Bug 1133188 - Select English as the default language for India geolocation
Summary: Select English as the default language for India geolocation
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED WONTFIX
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: langtable
Version: 24
Hardware: Unspecified
OS: Unspecified
unspecified
low
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Mike FABIAN
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2014-08-23 06:56 UTC by Siddhesh Poyarekar
Modified: 2017-05-24 06:39 UTC (History)
17 users (show)

Fixed In Version: langtable-0.0.27-1.fc20
Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2017-05-24 06:39:57 UTC
Type: Bug
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)
Image of first screen. (93.63 KB, image/png)
2014-08-26 12:09 UTC, Pravin Satpute
no flags Details

Description Siddhesh Poyarekar 2014-08-23 06:56:21 UTC
Description of problem:

The primary computing language in India is English, so selecting Hindi as the default language for installations is not very useful.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
Fedora-Live-KDE-x86_64-21-20140820

How reproducible:
Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Start installation on a machine that has an IP that is detected as Indian.

Actual results:

Selected Language is Hindi with English and all Indian languages immediately following it

Expected results:

Selected language is English with all Indian languages immediately following it

Comment 1 Martin Kolman 2014-08-25 08:46:22 UTC
Anaconda uses the langtable library for the territory code -> most probable language conversion, so reassigning.

Comment 2 Mike FABIAN 2014-08-25 09:34:56 UTC
OK, then I guess the default locale should be en_IN.UTF-8, i.e. like this:

diff --git a/data/territories.xml b/data/territories.xml
index 27f84af..e74a593 100644
--- a/data/territories.xml
+++ b/data/territories.xml
@@ -9311,8 +9311,8 @@
       <name><languageId>zu</languageId><trName>i-India</trName></name>
     </names>
     <locales>
-      <locale><localeId>hi_IN.UTF-8</localeId><rank>400</rank></locale>
-      <locale><localeId>en_IN.UTF-8</localeId><rank>200</rank></locale>
+      <locale><localeId>en_IN.UTF-8</localeId><rank>400</rank></locale>
+      <locale><localeId>hi_IN.UTF-8</localeId><rank>200</rank></locale>
       <locale><localeId>bn_IN.UTF-8</localeId><rank>150</rank></locale>
       <locale><localeId>te_IN.UTF-8</localeId><rank>140</rank></locale>
       <locale><localeId>mr_IN.UTF-8</localeId><rank>130</rank></locale>
@@ -9342,8 +9342,8 @@
       <locale><localeId>sa_IN.UTF-8</localeId><rank>0</rank></locale>
     </locales>
     <languages>
-      <language><languageId>hi</languageId><rank>400</rank></language>
-      <language><languageId>en</languageId><rank>200</rank></language>
+      <language><languageId>en</languageId><rank>400</rank></language>
+      <language><languageId>hi</languageId><rank>200</rank></language>
       <language><languageId>bn</languageId><rank>150</rank></language>
       <language><languageId>te</languageId><rank>140</rank></language>
       <language><languageId>mr</languageId><rank>130</rank></language>

Comment 3 Fedora Update System 2014-08-25 10:45:22 UTC
langtable-0.0.26-1.fc19 has been submitted as an update for Fedora 19.
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/langtable-0.0.26-1.fc19

Comment 4 Fedora Update System 2014-08-25 10:45:55 UTC
langtable-0.0.26-1.fc20 has been submitted as an update for Fedora 20.
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/langtable-0.0.26-1.fc20

Comment 5 A S Alam 2014-08-25 14:51:40 UTC
I think we need to discuss it further regarding. Not from Current prospective, but future also.

Comment 6 Rajesh Ranjan 2014-08-25 15:33:11 UTC
(In reply to Mike FABIAN from comment #2)
> OK, then I guess the default locale should be en_IN.UTF-8, i.e. like this:

How can by "guessing" we can fix a bug?


> 
> diff --git a/data/territories.xml b/data/territories.xml
> index 27f84af..e74a593 100644
> --- a/data/territories.xml
> +++ b/data/territories.xml
> @@ -9311,8 +9311,8 @@
>        <name><languageId>zu</languageId><trName>i-India</trName></name>
>      </names>
>      <locales>
> -      <locale><localeId>hi_IN.UTF-8</localeId><rank>400</rank></locale>
> -      <locale><localeId>en_IN.UTF-8</localeId><rank>200</rank></locale>
> +      <locale><localeId>en_IN.UTF-8</localeId><rank>400</rank></locale>
> +      <locale><localeId>hi_IN.UTF-8</localeId><rank>200</rank></locale>
>        <locale><localeId>bn_IN.UTF-8</localeId><rank>150</rank></locale>
>        <locale><localeId>te_IN.UTF-8</localeId><rank>140</rank></locale>
>        <locale><localeId>mr_IN.UTF-8</localeId><rank>130</rank></locale>
> @@ -9342,8 +9342,8 @@
>        <locale><localeId>sa_IN.UTF-8</localeId><rank>0</rank></locale>
>      </locales>
>      <languages>
> -      <language><languageId>hi</languageId><rank>400</rank></language>
> -      <language><languageId>en</languageId><rank>200</rank></language>
> +      <language><languageId>en</languageId><rank>400</rank></language>
> +      <language><languageId>hi</languageId><rank>200</rank></language>
>        <language><languageId>bn</languageId><rank>150</rank></language>
>        <language><languageId>te</languageId><rank>140</rank></language>
>        <language><languageId>mr</languageId><rank>130</rank></language>

Comment 7 Mike FABIAN 2014-08-25 17:02:47 UTC
(In reply to Rajesh Ranjan from comment #6)
> (In reply to Mike FABIAN from comment #2)
> > OK, then I guess the default locale should be en_IN.UTF-8, i.e. like this:
> 
> How can by "guessing" we can fix a bug?

You want en_IN.UTF-8 as the default locale if India is detected
by geoip, right?

If yes this patch will fix it.

Comment 8 Rajesh Ranjan 2014-08-25 18:09:54 UTC
As a study of computer science, computing language in India (or elsewhere in the world) can be English, that doesn't mean that anybody can file a bug to change the default language and most importantly the bug can be closed without any argument. 

And also when to choose based on IP, we can choose Tamil for Tamilnadu, choose Hindi for the state Uttar Pradesh, Gujarati for Gujarat, Marathi for Maharashtra and so on, what is the problem? India has diversity like whole Europe, and we should support the diversity.

Comment 9 Siddhesh Poyarekar 2014-08-26 01:56:59 UTC
(In reply to Rajesh Ranjan from comment #8)
> As a study of computer science, computing language in India (or elsewhere in
> the world) can be English, that doesn't mean that anybody can file a bug to
> change the default language and most importantly the bug can be closed
> without any argument. 
> 
> And also when to choose based on IP, we can choose Tamil for Tamilnadu,
> choose Hindi for the state Uttar Pradesh, Gujarati for Gujarat, Marathi for
> Maharashtra and so on, what is the problem? India has diversity like whole
> Europe, and we should support the diversity.

Sure, India has diversity in languages, but today the fact is that majority of computing device usage is in English.  Now if you're suggesting that pre-selecting a local language based on regions of the country may encourage users to use their local language then I won't disagree (even though reality is far more complicated), but pre-selecting Hindi is not a useful interim solution.

Comment 10 Mike FABIAN 2014-08-26 06:34:38 UTC
(In reply to Siddhesh Poyarekar from comment #9)

> Sure, India has diversity in languages, but today the fact is that majority
> of computing device usage is in English.  Now if you're suggesting that
> pre-selecting a local language based on regions of the country may encourage
> users to use their local language then I won't disagree (even though reality
> is far more complicated), but pre-selecting Hindi is not a useful interim
> solution.

Yes, and at the moment I do not know how pre-selecting a local
language based on the region could work. langtable currently only
has  the country, IN, and no information about the regions.

Comment 11 Ding-Yi Chen 2014-08-26 07:13:31 UTC
Perhaps modifiers like @pune or other region help?

Comment 12 Rajesh Ranjan 2014-08-26 07:31:48 UTC
(In reply to Siddhesh Poyarekar from comment #9)
> (In reply to Rajesh Ranjan from comment #8)
> > As a study of computer science, computing language in India (or elsewhere in
> > the world) can be English, that doesn't mean that anybody can file a bug to
> > change the default language and most importantly the bug can be closed
> > without any argument. 
> > 
> > And also when to choose based on IP, we can choose Tamil for Tamilnadu,
> > choose Hindi for the state Uttar Pradesh, Gujarati for Gujarat, Marathi for
> > Maharashtra and so on, what is the problem? India has diversity like whole
> > Europe, and we should support the diversity.
> 
> Sure, India has diversity in languages, but today the fact is that majority
> of computing device usage is in English.  Now if you're suggesting that
> pre-selecting a local language based on regions of the country may encourage
> users to use their local language then I won't disagree (even though reality
> is far more complicated), but pre-selecting Hindi is not a useful interim
> solution.

pre-selecting English is not a useful interim solution also!

Have you ever search like this:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=rhel+in+hindi

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=red+hat+hindi

thousand of views are for video being viewed in Hindi. 

"i dint knew that the tutorials are in hindi as well...this is juz amazing thanks for your wonderfull work Sir now i can understand this even better..thanks much i have subscribed.. :)."

There are comments like the above ^^ that says why they need Hindi. btw, I never requested Hindi to be default, but certainly except for elites of India, Hindi is better choice than English.

But ideally region specific locale default setting should be encouraged. And so I requested so!

Comment 13 Amit Shah 2014-08-26 07:45:52 UTC
My view is that as far as defaults go, we should have safe defaults.

For someone not familiar with Hindi (e.g. from the southern states of India), Hindi is a bad default.

All the text leading to the language selection in the installer is in English.  The live image itself boots into the GNOME desktop, and the 'Try Fedora / Install Now' stuff is in English.

With the new UI, it's really easy to see the Indian languages being available in Indic scripts.

It should also depend on the percentage of completion of the localisation for the language, maybe indicate in the installer that the language is 80% there, but some stuff may be rendered in English.

For the bigger picture, I'd suggest we should have a way to start the installer in other languages based on kernel cmdline parameters, so the live image also boots into a localised version of the desktop.

Also, if a user downloads the image from a localised version of the website, the localised version of iso should be offered.  The current infrastructure doesn't support this, as far as I can see.

I'd say for the majority of the population trying out Fedora in India, English would be the language of choice, rather than localised ones.

Given all this, I'd say English is the safe default here.

Comment 14 Rajesh Ranjan 2014-08-26 07:56:43 UTC
(In reply to Amit Shah from comment #13)
> My view is that as far as defaults go, we should have safe defaults.
> 
> For someone not familiar with Hindi (e.g. from the southern states of
> India), Hindi is a bad default.
> 
> All the text leading to the language selection in the installer is in
> English.  The live image itself boots into the GNOME desktop, and the 'Try
> Fedora / Install Now' stuff is in English.
> 
> With the new UI, it's really easy to see the Indian languages being
> available in Indic scripts.
> 
> It should also depend on the percentage of completion of the localisation
> for the language, maybe indicate in the installer that the language is 80%
> there, but some stuff may be rendered in English.
> 
> For the bigger picture, I'd suggest we should have a way to start the
> installer in other languages based on kernel cmdline parameters, so the live
> image also boots into a localised version of the desktop.
> 
> Also, if a user downloads the image from a localised version of the website,
> the localised version of iso should be offered.  The current infrastructure
> doesn't support this, as far as I can see.
> 
> I'd say for the majority of the population trying out Fedora in India,
> English would be the language of choice, rather than localised ones.
> 
> Given all this, I'd say English is the safe default here.

I cannot support the theory of safe default. If IP comes from a language zone Marathi, and if Marathi is displayed as a default what is the problem in having the same. I never told Hindi should be the default for All India. And what is the problem if the user who is installing Fedora would change the selection from Marathi to English if he thinks to change (After all s/he is well English Educated). On the basis of some so called current practice why we should ignore the demography of India and its larger stats?

Comment 15 Amit Shah 2014-08-26 08:05:39 UTC
A safe default is a usability issue, rather than anything else.

If I travel to the Czech republic, and suddenly if the default language selection is Czech, I'll be annoyed at an extra step to go before I proceed with the install.

Similarly, a person traveling from Chennai to Pune for a FAD event (say) gets Marathi as default, he'll be annoyed as well.

A safe default just ensures good UI and usability, rather than promoting any regional or language-based preferences (and least of all, shoving them down users' throats).

Comment 16 Siddhesh Poyarekar 2014-08-26 08:09:34 UTC
(In reply to Rajesh Ranjan from comment #12)
> pre-selecting English is not a useful interim solution also!

Maybe not, but that has been the status quo and I only asked to maintain the status quo.

> thousand of views are for video being viewed in Hindi. 
> 
> "i dint knew that the tutorials are in hindi as well...this is juz amazing
> thanks for your wonderfull work Sir now i can understand this even
> better..thanks much i have subscribed.. :)."

I never denied that localized content is popular.  What we are discussing is localized environments and not just contents, and there is a huge difference.  For India there are two problems in that space:

1. Localized environments are not popular enough to suggest them as default.  A very large majority of users still prefer using English environments, even to access localized media.

2. There is no single localized environment that would be universally acceptable as a default suggestion.

> There are comments like the above ^^ that says why they need Hindi. btw, I
> never requested Hindi to be default, but certainly except for elites of
> India, Hindi is better choice than English.

It is borderline insulting to suggest that those who prefer English environments are elitists.  I don't see why you need to use such language in a bug report.

Comment 17 Ankit Patel 2014-08-26 08:41:36 UTC
Hi,

Some questions:

1) What's the purpose of this component (langtable)?
--> As per README file,

""""""""
Purpose of this package
=======================

langtable is used to guess reasonable defaults for locale, keyboard,
territory, …, if part of that information is already known. For
example, guess the territory and the keyboard layout if the language
is known or guess the language and keyboard layout if the territory is
already known.
""""""""

2) Is #comment 0 really indicate a Bug or RFE?

3) What was the prior research/analysis?

4) What should we analyze (or consider) now?
--> Inputs from reportees OR
--> bug watchers OR
--> language experts OR
--> usability experts OR
--> combination of all these OR
--> the actual data points that could be available?

5) How do other countries/languages handle this?

6) How should such requests (not bug) should be handled in a long run?

If we are able to answer all of these correctly and analyze them very well, I think we may come closure to the solution we are seeking to achieve!

Thanks,
Ankit

Comment 18 Rajesh Ranjan 2014-08-26 08:55:31 UTC
(In reply to Siddhesh Poyarekar from comment #16)

> > There are comments like the above ^^ that says why they need Hindi. btw, I
> > never requested Hindi to be default, but certainly except for elites of
> > India, Hindi is better choice than English.
> 
> It is borderline insulting to suggest that those who prefer English
> environments are elitists.  I don't see why you need to use such language in
> a bug report.

Sorry to say, but there are reasons for the same Siddhesh, may be not intentional but certainly unintentional! Still computer is under the reach of elites only, that is why the situation is like this in India. 

Just preferring English environments can not be termed of elitists nature, but not accepting default locale on the basis of region can be seen by the large volume of people of the region (may be they are not current user, but who knows that they won't use in future) as elitist and so I am writing here to make Fedora pro-people. Please try to understand, what one can gain by just pushing English as default, I don't think anything except the person who wants English need to do a click more. 

Fedora should try to speak the language people is speaking in the region. And so for Maharashtra it should come Marathi first!

Comment 19 Rajesh Ranjan 2014-08-26 09:11:12 UTC
(In reply to Amit Shah from comment #15)
> A safe default is a usability issue, rather than anything else.
> 
> If I travel to the Czech republic, and suddenly if the default language
> selection is Czech, I'll be annoyed at an extra step to go before I proceed
> with the install.
> 
> Similarly, a person traveling from Chennai to Pune for a FAD event (say)
> gets Marathi as default, he'll be annoyed as well.
> 
> A safe default just ensures good UI and usability, rather than promoting any
> regional or language-based preferences (and least of all, shoving them down
> users' throats).

So for the usability purpose whole world should use one language as default? You want to say like this. This analogy can be elongated to say that I can feel bad when I see anything other than English anywhere it annoys me. But have you ever cared a person who feel annoyed when s/he sees English. 

Please Try to understand, actually your suggestions kills usability. Please try to understand that treating English just like other language gives us (Fedora) an added advantage of supporting the diversity of the world at its fullest and as a Fedora contributor anybody should be proud of it whether one belongs to English, or Czech or Hindi or Tamil and any language. 

Otherwise don;t make default selection, let the user select, a level playing field for all user.

Comment 20 Siddhesh Poyarekar 2014-08-26 09:21:56 UTC
(In reply to Ankit Patel from comment #17)

I'll answer some as bug reporter.

> 2) Is #comment 0 really indicate a Bug or RFE?

I filed it as a bug, or more as a regression from F18.

> 3) What was the prior research/analysis?

Releases before F19 selected English by default and allowed the user to choose an alternate language.  On the contrary the F21 installer selected Hindi and allowed the user to choose an alternate language.  While the collection of Indian languages near the top is an awesome improvement, the default selection seems arbitrarily chosen.

> 4) What should we analyze (or consider) now?
> --> Inputs from reportees OR
> --> bug watchers OR
> --> language experts OR
> --> usability experts OR
> --> combination of all these OR
> --> the actual data points that could be available?

I don't know and here is where the need for better data asserts itself.  Changing the default should have better data supporting the decision and that data ought to be made visible.  If analysis shows that Hindi is indeed a better default for India then by all means, select it as a default.
  
