pseudo-localization variants

[Peter Constable]

From: ietf-languages-bounces at alvestrand.no [mailto:ietf-languages-bounces at alvestrand.no] On Behalf Of Doug Ewell

> There is a big difference between invalid tags like "qps-ploc" and "qps-plocm", and valid private-use tags like "qps-x-ploc" and "qps-x-plocm", and I'm disappointed that Microsoft would be using the former, six years after the publication of RFC 4646. 
...
> ... please, everybody, use valid private-use tags; don't just throw up your hands and make up valid-looking tags that aren't valid.

Well, you're preaching to the choir. 

We here need to recognize that, while RFC 4646 was published six years ago and BCP 47 has been around longer than that, there are a lot of people out in the world implementing software who still don't don't much about BCP 47; they just see things like "en" or "en-US" and make their own assumptions. Even at Microsoft, which for these purposes is far more like a VC firm with an interest in a large number of smaller businesses than like a single and well-coordinated entity. I'm happy to say that, during the Windows 8 development cycle, my team and some key partners made a lot of progress in educating a lot of the other parts of Windows and MS as a whole about BCP 47. But this particular practice by our localizers of using invalid tags predates all that.



Peter