Writing Software for Worldwide Distribution Proves Difficult 1391
lupa1420 writes "Insensitive computer programmers with little knowledge of geography have cost the giant Microsoft company hundreds of millions of dollars in lost business and led hapless company employees to be arrested by offended governments."
The whole idea is crazy (Score:3, Insightful)
not exclusive (Score:2, Insightful)
Most of these aren't geographic errors... (Score:5, Insightful)
Lame article (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh come on (Score:5, Insightful)
Americans may have a poor understanding of Geography, but I don't really see that being an issue in this case. All Microsoft could have done is more thoroughly research the area.
Not Just MS (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh (Score:1, Insightful)
> - for choosing gender. But in some Central American republics, notably
> Nicaragua, the word is an insult meaning "bitch". The programme was changed.
So the Spanish version has to be in Nicaraguan? I thought software was internationalised according to territory, not language?
Geography? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you read the article, you'll see the computer programmer's problems have nothing to do with geography... and everything to do with understanding and respecting differences in the cultures that may purchase MSFT products. I think showing the programmers where the Pacific Ocean is isn't going to do very much to make the software more culturally acceptable.
Re:Insular US (Score:3, Insightful)
Not too sure about this.... (Score:5, Insightful)
TFA makes little sense (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The whole idea is crazy (Score:2, Insightful)
Come on - a US product is getting flamed for not knowing every fucking quirk of all other countries religeons, customs, languages, etc... I dont love MS by any stretch, but this is ridiculous - if you dont like it, dont fucking buy it.
Bigger problem I see (Score:4, Insightful)
Passing the buck (Score:3, Insightful)
hapless company employees
Talk about passing the buck. Some of the top problems in the article:
This isn't hapless employees. This is government oppression, and the bans on free speech necessary to pull them off.
Re:Insular US (Score:5, Insightful)
And because it has been widely speculated that they are more responsive to advertising than any other demographic, the networks are probably catering to them.
Master / Slave HDD (Score:4, Insightful)
After reading this article... (Score:5, Insightful)
Usually, I'm an american that makes every effort to be understanding of cultures different than my own, and to try to understand why it is that the US is frowned upon by other cultures. We have a foreign exchange intern here from Europe right now, and we've had long conversations about why and how americans take their relative wealth for granted (even our citizens on welfare tend to be wealthier than many in smaller european countries!)
But this...this isn't a lack of sensitivity on Microsoft's part. It's a lack of toleration on the part of other cultures. Knowing full-well that this software was written by programmers of another culture, there should be a degree of toleration and patience that goes along with the process. Make the developer aware of the issue and give them a chance to fix it.
Honestly, if someone in another culture (India perhaps?) that wasn't sufficiently versed in US geography made a map that, oh...I don't know, put St. Louis in Illinois rather than Missouri, or show the Arch crossing the Mississippi River or something equally stupid, I suppose some might be offended (I can think of other, more controversial examples...), but more than likely we'd give them the chance to fix it first.
Americans may be stuck up, take a WHOLE lot of freedoms for granted, have lots of money, and think too highly of themselves at times to bother learning about other cultures, but I'll give you one thing:
Even some of the most annoying pricks I know seem to be more tolerant than some other cultures are to the average Joe. How pathetic is that?
Re:Not too sure about this.... (Score:3, Insightful)
You mean like READING?
I live in the same county of the same state I was born in and I certainly knew Kashmir is a disputed region between India and Pakistan, and I certainly knew China refuses to acknowledge Taiwan exists as a separate entity from China.
These aren't esoteric things. It's not that big a world.
I mean... don't any of you play RISK?!
Re:Specific Ocean? (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm guessing you must live somewhere near Regina, but it's not entirely clear from your description.
Politics rather than Geography (Score:3, Insightful)
If you read the article you realize that most of the mistakes made had nothing to do with geography.
"Microsoft employees were questioned by police in China, where it is an offence to refer to Taiwan as country or as the Republic of China"How is this a geography issue? Taiwan recognizes itself as an independent country.
"A game called Age of Empires 2 offended the Saudi Arabian authorities because it showed victorious Muslim armies turning churches into mosques"Again, how is this a geography issue?
I think this article is just bait for the daily MS bashing on /.
-chrisIt's to be expected... (Score:5, Insightful)
This sounds much more like a "lets point out all the funny fuckups from M$" article, and much less a diatribe on the difficulties of writing international software. Yes, they've made a few mistakes, and the occasional horrid judgement call (I mean, really, insulting all of Islam? Well, at least now we know better...). But some things, like the evil spanish word, referring to breakaway states as countries in their own right, or other such silliness, are just an "oops", where you wouldn't expect them to rightfully know better.