(In reply to Rajesh Ranjan from comment #18)
> Sorry to say, but there are reasons for the same Siddhesh, may be not
> intentional but certainly unintentional! Still computer is under the reach
> of elites only, that is why the situation is like this in India. 

... and laguage is not the barrier, it is the cost of a computer; you're conflating two completely different things.  In any case this is not a suitable discussion for this bug report.

> Fedora should try to speak the language people is speaking in the region.
> And so for Maharashtra it should come Marathi first!

The change needs to be supported by reliable data.

Comment 21 Amit Shah 2014-08-26 09:23:30 UTC
(In reply to Rajesh Ranjan from comment #19)
> So for the usability purpose whole world should use one language as default?
> You want to say like this. This analogy can be elongated to say that I can
> feel bad when I see anything other than English anywhere it annoys me. But
> have you ever cared a person who feel annoyed when s/he sees English. 
> 
> Please Try to understand, actually your suggestions kills usability. Please
> try to understand that treating English just like other language gives us
> (Fedora) an added advantage of supporting the diversity of the world at its
> fullest and as a Fedora contributor anybody should be proud of it whether
> one belongs to English, or Czech or Hindi or Tamil and any language. 
> 
> Otherwise don;t make default selection, let the user select, a level playing
> field for all user.

I'd like to discuss, but this bug seems hardly the place for this discussion.

Especially I'd like to read your responses to my questions / suggestions in comment 13.

Comment 22 Nilamdyuti 2014-08-26 09:42:15 UTC
In my view, an unnecessary fuss is being made out of nothing by debating over a simple language selection. How does it matter which language is the default selected language in the very first screen of Anaconda? Is it something unchangeable or something that will break the system? No matter which language is the default selection, a user can always select his preferred language from the language selection list and the entire installation process will continue in that particular language. Moreover, all the languages have their English names alongwith their localized ones in the list, so a person irrespective of any language or region can select the desired language. Above all, if this really simple step of selecting the desired language is so painful, annoying and an astronomically time consuming step and a language other than English as the default selection hurts you so much, then I have got nothing to say.

Comment 23 Mike FABIAN 2014-08-26 10:38:44 UTC
(In reply to Ankit Patel from comment #17)
> 1) What's the purpose of this component (langtable)?
> --> As per README file,
> 
> """"""""
> Purpose of this package
> =======================
> 
> langtable is used to guess reasonable defaults for locale, keyboard,
> territory, …, if part of that information is already known. For
> example, guess the territory and the keyboard layout if the language
> is known or guess the language and keyboard layout if the territory is
> already known.
> """"""""

Anaconda uses it to list the possible locales for a language
or the possible locales for a territory. Like this:

$ python3
Python 3.3.2 (default, Jun 30 2014, 17:20:03) 
[GCC 4.8.3 20140624 (Red Hat 4.8.3-1)] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import langtable
>>> langtable.list_locales(languageId='ta')
['ta_IN.UTF-8', 'ta_LK.UTF-8']
>>> langtable.list_locales(territoryId='IN')
['en_IN.UTF-8', 'hi_IN.UTF-8', 'bn_IN.UTF-8', 'te_IN.UTF-8', 'mr_IN.UTF-8', 'ta_IN.UTF-8', 'ur_IN.UTF-8', 'gu_IN.UTF-8', 'kn_IN.UTF-8', 'ml_IN.UTF-8', 'or_IN.UTF-8', 'pa_IN.UTF-8', 'as_IN.UTF-8', 'mai_IN.UTF-8', 'sat_IN.UTF-8', 'ks_IN.UTF-8', 'ks_IN.UTF-8@devanagari', 'kok_IN.UTF-8', 'sd_IN.UTF-8', 'sd_IN.UTF-8@devanagari', 'doi_IN.UTF-8', 'mni_IN.UTF-8', 'brx_IN.UTF-8', 'bho_IN.UTF-8', 'bo_IN.UTF-8', 'hne_IN.UTF-8', 'mag_IN.UTF-8', 'ar_IN.UTF-8']
>>>

The results are ordered according to what seems most likely.

For example when asking what locales are possible for German,
one gets:

>>> langtable.list_locales(languageId='de')
['de_DE.UTF-8', 'de_AT.UTF-8', 'de_CH.UTF-8', 'de_BE.UTF-8', 'de_LU.UTF-8']
>>>

The first is de_DE.UTF-8 because Germany (DE) is the biggest German
speaking country.

If one knows that the country is Switzerland (CH) one gets:

>>> langtable.list_locales(territoryId='CH')
['de_CH.UTF-8', 'fr_CH.UTF-8', 'it_CH.UTF-8', 'wae_CH.UTF-8']
>>> 

So German is the most common language in Switzerland followed by French.

If one knows both the country and the language the result is
often unique, but not always:

>>> langtable.list_locales(languageId='sr', territoryId='RS')
['sr_RS.UTF-8', 'sr_RS.UTF-8@latin']
>>> 

So for Serbian in Serbia we have two results because Serbian
can be written both in Cyrillic script (sr_RS.UTF-8) or in
Latin script (sr_RS.UTF-8@latin).

To make Tamil the default if the installation is done in Tamilnadu,
probably an API extension is needed.

We need to check what geoip actually returns when the IP is from
Tamilnadu.  Does it return the state? Or a city? Or latitude and
longitude? All of this?  The country “IN” alone is not enough to
decide. So if geoip returns more information than just “IN”, I can
probably add data to langtable and extend the API a bit to use this
additional information to get a more precise result of the most common
locale for that location.

But with the current state of langtable, we have have to choose
which language should be the default one for all of India.

The other languages returned by langtable.list_locales(territoryId='IN')
are still shown by Anaconda right next to the first one in the list,
but the first one is selected by default.

