature of these documents
and their basic requirements or is this something that also needs some
specification and control?

..dan

> -----Original Message-----
> From: jon.bosak@sun.com [mailto:jon.bosak@sun.com]
> Sent: Thursday, December 08, 2005 10:31 AM
> To: ubl@lists.oasis-open.org
> Subject: Re: [ubl] UBL, localization (customization)
> 
> [brs@itst.dk:]
> 
> | Some quick items on the ubl/localization customization
> | subject. Jon had some concerns that the word localization should
> | not be used, in the following document from the W3C
> | http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-i18n the term
> | localization is defined:
> 
> Yeah, I know.  I worked with the W3C I18N people for a while and I
> know what they were trying to say.
> 
> "Localization" is universally used in the software industry to
> refer to the process of making interfaces of an existing product
> understandable to people in different countries.  It is strongly
> differentiated from the functional code itself, which generally
> doesn't change.  To put it another way, if a change involves UI
> programmers, that's localization; if it involves database or logic
> programmers, it's not.  This distinction is critical in actual
> software production, because localization is carried out by teams
> far removed from the people who create the functional code and
> generally occurs after the original product is already shipping.
> Often the team responsible for creating the localized version of a
> product is also the one that creates the documentation for that
> locale.  But they are NOT changing the product itself.
> 
> It's probably easier to remember this distinction for people who
> were in the software industry when internationalization and
> localization became engineering requirements back in the 1980s.
> The process of separating out the language-dependent components
> (embedded error messages, for example) from running code and
> putting those components into translatable resource files -- the
> process of internationalization -- was very painful, very
> expensive, and not easily forgotten.  It took a while for the
> process of actually translating the resource files -- the process
> of localization -- to become a known part of the production cycle
> with its own unique workflow and personnel requirements.
> 
> To sum up: If what we're talking about is how to make English UBL
> tags understandable to non-English-speaking people in Denmark (all
> three of them), that's localization.  If what we're talking about
> is modifying the data model to suit Danish business practices,
> that's not localization.  If a team in France were to create a
> French user interface to the Danish data model, that would be
> localization.
> 
> (Having just written this, I see that it's all nicely summed up at
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationalization .)
> 
> We do need to agree on a term (not "localization," because that
> one is already taken) to describe what we're doing when we create
> a version of UBL for a place like Denmark.  I've been using
> "customization," but I'm open to suggestions.  Maybe "developing
> national profiles"?
> 
> Jon
> 
> 
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