On that note though, what's up with the rabid nations emasculating anyone who dares suggest that Kashmir or Taiwan are separate countries? I generally find foreign media less crazy than US, but try reading an article from a chinese newspaper on taiwan sometime... it's almost frighteningly evangelical in it's belief.
And, finally... come on, AoE2? I thought the muslims replacing the churches was a cute touch, not insulting... I mean, it's a game, you have to change the game elements to fit the theme of whoever is winning... and you wouldn't expect westerners to know the details of how the muslims handled conquered peoples and their religion during the crusades...
Re:Specific Ocean? (Score:5, Insightful)
So while that's not as extreme as not knowing where the Pacific Ocean is... Americans aren't the only geographically-challenged people out there.
Re:Of course not! (Score:2, Insightful)
That being said...after reading the article, I cannot believe whole governments getting that pissed about what a time setting map looks like, or a background 'chant' in a video game. Geez, what's the big deal here....nothing a reasonable person should even notice, much less get so riled about it that you ban the software. People need to chill out a bit more...
Microsoft and "American" Programmers (Score:2, Insightful)
Aside from that, most of the problems in the article were much less geographical and more geopolitical.
Re:After reading this article... (Score:2, Insightful)
The errors being made are of political geography, where govts are extremely sensitive about the issues, rightly or wrongly.
Re:Most of these aren't geographic errors... (Score:1, Insightful)
This didn't even have anything to do with India, or this region I never heard of. Just time zones... They would need a full time department just to handle issues like this. You want someone coding a map, probably based on pure coordinates to be up to date on daily-changing Asian affairs and disputes ? Give me a break. Maybe tomorrow it will officially be not part of India.
Re:TFA makes little sense (Score:5, Insightful)
I beg to differ (Score:3, Insightful)
This isn't hapless employees. This is government oppression, and the bans on free speech necessary to pull them off.
Censorship, tough laws, whatever, but if you're going to do business in a country then you'd damn well better get yourself familiar with the way that country works. As the oft-repeated phrase goes, "Ignorance of the law is no excuse."
It's called the lowest common denominator (Score:1, Insightful)
Everywhere corporate interests are putting profit ahead of ethics.
For instance the article says this regarding the obliteration of kurdistan from the windows timezone maps:
"Of course we offended Kurds by doing this but we had offended the Turks more and they were a much more important market for our products. It was a hard commercial decision, not political."
I work for a media company where this kind of stuff is policy. There's a good article about it at assnake magazine [asssnake.com]
Re:Of course not! (Score:1, Insightful)
The Real Story..... (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, India was the one example I used for emphasis, but there are plenty more examples in all countries including me own Benighted States.
Now it appears that we are all supposed to be bound by the immoral limits on thought and speech than anyone in power happens to promulgate. I don't think so. Cultural sensitivity is not wrong, blatantly offending any culture is at the very least rude, at the worst racist. But this article seems to imply that everything anyone puts out should be sensored by every special interest, religion, and government until it is what they consider politically and religiously and culturally correct.
No thanks.
-Then the fit hit the Shan. - R. Zelazney, Lord of Light
Re:Specific Ocean? (Score:5, Insightful)
There's only two oceans that lap up against US shores
Beyond that
Most Euro countries aren't 3000 x 1500 miles in size, made up of 48 separate states. Can you point out something other than London on a map of England? It's only the size of VA.
- Roach
Re:Specific Ocean? (Score:5, Insightful)
Most people in France for instance, probably have no idea their country is only slightly larger than Texas, or that Alaska alone is larger than most of Western Europe.
Re:After reading this article... (Score:4, Insightful)
Hell, plenty of Americans dont even know that the State of Washington has nothing to do with Washington in the District of Columbia.
Hell, do they even know that D.C. isn't a state, it's a special district with it's own government?
Do they know that Peurto Rico belongs to the US, but is it's own nation? I suppose referring to Peurto Rico as a state would offend some Peurto Ricans.
The difference between this example and China or India, is it's not a criminal offense to mistakenly refer to Peurto Rico as a "state", neither in the USA or in Peurto Rico. It is a criminal offense to refer to Taiwan as a country in China.
Re:Most of these aren't geographic errors... (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, one of the major errors - the inclusion of a chant of verses from the Koran in Kakuto Chojin - was made by Japanese developers.
