Key points from the Locales Panel at the 22nd Unicode Conference

The panel discussion on Locales at the 22nd International Unicode Conference, held in San Jose, California Sept. 9-13, 2002, raised a number of key points that are listed here. The framework for the discussion was that Locales are important to Web Services and more generally to interoperability, cross-platform independence, internationalization, and scalability on the web. However, Locales aren't working well today, according to some at the Unicode Conference. For more background on the discussions of Locales at the conference, see Locales, Locales, Locales, at the Unicode Conference.


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The two session (90 minutes) panel devoted to Locales was moderated by Tex Texin (XenCraft, I18nGuy). The panelists were: Cathy Wissink (Microsoft), Peter Constable (SIL), Addison Phillips (webMethods), and David Possin (Welocalize.com)

Here are some of the points made during the panel discussion, by either audience members or panelists. (I would be glad to include additional points or improve the summaries, if people that attended the discussion would like to submit comments.) Unless otherwise noted, these opinions do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Tex Texin.

Related resources

For more information on Locales, check out the following sites:
Locales-related resources
Issues and Advantages with the use of Locales
Addison Phillips' proposal: "ULocales: Building Global Enterprise Web Services"

The IUC22 Unicode conference papers on Locales are also available: