A empirical study on the status of software localization in open source projects

Zeyad Alshaikh, Shaikh Mostafa, Xiaoyin Wang, Sen He

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

In modern software development, software localiza-tion is a key process to support distribution of soft-ware products to the global market. During software localization, developers typically convert all user-visible strings, resource files, and other culture-related ele-ments to the local versions that are well accepted by local users. Despite the popularity of software local-ization, there have been few studies on the its current status in software practice, such as the proportion of localized projects, the most popular locales, and more importantly, the quality of software localization. In this paper, we present an empirical study on the sta-tus of software localization in open source projects. We find from that, popularity of software localization varies a lot in different User Interface (UI) frameworks and domains. Furthermore, we surprisingly find that only about 60% of string keys are actually translated on av-erage in localized top software projects and software lo-calization often span a long period of time in the soft-ware development history.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings - SEKE 2015
Subtitle of host publication27th International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering
PublisherKnowledge Systems Institute Graduate School
Pages692-695
Number of pages4
ISBN (Electronic)1891706373
DOIs
StatePublished - 2015
Externally publishedYes
Event27th International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering, SEKE 2015 - Pittsburgh, United States
Duration: Jul 6 2015Jul 8 2015

Publication series

NameProceedings of the International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering, SEKE
Volume2015-January
ISSN (Print)2325-9000
ISSN (Electronic)2325-9086

Conference

Conference27th International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering, SEKE 2015
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityPittsburgh
Period7/6/157/8/15

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Software

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'A empirical study on the status of software localization in open source projects'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this