Comment 24 Ankit Patel 2014-08-26 10:51:20 UTC
(In reply to Mike FABIAN from comment #23)
> >>> langtable.list_locales(territoryId='IN')
> ['en_IN.UTF-8', 'hi_IN.UTF-8', 'bn_IN.UTF-8', 'te_IN.UTF-8', 'mr_IN.UTF-8',
> 'ta_IN.UTF-8', 'ur_IN.UTF-8', 'gu_IN.UTF-8', 'kn_IN.UTF-8', 'ml_IN.UTF-8',
> 'or_IN.UTF-8', 'pa_IN.UTF-8', 'as_IN.UTF-8', 'mai_IN.UTF-8', 'sat_IN.UTF-8',
> 'ks_IN.UTF-8', 'ks_IN.UTF-8@devanagari', 'kok_IN.UTF-8', 'sd_IN.UTF-8',
> 'sd_IN.UTF-8@devanagari', 'doi_IN.UTF-8', 'mni_IN.UTF-8', 'brx_IN.UTF-8',
> 'bho_IN.UTF-8', 'bo_IN.UTF-8', 'hne_IN.UTF-8', 'mag_IN.UTF-8', 'ar_IN.UTF-8']
> >>>
> 

Alright, so I have a slightly different result on my Fedora 20

>>> langtable.list_locales(territoryId='IN')
['hi_IN.UTF-8', 'en_IN.UTF-8', 'bn_IN.UTF-8', 'te_IN.UTF-8', 'mr_IN.UTF-8', 'ta_IN.UTF-8', 'ur_IN.UTF-8', 'gu_IN.UTF-8', 'kn_IN.UTF-8', 'ml_IN.UTF-8', 'or_IN.UTF-8', 'pa_IN.UTF-8', 'as_IN.UTF-8', 'mai_IN.UTF-8', 'sat_IN.UTF-8', 'ks_IN.UTF-8', 'ks_IN.UTF-8@devanagari', 'kok_IN.UTF-8', 'sd_IN.UTF-8', 'sd_IN.UTF-8@devanagari', 'doi_IN.UTF-8', 'mni_IN.UTF-8', 'brx_IN.UTF-8', 'bho_IN.UTF-8', 'bo_IN.UTF-8', 'hne_IN.UTF-8', 'mag_IN.UTF-8', 'ar_IN.UTF-8']


As one can notice, in my output "hi_IN" is first preference, while "en_IN" in Fabian's. I think it's mostly because of #comment 2, #comment 3 and #comment 4.

But my original question remains unanswered? How did you decide earlier that "hi_IN" was the most common? OR How did you decide now that "en_IN" is the most common one? Did you do any research/analysis or gathered any data points to make this decision?

Comment 25 Mike FABIAN 2014-08-26 11:19:01 UTC
(In reply to Ankit Patel from comment #24)
> 
> As one can notice, in my output "hi_IN" is first preference, while "en_IN"
> in Fabian's. I think it's mostly because of #comment 2, #comment 3 and
> #comment 4.

Yes, I used langtable 0.0.26 which switched the priority of Hindi
and English compared to langtable < 0.0.26.

> But my original question remains unanswered? How did you decide earlier that
> "hi_IN" was the most common? OR How did you decide now that "en_IN" is the
> most common one? Did you do any research/analysis or gathered any data
> points to make this decision?

According to

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_India

Hindi has 258-422 million speakers which is more than any
other of the Indian langauges.

I did this for all languages supported by Fedora, looking at
which language has the most speakers for a given territory.

But I can of course change that if users tell me they want
something different.

For Switzerland the default is German only because the number of
German speakers there is greater than the number of French speakers.
What else could I do? There is no common language for all of
Switzerland.

But for India, English seems to be not an unreasonable choice because
it is commonly used everywhere in India. Therefore, I think Siddhesh’s
argument in comment#0 is understandable. Choosing English as the default
is maybe more “neutral” for India than any of the Indian languages.

In Future, it may be nice to make that more precise, i.e. add
more data for more precise locations to langtable to make it possible
to make Marathi the default in Pune for example.

We don’t have to use that information of course, but it would be nice
if langtable had that sort of information as well (which language is
used mostly in which parts of countries). If such information were
available in langtable, we could offer German as the default for
Zürich in Switzerland than and French for Geneva in Switzerland,
Marathi for locations in Maharashtra, ..., if we want to.

Comment 26 Pravin Satpute 2014-08-26 12:09:35 UTC
Created attachment 930858 [details]
Image of first screen.

Mike you have done great job. I am really happy with the kind of result i am getting, almost all Indian language listed.

There is no harm in having Hindi selected as first choice. It is just a matter of click.

It shows in Fedora leadership in language computing. Fedora is only operating system to support 22 official Indian languages.

Comment 27 Rajesh Ranjan 2014-08-26 12:15:24 UTC
(In reply to Mike FABIAN from comment #25)
> (In reply to Ankit Patel from comment #24)
> 
> But for India, English seems to be not an unreasonable choice because
> it is commonly used everywhere in India. Therefore, I think Siddhesh’s
> argument in comment#0 is understandable. Choosing English as the default
> is maybe more “neutral” for India than any of the Indian languages.
> 
> In Future, it may be nice to make that more precise, i.e. add
> more data for more precise locations to langtable to make it possible
> to make Marathi the default in Pune for example.
> 
> We don’t have to use that information of course, but it would be nice
> if langtable had that sort of information as well (which language is
> used mostly in which parts of countries). If such information were
> available in langtable, we could offer German as the default for
> Zürich in Switzerland than and French for Geneva in Switzerland,
> Marathi for locations in Maharashtra, ..., if we want to.

0.027% population of India think English as their native : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers_in_India

Just to support “neutral” way, Hindi and other Indian language are paying the cost. 

If English is commonly used everywhere in India (a great myth created by the few), then why data here is very different:

1.

http://www.business-standard.com/content/general_pdf/042014_04.pdf

Why top 10 news channel, no English channel is present. The viewer-ship of Hindi is 50 times that one English and all Indian language channels surpass English.

2. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_India_by_readership

among top ten only one newspaper is of English language

3. 

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/hindi/tv/news/TRP-Verdict-Diya-Aur-Baati-Hum-is-no-1-on-the-TRP-chart/articleshow/18988369.cms

Top 10 TV Soaps, no one from English.