The article illustrates the value, more than anything, of hiring consultants for each and every country into which you intend to market a product.
Re:Not too sure about this.... (Score:3, Insightful)
But the British can't use spell/grammar checker (Score:3, Insightful)
From the article...
"The company has now launched geography classes for its staff to avoid further bloomers which have caused embarrassment
"It is therefore no surprise that some of our employees, however bright they may, have only a hazy idea
"Uruguay is a republic and proud if it but..." -- proud of it, right?
Typos and junk grammar really discredit any article.
Axe to grind? (Score:5, Insightful)
1, Not knowing where Jammu-Kashmir is, exactly, and not knowing that Indian law prohibits considering it part of anything but India. (Never mind that the law has its own counterpart in Pakistan; you can't avoid breaking the law on this one.)
2, In a similar vein, having to offend Kurds so as not to offend the Turks with regard to the depiction of Kurdistan.
3, Offending the Saudis by showing churches turned into mosques by invading Muslim armies...never mind that the exact opposite happens when a Christian army takes over a mosque in the game.
4, Didn't know that "woman" in one dialect of Spanish means "bitch" in another.
None of these things seem to me to be so hard to imagine. Do Nicaraguans know that the word "cracker" can be used as a racist term here? Do Indians know that the Argentines go completely apeshit when you refer to the Faulkand Islands as such, rather than by their preferred name for them? And his assertion that Microsoft leaves their employees facing arrest in other countries seems baseless; he didn't mention a single instance. The worst he came up with was "questioned," and that was for calling Taiwan by it's real name. It's not Microsoft's fault that China has a wild hair up their ass over that one, either.
Re:But the British can't use spell/grammar checker (Score:3, Insightful)
On this one the writer is correct, "bloomers" is a rather old-fashioned British term for a mistake. It's still used in the title of a BBC programme "Auntie's Bloomers" which shows what Americans would call bloopers from BBC programmes.
The other two examples were just typos rather than "junk grammar".
TWW
Re:After reading this article... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's hard to compare the Kashmir problem to anything in the United States because we aren't involved in any border disputes with our neighbors. The closest thing that I can come up with would be to say that Texas still belongs to Mexico. Even that is a stretch, because the Mexico-Texas border isn't disputed. Kashmir is a very real political disagreement that doesn't even have a border -- it has a cease-fire line! People have died over Kashmir, and I'm not talking about someone's ancestor five generations ago, I'm talking about earlier this year. I think it's undeniably insensitive for anyone to ignore that. Doesn't anyone at Microsoft read the news?
The programmer's fault? (Score:3, Insightful)
~Ben
Re:Not too sure about this.... (Score:3, Insightful)
While that may be true, does that mean we have to cater to the delusions of the Chinese (PRC) government? That's as stupid as the Arab countries that refuse to show Israel on their maps. They may not like the existence of Israel, but it's there.
Re:Insular US (Score:2, Insightful)
Everyone bashing the Americans (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Master / Slave HDD (Score:5, Insightful)
When I hear the word "Slave" the first thing that comes to mind is white women with blonde hair and big tits dressed up in leather that doesn't cover any of their goodies and strapped to a cross or something.
Primary is the first IDE bus, and Secondary is the second one. You'd have Primary Primary, Primary Secondary, Secondary Primary, and Secondary Secondary. You don't think that would be confusing? I thought this was news for nerds.
Re:It's to be expected... (Score:3, Insightful)
here. The Hagia Sophia in Instanbul (nee Constantinople) immediately springs to mind as a church that was converted to a mosque. The region known as the Holy Land is littered with converted churches. For the sake of fairness, it's also littered with churches that are still churches, though.
Re:Of course not! (Score:2, Insightful)
American Insularity (Score:3, Insightful)
We get the same kind of crap up in Canada, but it doesn't have the monopoly position it has in the U.S. It's a shame, too; there is good journalism in America, but most Americans never get to see it. Media giants like Rupert Murdoch don't help the situation either. By the way, Murdoch is Australian--my advice is to send the bastard back home.
An insular press will result in an insular educational system, influencing public opinion concerning priorities. It also doesn't help that America sends a lot of troops abroad, and American troops tend to be the poorest and worst educated of the American population. This is not helped by a steady diet of sensationalistic media mixed with the us-vs-them mentality common to all armies. Probably not the best ambassadors--this might have something to do with America's image problem abroad.
It could be worse, though. They could be rude and arrogant, like the French. And insularity... the Japanese had a toy robot named 'God-o-Jesus'...
