Language

[Sam Geeraerts]

Ciarán O'Riordan wrote:
> I asked for fsfe-bnl@ to be created and suggested that the default language
> be English.

There you have it, folks. Straight from the horse's mouth. :P

> The other option was to have four lists: nl-nl, be-nl, be-fr, lu-*.  The
> main problem with that approach is that small lists tend to go silent after
> a year or two.  Other problems are that German speakers are ignored,
> Luxembourg's language situation is ignored, and issues at the national level
> in Belgium would suffer from lack of coordination.

Indeed. I think this list is pretty small as it is. I would hate to see 
a lu-* list be just one guy talking to himself when he could be giving 
valuable input for future discussions or campaigs (Benelux-wide or 
otherwise).

> ...but if you want an example of a different policy which has proved
> successful, the ubuntu-be list's policy is that everyone posts in whatever
> language they like, be it Dutch, French, English, and maybe German.

I see [1] that their policy is: English is preferred, but if you suck at 
that than any of the national languages are fine. I think that's a good 
policy to put on the listinfo page for this list as well.

[1] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-be