The GALA Standards Initiative

Making Standards Work for the Localization Industry

The GALA Standards Initiative promotes the effective use of standards for international and multilingual content, builds awareness of best practices for their implementation, and helps the localization community make open standards work.

Top Links:

• Make a financial contribution to the GALA Standards Initiative
• The Linport Project
• Model Service Elements project

The GALA Standards Initiative is an open effort to promote the use and development of standards in the localization industry by providing the community with resources to make better use of current standards, improving standards development, and developing new resources needed to enable standards to meet evolving business needs.

What Will the GALA Standards Initiative Deliver?
The GALA Standards Initiative has an ambitious strategy to deliver many benefits to the industry. The GALA Standards Initiative is initially focusing on three projects:

1. Coordination of standards-development activity: The GALA Standards Initiative has established liaison relationships with such key industry-standards bodies as ISO TC 37, ETSI, Unicode, and OASIS to help bridge the gap between standards development and industry requirements. [Read more…]
2. The Language Interoperability Portfolio (Linport) Project to develop a vendor-neutral, standards-based “package” format for sending and receiving translation and localization data to increase tool independence and data security. [Read more…]
3. Model Service Elements, standard definitions of terms and tasks for the localization industry, plus business resources needed to support transparent and consistent business practices. [Read more…]

The Standards Initiative has many other activities planned for the future. to learn more about these, please visit the Additional Deliverables page or read the full GALA Standards Initiative plan.

The Standards Initiative Needs Your Support

A serious, sustainable effort requires professional staffing and infrastructure. Read more here about how you can support this initiative.
 

Get Involved

All interested parties are encouraged to get involved with the GALA Standards Initiative. To find out more or to get involved, please contact Dr. Arle Lommel, the GALA Standards Coordinator, at .  If you would like to be added to a mailing list specific to the standards initiative, .

Key Staff and Volunteers

Arle Lommel (GALA Standards Coordinator)

Serge Gladkoff (GALA Standards Initiative Advisor)

Plus many volunteers throughout the industry who have given advice, feedback, and suggestions on shaping this initiative for the benefit of the industry.