Re:Lame article (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The whole idea is crazy (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Oh come on (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Specific Ocean? (Score:5, Insightful)
No
Beyond that, what incentive would someone in Germany have to know where Ohio is? Being from Ohio, I can state with some authority that there is little, if any.
Unless you have a specific reason for knowing
But I sure as hell know where all 50 states are, and the major bodies of water in my own country.
- Roach
Re:Insular US (Score:3, Insightful)
Last night, on The News Hour on PBS, they had two women discussing charter schools vs. public schools in the US. Students at both types of schools scored less than 30% of students being competent at math and reading, so I really couldn't figure out the purpose of their debate at all (i.e., schools basically suck, please please let them stop buying craploads of computers and stadiums and start making "teacher" a real profession, again).
Apples and Oranges (Score:5, Insightful)
You are comparing ignorance of regional districts *within* a country (states) to ignorance of major world countries as a whole.
Europeans not knowing where Florida is is a totally different thing to Americans not knowing where Sweeden is. One os a district, the other is a country.
If you think Europeans should know where Florida is, then that means that Americans should know where South Wales is in the UK. Good luck on *that*.
It is pretty much accepted knowledge worldwide that the vast majority of the US population has little concern with anything beyond its own borders. Just watch your average american 6'oclock newscast and count the international references. Compared to other countries' newscasts it should be embarassing.
Re:Specific Ocean? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not too sure about this.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course not. Unless you are interested in selling your products in China, that is.
The fact is that Microsoft (and many other companies, for that matter) would very much like to sell their products in China, so they have to please the Chinese government. Or at least not anger them.
Re:Specific Ocean? (Score:2, Insightful)
If you weren't american, I'd be certain you were being sarcastic.
Re:Of course not! (Score:2, Insightful)
It's all historical. Back when the earth was flat, there was only an "up" side.
Re:Master / Slave HDD (Score:2, Insightful)
All I hear from African Americans (AA) are how horrible things were for slaves, and how horrible things were for AA thereafter. But guess what? I'll bet dimes to dollars that YOU have never been subjected to any actual form of racism other than what you imagine. Ever been turned down for a job for being AA? ANy burning crosses in your yard? I didn't think so.
AA comedians make a habbit of calling whites "crackers" and other "racially offensive" names -- do you hear us bitch like the average AA bitchs about being called N-----? Of course we don't! You know why? Because it doesn't matter!
I'm sick of it. Everyone else is sick of it. No you can't have any reparations, crying everytime you hear the word 'slave' isn't going to get you any free money.
And whats the deal with racism against whites being called "reverse racism". Thats the biggest load of shit I've ever heard! Racism is racism, no matter what color the ignorant asshat happens to be.
(now posting anonymously)
fall forever, Pacific Ocean where? (Score:5, Insightful)
A game called Age of Empires 2 offended the Saudi Arabian authorities because it showed victorious Muslim armies turning churches into mosques. The game was withdrawn from sale in the kingdom
I've been to some mosques that were converted from churches after wars. I even have pictures [comcast.net]. This happened. I could understand how some Christians could get a little miffed. Could someone explain how it is offensive to Muslims?
Also, the geography "mistakes" in the article appear to be more policitical in nature than some developer not knowing where the Pacific Ocean is. Would I expect some developer in China to know about the controverial border between Michigan and Ohio that led to the Toldeo (Ohio) War? [michigan.gov]
Re:Master / Slave HDD (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Apples and Oranges (Score:3, Insightful)
It's interesting to note that the international news of other countries generally covers American news with perhaps bits and pieces of "important" other foreign news like who won a big soccer game. At least that's how it was in France when I was there watching their daily news.
Re:Lame article (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the reasonable thing to do would have been to develop different versions of the software for each country where it is sold, so that in Windows India Edition the Kashmir region is displayed as part of India, while in Windows Pakistan Edition the Kashmir region is displayed as part of Pakistan.
Microsoft appears to be trying to sell Windows as a global product, but there is no globally-accepted geography that can be used in it. Some degree of localization is necessary.
Re:Of course not! (Score:5, Insightful)
What light source? The electric bulb in your ceiling or the candle on your table?
Re:Most of these aren't geographic errors... (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand, this instance wasn't one of ignorance entirely. From the article:
Ignorance would be preferable. The "It's okay if we do something really inappropriate because nobody will notice" attitude rather emphasizes the (usually unfair) perception that those loutish Americans don't have any respect for other cultures or religions. The Japanese developers were just sloppy for failing to check out their source material. The Americans were warned that the use of the chants would be highly offensive.Re:Bigger problem I see (Score:4, Insightful)
Read up on the history of Kashmir and it'll be clear that this isn't trivial. Besides, the engineers were detained for breaking a law... Maybe that law seems silly to you, but I'm sure there are tons of examples of from your homeland that seem silly to outsiders. Although, they are probably not likely to trigger a war.
