9. The need for “cultural translation

We tend to keep on thinking in terms of program messages and culturally neutral documents. But for teaching it's resources that are instrumental, and a real localization of resources includes taking account of the different traditions and imaginaries of children around the world.

An example will be enough, I hope: a non-first world-centred approach to free software in education implies remembering that the images used in gcompris when used in Côte d'Ivoire cannot be the same as when it is used in Norway. This implies the need of cooperation with artists, photographers, etc. to localize our applications.

Besides, education is made with sounds, images, photos, videos… It's clear they have to be free to be able to share them, but maybe we forget the localization point of view: let's use formats based on XML because they will permit easy localization. I'm thinking of formas like svg…

Mérida, October 2005