Hoi, Actually it says in the database what language is used. These languages are indeed the ISO codes. Google and other organisations will have a hard time to know what language is ment if we were to have our "own" codes. Indeed we would not be as popular if people did not find us on the search engines.
Another thing, I know that Brion will not allow for deviating from the standard more than we already do. Thanks, GerardM
On 10/10/06, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:
2006/10/10, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com:
The ISO standards are a bit more than just language standards. They are absolutely free to use them as is. You are not allowed to represent
codes
that you make up that confuse with what is in the standard. For ISO-639
this
is absolutely reasonable given that there are over 7000 codes to start
off
with.
Which in my opinion would be a reason to go to our own system rather than theirs.
So if you refuse to use standards that you can not change start telling people in the city how many bunder your father has on his farm. You will find that many do not have an idea how wide an area that is.
So what? If I and my friends agree on what a bunder is, we can use it. To the outside world I have to use something else. It's not like Wikipedia is trying to tell others what language codes to use...
Free is a relative thing. For some things it makes no sense at all to
have
them Free as in you can change it in any which way. The standard organisations have several ways in which they can be influenced. You can discuss with them about language issues and, that is what the language subcommittee of the WMF hopes to do. In the mean time, you have to
realise
that the ISO standards are an integral part of how the world wide web
works.
When you decide that you will not use these standards, I am afraid your computer will not be able to communicate with the Internet. Standards
are
standards for a reason.
Why that? Giving our languages another URL is not going to make them suddenly unfindable to half the world.
-- Andre Engels, andreengels@gmail.com ICQ: 6260644 -- Skype: a_engels _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l