Re:Master / Slave HDD (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, slavery is a historical fact, it occurred in many many cultures for thousands of years before the African Slave trade started in America. Should every culture that enslaved another culture throughout history pay "reparations?" ABSOLUTELY NOT! You weren't alive back then and neither was I so get over it and stop trying to get FREE MONEY THAT YOU DO NOT DESERVE.
Just because you are offended by someone else's culture doesn't mean that they aren't offended by yours as well. We have different cultures, deal with it -- really anyone that gets offended when someone of another culture doesn't understand their culture is the one who has the problem, not the "offending" party. I really can't stand this bullshit about how we have to be so sensitive about other people's cultures when they are completely insensitive to our culture. Respect is a two way street.
Re:After reading this article... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Insular US (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, it's not too far off from 10% if you ignore the fact that 10% is actually more than three times larger than 3%. That has to be one of the stupidest comments I have ever seen here.
Re:The whole idea is crazy (Score:4, Insightful)
And above all, if Microsoft didn't decide that not putting a country on the map is just a business decision. If the didn't bend over, perhaps the bully countries in question would give in and use Windows anyway - pirated copies at least - to be able to benefit from business software, CAD, games and other nice products of the civilized world. Use your monopoly for a good cause for a change!
Everything upsets somebody. (Score:1, Insightful)
the ISO (an NGO) has decided that Afganistan's official name is no longer "The Islamic State of Afghanistan" but instead is "The Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan".
Not keeping up with this s*** is not the same as not knowing basic geography.
Re:Churches to Mosques? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, that happened for sure. I don't understand the over reaction by the Saudis, but it is perhaps oversensitivity to the issue or something.
It did not happen in every case where Muslim armies conquered though, since there are lots of pre-Islamic churches in Syria, Egypt, ...etc. still exist today.
You have to also remember that it also happened the other way, the mosques in Spain and Portugal were turned into churches as the Catholics too them over. Many of the church towers in Spain have a Moorish / North African architecture because of this.
That was before the conquest of Constantinople, and perhaps a reaction as well?
Re:Of course not! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Of course not! (Score:5, Insightful)
So what country are you in? I'm in the US, where most of the citizens wouldn't recognize a Latin mass. The largest single religious group is Catholics, and most of them wouldn't even recognize the Latin words to the mass.
There's an old joke in the US, that if English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me.
(Part of the joke is that most religious Americans wouldn't understand that it's a joke.)
Re:Insular US (Score:4, Insightful)
According to Newsweek (4/16/01) the UN pegs the figure at 97% for the U.S. population over 15 years of age.
Bad (~7.5M), but not nearly as bad as your example. And, it still includes some that aren't so by education.
Re:The whole idea is crazy (Score:4, Insightful)
By not taking into account the differences between countries, Microsoft is sending a very broad message that they really don't know their market - something any first year business student can tell you is just plain dumb.
Cross a Boundary! (Score:3, Insightful)
Seems to me that the real problem will not be solved by holding geography classes. Here the problem was clearly identified within the company before product release. The warning was ignored because someone thought that software released in the US would remain isolated within the target market. Americans understanding Arabic? or software released in the US ending up in the middle east? What were the odds of that, eh?
What it shows is that neither nations nor "markets" can adequately define people. Can you imagine how silly it would be for them to make a release of Football-game software specifically for each team's home region so as not to offend the local fans? Did you know that some radio stations are already playing songs tailored in just this way?!? To me, the fact that some corporate marketing goons think they can classify me and expect me to like it... that's offensive.
Refuse to be classified! Don't let something arbitrary isolate you from other people; not nation, not religion or customs, not even language. Cross a line. Overcome a barrier.
This is one of the main reasons I encourage people to learn Esperanto [lernu.net] like I'm doing. What kind of difference do you think it might make, for example, if the people of Iraq and the US were able to freely communicate? Not just a few foreign-educated men but factory workers and dentists, grocery-clerks and stay-at-home moms... What if you had a pen-pal in Iraq? Do you think you might get a different story than what you're being fed by the news media?
Missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The whole idea is crazy (Score:2, Insightful)
Perhaps the churches should be burned (Score:3, Insightful)
What the Saudis object to is the concept of the game. They object to a Muslim team grabbing land from a Christian team.
