Coordination

With over 100 official standards applicable to localization and a variety of groups all working in this area, coordination is vital in order to prevent duplication and fragmentation of effort, development of incompatible standards, competing efforts, and other similar problems. In addition, there is a vital need for dissemination of information to assist developers and users of standards in determining where to get involved.

The GALA Standards Initiative will address these issues through the following activities:

  • Participation in relevant standards-related bodies. GALA has established strong liaison relationships with ETSI, OASIS, the Unicode Consortium, ISO TC 37, the OpenTM2 project, and others. Through these efforts the GALA Standards Initiative can ensure that these groups are aware of each other’s efforts and that potential conflicts and overlaps are addressed early on.
  • Regular reports on standardization activities. The GALA Standard Initiative will issue regular updates on the activities of the various standards bodies, enabling the community to see where to get involved. For issues where we think there is an urgent need for community feedback, we may also issue email alerts and requests for comment or action. To sign up for these reports, join our standards mailing list.
  • Shared representation. The GALA Standards Initiative will gather input on standards from the industry and provide feedback to standards bodies. In some cases, the Initiative may provide access to documents and other resources not available to the general public for the purpose of gathering industry feedback on new proposals. Information about opportunities to contribute will be made available through the standards mailing list.

 

Current activities:

  • ISO TC37 / SC 5. The ISO standards on localization services have not been hugely popular among the language service provider community, except for the medical device and related industries. However, the new draft of ISO Standard on Localization Services, called SD 17100 should change that. The draft is being developed by the Technical Committee 37,  Sub Committee 5 (TC37/SC5). GALA is coordinating feedback on the draft from LSPs.  Your comments are both needed and appreciated. ISO SD 17100 revises the language services quality standard in Europe, EN 15038:2006. ISO SD 17100 is an important standard development for our industry and we must be actively involved in shaping it.  Comments on the current draft are due by 15 June.  Please contact to participate.

      
  • Multilingual LT Web project. A new project called MultilingualWeb-LT (for “Language Technology”) is being led through the W3C to develop a standard (ITS 2.0) to simplify the creation of content in the languages of the world. The project is sponsored by European Commission and DFKI is administering the project. Arle Lommel is leading one of the work packages and playing a major role in coordinating it. The GALA Standards Initiative is closely watching the project and will convey developments to the industry. The W3C is seeking feedback on how to improve Web technologies from individuals and companies that deal with multilingual content on the Web or using Web technologies (e.g., HTML, XML). Those of you who are interested are welcome to provide comments on the draft ITS 2.0 requirements document.

 

To participate in these activities, please sign up for the .

 

Making Standards Work for the Localization Industry

 

The GALA Standards Initiative is a non-profit effort organized by the Globalization and Localization Association (GALA). Information contained in these pages is subject to periodic update. Questions and comments may be sent to .