Janice Campbell's Weblog: Localization & Netbeans

Contributors to TranslatedFiles cover the globe; they develop applications in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. They get satisfaction from seeing their work downloaded and distributed around the world, and from knowing they are helping non-English speaking developers gain access to tools.

Of course, it's also fun to get a t-shirt for your contribution! It's not the driving force, but it gets recognition when you wear them at developer events and conferences.

I do my best to send out t-shirts to the active contributors. I also like to get back a photo of them wearing the t-shirt. I often use these photos (with permission) in my blogs or in presentations to management. Because, well, it's about the community and the people, as individuals, who make a product great.

Once in a while I run into trouble getting a t-shirt to a well-deserved contributor. There have been a number of incidents, but the oddest one has to be the first t-shirt I tried to send to Ahmet, a long-time NetBeans Albanian-language contributor. He lives in Kosovo. Until it became independent recently, it was under United Nations administration (UNMIK). We packaged up the single t-shirt and sent it by a well-known global carrier. It came back as undeliverable. They didn't know where Kosovo was. Next, we made sure to spell Pristina without the "h" this time and add "Serbia Montenegro". After a week, it came back again as undeliverable. We added "UNMIK" this time. Still came back. I was about to give up. We tried the regular postal service. Once again, it came back. Not as undeliverable, but hand-scrawled across the top of the package "Please indicate whether the recipient is Christian or Muslim". How ridiculous. I refused to play that game. Finally, we tried another global carrier" and called by phone and asked for specific instructions on how to address the package. Finally got there.

And, here is Ahmet, sporting the NetBeans 6.0 t-shirt at a robotics competition in Linz, Austria. No, this isn't the one I sent. It was sent from the Czech Republic. I guess they know where Kosovo is!