Comment 28 Rajesh Ranjan 2014-08-26 12:16:27 UTC
(In reply to Pravin Satpute from comment #26)
> Created attachment 930858 [details]
> Image of first screen.
> 
> Mike you have done great job. I am really happy with the kind of result i am
> getting, almost all Indian language listed.
> 
> There is no harm in having Hindi selected as first choice. It is just a
> matter of click.
> 
> It shows in Fedora leadership in language computing. Fedora is only
> operating system to support 22 official Indian languages.

Thanks Pravin. This is very imp point!

Comment 29 Ankit Patel 2014-08-26 12:19:38 UTC
(In reply to Mike FABIAN from comment #25)
> According to
> 
>     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_India
> 
> Hindi has 258-422 million speakers which is more than any
> other of the Indian langauges.
> 
> I did this for all languages supported by Fedora, looking at
> which language has the most speakers for a given territory.

That's good.

> 
> But I can of course change that if users tell me they want
> something different.

Ok. There's a glitch here, I will try to explain in my comments further.

[...]
> 
> But for India, English seems to be not an unreasonable choice because
> it is commonly used everywhere in India. 

How do you know that English is not an unreasonable choice for India?
Rather how do you know that English is a reasonable choice for India?
OR how do you know that English is commonly used everywhere in India?

> Therefore, I think Siddhesh’s
> argument in comment#0 is understandable. Choosing English as the default
> is maybe more “neutral” for India than any of the Indian languages.

maybe not!

We can't really make decisions based on a single user's (or group of users') reports, rather we should really research and analyze the data.

Let's not assume anything when there's a market data, which I could see that you have done earlier.

[...]

Thanks,

Comment 30 Ani Peter 2014-08-26 13:03:26 UTC
(In reply to Pravin Satpute from comment #26)
> Created attachment 930858 [details]
> Image of first screen.
> 
> Mike you have done great job. I am really happy with the kind of result i am
> getting, almost all Indian language listed.
> 
> There is no harm in having Hindi selected as first choice. It is just a
> matter of click.
> 
> It shows in Fedora leadership in language computing. Fedora is only
> operating system to support 22 official Indian languages.

Exactly. I completely agree to this point and this was something I wanted to mention from the moment I saw this bug. Here we are letting the user know :-

1. the list of languages available in Fedora and the language a user can choose to continue the installation.
2. Being India the geolocation, there is no harm in Hindi being selected as the first choice, being Hindi the official/national language. This is not doing any harm to the user or the system until you click the "Continue" button. 
3. This kind of an approach/setting will give the users the impression the importance Fedora gives to native languages and thats a plus point for Fedora compared to other distros.

Its just a matter of moving cursor to the preferred language, English or any other.

Also a kind request is that when an existing feature/setting (esp sensitive like this) receives a feedback or a bug get reported like this, ideally it should be taken up for discussion with wider crowd, language communities and decided upon concensus. It should not be that a bug is reported and change is done. That wrong approach is something that has made all feel bad. 

Personally, I dont feel there is a need to change this beautiful language feature which is existing from F19. Lets be as it is.

Thanks
Ani

Comment 31 Mike FABIAN 2014-08-26 13:14:54 UTC
(In reply to Ankit Patel from comment #29)

> We can't really make decisions based on a single user's (or group of users')
> reports, rather we should really research and analyze the data.
> 
> Let's not assume anything when there's a market data, which I could see that
> you have done earlier.

So should I put Hindi on top again?

I don’t really know, there seem to be strong opinions either way
in this bug report. Maybe we should make a poll?

Comment 32 Ankit Patel 2014-08-26 13:31:21 UTC
(In reply to Mike FABIAN from comment #31)
> So should I put Hindi on top again?
> 
> I don’t really know, there seem to be strong opinions either way
> in this bug report. Maybe we should make a poll?

What if we don't get enough users to respond to your poll? So, running a Poll is not that I can advise!

You might want to analyze the *facts* (not assumptions) posted/discussed in this bug and make your decision.

Comment 33 Rahul Sundaram 2014-08-26 14:59:38 UTC
The languages story in India is far more complicated than assuming that everyone in a state speaks a particular language and contrary to the claims here, there is no such thing as a "national" language in India (www.thehindu.com/news/national/hindi-not-a-national-language-court/article94695.ece ) and "official" languages include English and Hindi (http://lawmin.nic.in/coi/coiason29july08.pdf). 

A simple count of number of speakers doesn't by itself mean much in a country where technical communication is predominantly in English and language has often been used as a political device.  If there are technical limitations on picking out more granular choices (certainly not a country wide choice), it might be useful to stick to whatever was the default before, discuss this in a mailing list and then make any changes after some consensus.

Comment 34 Siddhesh Poyarekar 2014-08-26 15:04:39 UTC
(In reply to Ani Peter from comment #30)
> Also a kind request is that when an existing feature/setting (esp sensitive
> like this) receives a feedback or a bug get reported like this, ideally it
> should be taken up for discussion with wider crowd, language communities and
> decided upon concensus. It should not be that a bug is reported and change
> is done. That wrong approach is something that has made all feel bad. 

Why is filing a bug report the 'wrong' approach?  You cannot expect every user to try and figure out the mailing list for the localization team and open a conversation with them for everything that they think might be wrong.

(In reply to Ankit Patel from comment #32)
> You might want to analyze the *facts* (not assumptions) posted/discussed in
> this bug and make your decision.

Again, speaking a certain language and using it on a computer on a regular basis are two completely different things.  See slide 10 on [1] for example, which says only 12% of urban users use computing devices in any language other than English.

I don't ask to go by that study because it is not necessarily representative of the entire population - it has the known limitation of sampling only urban computer users and their sample size of 65000 is not large enough to be representative IMO.  Look for facts like those when you're deciding on default selections and not just a count of how many users speak a certain language natively.

If you conclude that there are in fact no such studies that can be relied upon then state that explicitly and then make a decision based on a fallback such as overall language demographics.

[1] http://www.slideshare.net/JuxtConsult/toplines-of-india-bytes-a-computer-usage-brand-study-by-juxt-consult

Comment 35 Ani Peter 2014-08-26 15:22:29 UTC
(In reply to Siddhesh Poyarekar from comment #34)
> (In reply to Ani Peter from comment #30)
> > Also a kind request is that when an existing feature/setting (esp sensitive
> > like this) receives a feedback or a bug get reported like this, ideally it
> > should be taken up for discussion with wider crowd, language communities and
> > decided upon concensus. It should not be that a bug is reported and change
> > is done. That wrong approach is something that has made all feel bad. 
> 
> Why is filing a bug report the 'wrong' approach?  You cannot expect every
> user to try and figure out the mailing list for the localization team and
> open a conversation with them for everything that they think might be wrong.

You have taken me wrong completely here and jumped the gun. I never meant filing a bug report is wrong and you have to figure out localization team mailing list to open a conversation with them. 

My point was when a bug is filed, deriving a conclusion and changing the setting without any discussion with wider crowd and its consenses (comment #2, #3 & #4) is wrong. 

Thanks
Ani

Comment 36 Siddhesh Poyarekar 2014-08-26 15:25:37 UTC
(In reply to Ani Peter from comment #35)
> You have taken me wrong completely here and jumped the gun. I never meant
> filing a bug report is wrong and you have to figure out localization team
> mailing list to open a conversation with them. 
> 
> My point was when a bug is filed, deriving a conclusion and changing the
> setting without any discussion with wider crowd and its consenses (comment
> #2, #3 & #4) is wrong. 

Ahh OK, thanks for clarifying.

Comment 37 Mike FABIAN 2014-08-26 17:19:15 UTC
(In reply to Ani Peter from comment #35)

Ani Peter> Also a kind request is that when an existing
Ani Peter> feature/setting (esp sensitive like this) receives a
Ani Peter> feedback or a bug get reported like this, ideally it should
Ani Peter> be taken up for discussion with wider crowd, language
Ani Peter> communities and decided upon concensus. It should not be
Ani Peter> that a bug is reported and change is done. That wrong
Ani Peter> approach is something that has made all feel bad.

Could you discuss this with the language community then and write
the result into this bug report?

Ani Peter> My point was when a bug is filed, deriving a conclusion and
Ani Peter> changing the setting without any discussion with wider
Ani Peter> crowd and its consenses (comment #2, #3 & #4) is wrong.

Sorry, I didn’t expect that there are different opinions about this.

Comment 38 Rajesh Ranjan 2014-08-26 18:59:43 UTC
(In reply to Rahul Sundaram from comment #33)
> The languages story in India is far more complicated than assuming that
> everyone in a state speaks a particular language and contrary to the claims
> here, there is no such thing as a "national" language in India
> (www.thehindu.com/news/national/hindi-not-a-national-language-court/
> article94695.ece ) and "official" languages include English and Hindi
> (http://lawmin.nic.in/coi/coiason29july08.pdf). 

Rahul, 

Try to understand this is not the issue that one want Hindi to be a default language for whole India, I already told, better to choose a locale by region specific. After the globalization of economy there is not any part of world where you can find people speaking only one language. So respect the language of majority and choose as per the location, like Tamil for Tamil Nadu, Marathi for Maharashtra, Hindi for UP etc.

btw, Probably you will be aware of the fact:

1.
http://www.constitution.org/cons/india/p17343.html

That English is having just an adhoc status?

2. http://www.rajbhasha.nic.in

And why this department is running?

> 
> A simple count of number of speakers doesn't by itself mean much in a
> country where technical communication is predominantly in English and
> language has often been used as a political device.  If there are technical
> limitations on picking out more granular choices (certainly not a country
> wide choice), it might be useful to stick to whatever was the default
> before, discuss this in a mailing list and then make any changes after some
> consensus.

If number not matters, then what matters for choosing the same. Also English is being protected unnecessarily by the few 'elites'. Why you are afraid of choosing a language of India as a default language? What big benefit Fedora will get by choosing English. Rahul, I feel here you are using this issue of language like a 'political' person :-)

Rahul, just let me know if Hindi (though in practice I don't want only Hindi for all the country and I see several have supported to use Hindi) is being chosen as default what harm it will do to the people of India particularly to 'English' people. So, I am forced to call this demand of 'elitist' nature that 'English' Indian people is being annoyed if s/he sees Hindi or any Indian language as a default. For me, it is not doing any harm though my mother speaks Maithili. 

When Fedora comes in a language, we can not treat it just a technical communication. Till the date, census shows data that 'predominantly' Marathi is used by the people of Maharashtra, I will demand to use Marathi as default for the Maharashtra state and so on.

As Pravin wrote rightly, Fedora is the only OS that supports all 22 official languages of India. It is one great USP of Fedora. Why not use it for the promotion of Fedora?

Why do you want to paint the whole world with one colour? Please respect the diversity and allow Our Fedora to follow as per the language of the mass.

Comment 39 Rajesh Ranjan 2014-08-26 19:09:26 UTC
(In reply to Siddhesh Poyarekar from comment #34)
> (In reply to Ani Peter from comment #30)
> 
> Again, speaking a certain language and using it on a computer on a regular
> basis are two completely different things.  See slide 10 on [1] for example,
> which says only 12% of urban users use computing devices in any language
> other than English.
>

Siddhesh, this is a good data that 12% of urban users use computing devices other than English. You also know the current situation of computing in Indian languages, though several things happened but there are limitations and in these limitations also, 12% are using Indian language. That is not bad. 

See the rapid growth of e-Gov like things, see the changes going to happen towards computerisations of different depts, see the increasing use of computer in small towns/kasbas; days may not be very far when you can see the reverse stats for the same. So use of l10n is of futuristic nature and so my request. 

Just assume the case that every home is having a computer and then take decision, you will feel something like us who favours an Indian language over English. Hope you can understand it.

