Jukka K. Korpela wrote:

> 
> On Sat, 4 Feb 2006, David Woolley wrote:
> 
>> Incidentally, for a long time, anyone who actually read the screens when
>> doing a Windows Update would have been told about language negotiation.
> 
> 
> Really? Is there a species of people who reads them? 

Yes, there is : my systems are configured to download
automatically but install on my command, and before
I issue that command I read the rubric to ensure that
the update will not be /prima facie/ deleterious to
the operation of my system.

> Anyway, users are 
> _not_ supposed to do Windows Update "by hand" but to have their systems 
> configured to download and install updates or to have their systems 
> updated by procedures controlled by professionals.

Unlike some operating systems, Windows does not attract geeks : rather,
it appeals to real users, most of whom are intelligent enough to manage
their own systems without needing recourse to professionals.

> What matters is whether system software _prompts for_ information about 
> the user's preferences when the software is first used by a person. It 
> should tell what the information will or might be used for, but in 
> non-technical terms.

Were Mozilla to interrogate the user for his/her preferred value
for each and every one of its prefences, few if any would have
the patience to install it.  Rather, like almost every
sensible program, it prompts for values for what it considers
the most important and leaves the others at their default
setting (which may in turn depend on the user's locale).

I am reasonably confident the Mozilla development community
would not reject out-of-hand a request to prompt for
"preferred languages".

Philip Taylor