meeting tomorrow night -- topic change!
Nigel Stewart
nigels at nigels.com
Thu Jul 29 01:09:00 EDT 2004
> Software Livre!: What Free and Open Source Software means to Brazil
Great talk, glad I made it down to Nashua.
In relation to my left-field outburst about student administration
software - my previous employer paid a lot of money (~USD$30M+)
to peoplesoft for a system that simply didn't work. As a great
example of the need for localisation - RMIT adapted terminology from
the USA because it was expected to be _cheaper_ than localising the
software to the Australian terminology. I figure it might have
been a little more sensible to change strings from "Course"
to "Subject" in a hex editor - but I suppose that might have
voided the warranty. :-) (Or DCMA IP agreements, or whatever)
http://www.crikey.com.au/whistleblower/2003/09/05-0003.html
It may well serve as a useful contrast to the Open Source
experience in Brazil.
Nigel
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