Comment 40 Rahul Sundaram 2014-08-26 19:47:18 UTC
> Rahul, 
> 
> Try to understand this is not the issue that one want Hindi to be a default
> language for whole India, I already told, better to choose a locale by
> region specific.

Yes, so until it is possible to be more granular, changing default language is inappropriate.  This is a technical limitation that must be addressed first.

>That English is having just an adhoc status?

The constitution using no such words. 
 
> If number not matters, then what matters for choosing the same. 

Noone claimed numbers don't matter but they should be interpreted appropriately.

Also English
> is being protected unnecessarily by the few 'elites'. Why you are afraid of
> choosing a language of India as a default language? What big benefit Fedora
> will get by choosing English. Rahul, I feel here you are using this issue of
> language like a 'political' person :-)

That's amusing considering that you are using heavily loaded terms like "elites" and "afraid" which sounds far more political than anything I said.  Please don't use bugzilla as a discussion forum and bring it up in the appropriate mailing list if you want to discuss this further.

Comment 41 Fedora Update System 2014-08-27 01:33:52 UTC
Package langtable-0.0.26-1.fc20:
* should fix your issue,
* was pushed to the Fedora 20 testing repository,
* should be available at your local mirror within two days.
Update it with:
# su -c 'yum update --enablerepo=updates-testing langtable-0.0.26-1.fc20'
as soon as you are able to.
Please go to the following url:
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2014-9773/langtable-0.0.26-1.fc20
then log in and leave karma (feedback).

Comment 42 Siddhesh Poyarekar 2014-08-27 03:09:33 UTC
(In reply to Rajesh Ranjan from comment #39)
> Siddhesh, this is a good data that 12% of urban users use computing devices
> other than English. You also know the current situation of computing in
> Indian languages, though several things happened but there are limitations
> and in these limitations also, 12% are using Indian language. That is not
> bad. 

Agreed, not bad at all, but still not good enough to make it a default choice.

> See the rapid growth of e-Gov like things, see the changes going to happen
> towards computerisations of different depts, see the increasing use of
> computer in small towns/kasbas; days may not be very far when you can see
> the reverse stats for the same. So use of l10n is of futuristic nature and
> so my request. 

Right and I have agreed with you all along that if/when we have data that shows user preference for localized user interfaces (which is different from user preference for localized content or a user's native language), we switch to selecting localized interfaces by default.

Lets take this discussion to an appropriate mailing list so that we don't clutter bugzilla with it.  Please keep me in cc if you want me to chime in.

Comment 43 Ankit Patel 2014-08-27 12:00:54 UTC
Alright, so as I can hear it from everyone in the discussion here that "Let's revert the changes back to it's original state" and then move on the conversation somewhere else (maybe on the mailing list) and research/analyze the data that's available to make the further decision.

Fabian, can you revert the changes now? (I can see that bugzilla is moved to ON_QA!)

Comment 44 Fedora Update System 2014-08-27 14:41:32 UTC
langtable-0.0.27-1.fc19 has been submitted as an update for Fedora 19.
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/langtable-0.0.27-1.fc19

Comment 45 Fedora Update System 2014-08-27 14:42:13 UTC
langtable-0.0.27-1.fc20 has been submitted as an update for Fedora 20.
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/langtable-0.0.27-1.fc20

Comment 46 Fedora Update System 2014-09-19 10:09:07 UTC
langtable-0.0.27-1.fc19 has been pushed to the Fedora 19 stable repository.  If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.

Comment 47 Fedora Update System 2014-09-19 10:15:52 UTC
langtable-0.0.27-1.fc20 has been pushed to the Fedora 20 stable repository.  If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.

Comment 48 Jens Petersen 2015-06-02 03:09:29 UTC
Was this ever discussed in the mailing-lists?

I'd like to revisit this anyway.

Comment 50 Fedora End Of Life 2015-11-04 15:23:52 UTC
This message is a reminder that Fedora 21 is nearing its end of life.
Approximately 4 (four) weeks from now Fedora will stop maintaining
and issuing updates for Fedora 21. It is Fedora's policy to close all
bug reports from releases that are no longer maintained. At that time
this bug will be closed as EOL if it remains open with a Fedora  'version'
of '21'.

Package Maintainer: If you wish for this bug to remain open because you
plan to fix it in a currently maintained version, simply change the 'version' 
to a later Fedora version.

Thank you for reporting this issue and we are sorry that we were not 
able to fix it before Fedora 21 is end of life. If you would still like 
to see this bug fixed and are able to reproduce it against a later version 
of Fedora, you are encouraged  change the 'version' to a later Fedora 
version prior this bug is closed as described in the policy above.

Although we aim to fix as many bugs as possible during every release's 
lifetime, sometimes those efforts are overtaken by events. Often a 
more recent Fedora release includes newer upstream software that fixes 
bugs or makes them obsolete.

Comment 51 Pravin Satpute 2015-11-25 13:24:24 UTC
Are we planning to revisit this bug? if yes lets move to F23.

Comment 52 Fedora End Of Life 2015-12-02 03:28:51 UTC
Fedora 21 changed to end-of-life (EOL) status on 2015-12-01. Fedora 21 is
no longer maintained, which means that it will not receive any further
security or bug fix updates. As a result we are closing this bug.

If you can reproduce this bug against a currently maintained version of
Fedora please feel free to reopen this bug against that version. If you
are unable to reopen this bug, please file a new report against the
current release. If you experience problems, please add a comment to this
bug.

Thank you for reporting this bug and we are sorry it could not be fixed.

Comment 53 Jan Kurik 2016-02-24 15:40:36 UTC
This bug appears to have been reported against 'rawhide' during the Fedora 24 development cycle.
Changing version to '24'.

More information and reason for this action is here:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_Program_Management/HouseKeeping/Fedora24#Rawhide_Rebase

Comment 54 Mike FABIAN 2017-05-24 06:39:57 UTC
The default was reverted back to the original state (Hindi)
and there was no better solution so far.


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