Get over it. It's a game.
Re:Lame article (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, I'm glad they are trying to make it a global product. One thing that annoys me about earlier Windows versions (and the programs written for them) is that they are tailored to regional versions. An example: There were (and may still be) Japanese versions of Windows. I speak and read a bit of Japanese, so I occasionaly play around with applications written for the Japanese versions of the OS. The problem of course being that all the text is trashed, since it's expecting the OS to be (most likely) in Shift-JIS. Newer software uses Unicode, so it just works. So I don't think the answer is different versions, just better attempts at proper customization when you choose a region in Control Panel.
Re:Specific Ocean? (Score:2, Insightful)
Most people in France for instance, probably have no idea their country is only slightly larger than Texas, or that Alaska alone is larger than most of Western Europe.
Also I don't think Americans realize that while Europe is quite a bit smaller than the US, there are actually a lot more people there. And both Americans and Europeans probably think Australia is a relatively small island. And nobody in the Western world realizes how friggin huge Africa is, or even just a single African country like the Sudan.
And of course, despite all of these things, there are more than a billion people in both India and China who couldn't care less...
No, humans just don't understand the physical scale of the world very well.
Re:The whole idea is crazy (Score:4, Insightful)
Basicly some of those mistakes are unavoidable if you are taking a single product and derive localized versions of it. Call them 'social bugs'. It happens, and you should fix them and get over it. It gets really nasty when you are informed beforehand about some blunders and still don't change your product though.
Re:Of course not! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure this is an apt comparison. I think that the offense came from the fact that the prayer music was part of a profane and violent fighting game. I would be offended too (and I'm not Christian) if Christian religious chanting were used as background music for such a game. Its simply disrespectful to the sentiments involved.
Re:The whole idea is crazy (Score:5, Insightful)
None of us like companies to become political agents in the world- but just doing business in certain parts of the world makes political statements- even if self-serving ones.
parent is an idiot, why is it modded up? (Score:2, Insightful)
I wonder how offended the Saudi's where when I was over there defending their asses and didn't plug my ears when they blared these prayers over loudspeakers nationwide twice a day. -- This is just a stupid an nonsensical statement. Read it again mods. Really, what is redeeming or interesting about it?
we have to be sensitive to those that consider us the devil, and will be rewarded in heaven for killing us infidels. I repeat, parent is an idiot.
Re:The whole idea is crazy (Score:3, Insightful)
*Cough* Sklyarov *Cough*
Perhaps if the Eastern bloc just held to it's ideals, the US would just capitulate, and let people pirate the software they wanted in the first place, to be able to benefit from all the extra freedoms that the software allowed (i.e. backups and such things allowed in the civilized world).
Do I think that this arresting of people is a good idea? Jeez, no. I'm sympathetic with MS on this one. However, I've worked with a few companies with international dealings. And there were representatives hired in each country that had to vet the software we produced and try to catch all the larger 'gotchas' that would land us in trouble.
One would think that MS with it's huge coffers could afford to hire such people. Looks like they're starting to, which is a good thing.
Being multinational is always a pain. There's always so much more to consider, which means you have to.
But I still disagree with arresting of individuals. That's just silly.
Re:The whole idea is crazy (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Specific Ocean? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It's to be expected... (Score:2, Insightful)
Muslims didn't change every church, but they did change some. So, it seems like an odd thing to get stuck on from a game.
As for 'hembra' that strikes me as a colloquial use, so there's no way MS could know without having a consultant from central america.
But, considering they lost money in many of these, you'd think they'd start hiring.
Re:Of course not! (Score:3, Insightful)
That attitude leads to bad art. Poop-on-canvas style bad art, challenging nothing but your perception of the artist.
Re:Lame article (Score:3, Insightful)
But... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:But... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The whole idea is crazy (Score:2, Insightful)
If they can be that sensitive about the feelings of Americans (quick buck), they should be just as sensitive of the political and social feelings of other nations (quick buck).
M$ wouldn't DREAM of pushing a game with Nazis in it in Germany, would they? Of course not. The same rules apply here.
Re:Of course not! (Score:3, Insightful)
One of the primary tenets of 'freedom of speech' is that it also includes *speech you don't happen to like*. So you suck it up and move on - that is, if you really do believe in freedom and aren't just some wanker who gives it lip service so long as he agrees with the speech in question.
Max
Re:Specific Ocean? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Of course not! (Score:3, Insightful)