PLEASE READ: New localization guidelines on Brands and Product Names

[Peiying Mo]

Hello Localizers,

After years of discussions with branding and legal teams as well as
numerous surveys and input from you, we finally made some progress in this
area. We are "meeting in the middle" so to speak, so we have some of what
we have asked, but not everything.

List of Brands and Product Names:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1F-n8Wle0BCgim5707kBA74T0eMFnWAsyf0ENJZ04ycg/edit?usp=sharing

*Summary of the agreement we have reached:*
- Brand names remains in English. There are lots of legal implication on
translating, transliterating the names. We will not touch them in this
round. (Firefox)
- All Logos with text will remain in English even if a logo contains both
brand name and product name (Firefox Marketplace)
- Product names can be localized but with several exceptions (see the list)
- Some product names are hard coded, even though they can be localized. If
it is "in-product", it should be left in English. If it appears outside of
the product, on Mozilla.org, for instance, you can put the translated names
in parenthesis. (Firefox Beta)
- Some product names can be translated but require additional attention to
convey the correct meaning (Persona)

*Third Party Brand and Product Names:*
My discussion with creative and legal teams *did not address* 3rd party
brand names and product names. Please leave them in English, unless these
names are trademarked or registered. They should be easily identified on
the company's official local sites. Some companies have the names
localized for certain markets but not globally. Be respectful to their
policies no matter how popular the expressions of the brands/product names
are in social media or press coverage.

*Begin the discussion within the community:*
We would like to have you start the conversation within the community. If
there is a great interest in translating/localizing the product names open
for localization, be sure
- to work on one product name at a time. *There is no deadline to complete
the project.*
- that the final localized term is the result of broad consensus among
community members
- that once the term is finalized, corrections can start in various
repositories so the expressions are consistent across products and
projects. Some *old* marketing projects such as screenshots will not be
fixed due to this policy change.

I want to stress that it is totally up to your community to decide if you
want to keep everything as is or if you want to localize some of the
product terms.

*Where can I see my consolidated localized term list*
Flod, Pascal and I are discussing the needs and technical issues regarding
this project. We will communicate to you once they are resolved.

Ultimately, we want your team page to be linked to your locale specific
brand/product page, where new community members as well as long time
contributors can see them. Additionally, this is a living document. We
will add new product names as they come up.

A big Thank You to those who took part in the surveys and participated in
discussions, which drove the partial change of the policies. If you have
any questions, let us know.

Thank you,
Peiying

[Michal Stanke]

Hi Peiying.

What about Focus by Firefox? For me it's a little confusing even in
English - not "by Mozilla" but "by Firefox" (Product by Another
product). It's already available for localization for SUMO.

Cheers,
Michal Stanke

Dne 15.12.2015 v 23:05 Peiying Mo napsal(a):

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[Axel Hecht]

On 16.12.15 00:01, Michal Stanke wrote:
> Hi Peiying.
>
> What about Focus by Firefox? For me it's a little confusing even in
> English - not "by Mozilla" but "by Firefox" (Product by Another
> product). It's already available for localization for SUMO.

Not sure if we have advice on "Focus" yet.

Regarding the "by Firefox" vs "by Mozilla", I've asked a bunch of folks.
It has been an explicit topic, and the outcome was that in this case,
we're better off with our consumer brand, aka Firefox.

That's the answer I got from Mark Mayo and Eric Petitt.

Axel

[Michal Stanke]

Thank you Axel. I understand, that Firefox name is maybe more publicly
widespread and know than Mozilla, but the app name sounds a little... Never
mind. :)

We decided to leave the SUMO strings untranslated for now and wait, what's
going to be advised and also for the app l10n availability. Just noticed
some teams have already started localizing as "Focus von Firefox" or
"Enfocado por Firefox".

--
Michal Stanke

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[Peiying Mo]

Hi Michal,

Firefox is also a brand.
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/styleguide/identity/firefox-family/overview/.
I have to say I learned a lot from various discussions and I still find
myself confused from time to time.

I just added Focus by Firefox to the list.

Thank you,
Peiying

On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 3:01 PM, Michal Stanke <michal...@mikk.cz>

wrote:

> Hi Peiying.
>
> What about Focus by Firefox? For me it's a little confusing even in
> English - not "by Mozilla" but "by Firefox" (Product by Another product).
> It's already available for localization for SUMO.
>

[Peiying Mo]

Hi Michael,

According to the page
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/trademarks/list/, both the logo
and the Word mark are trademarked.

Thank you,
Peiying

On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 3:20 PM, Michael Bauer <fi...@akerbeltz.org> wrote:

> Hi Peying
>
> Thanks for that. The list seems to be a very sensible compromise, nice
> piece of work.
>
> I'm not going to kick up a fuss about it but I'm curious as to why Mozilla
> Community has ended up a DNT?
>
> Michael
>
> Sgrìobh Peiying Mo na leanas 15/12/2015 aig 22:05:

>
> After years of discussions with branding and legal teams as well as
> numerous surveys and input from you, we finally made some progress in this
> area. We are "meeting in the middle" so to speak, so we have some of what
> we have asked, but not everything.
>
>

> --
> *Akerbeltz <http://www.faclair.com/>*
> Goireasan Gàidhlig air an lìon
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> Facs: +44-141-945 2701
>
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> Iomadh rud eadar prògraman oifis, brabhsairean, predictive texting,
> geamannan is mòran a bharrachd. Tadhail oirnn aig
> <http://www.iGaidhlig.net/>www.iGàidhlig.net
>

[Gabor Kelemen]

Hi Peiying

Thanks for the list, it shall make life easier for us.

I have one question: What about Firefox for Android /iOS ?
I'd like to translate the "for" part.

Thanks in advance
Gabor

2015-12-15 23:05 GMT+01:00 Peiying Mo <p...@mozilla.com>:

> Hello Localizers,

>
> After years of discussions with branding and legal teams as well as
> numerous surveys and input from you, we finally made some progress in this
> area. We are "meeting in the middle" so to speak, so we have some of what
> we have asked, but not everything.
>

[Khaled Hosny]

So why are we localising at all, what is the value of the localised
product if a user who does not read English (big part of the targeted
audience) can not even read and recognise its name. Many Arabic
countries actually do have laws that require foreign brand names to be
transliterated before legally operating there.

Regards,
Khaled

[Belayet Hossain]

For bn-BD we transliterated the product and brand names so that people who
are not able to read English can recognize them. Also it looks better to
have all the text in same scripts than a mixed up in a string.

Belayet

[Khaled Hosny]

We have been doing that in Arabic for as long as Firefox and Thunderbird
have been translated to Arabic, but, if I’m reading this message
correctly, we are not allowed to do this any more.

Regards,
Khaled

[Peiying Mo]

Thank you for all the feedback. We really appreciate it.

We know there are some technical issues in implementing the changes. Do
send your questions and concerns so we can think through and find ways to
address as many issues as possible.

Regarding branding localization, Mozilla policy in the past has always been
keeping them in English! There is no change in this regard. We have
noticed many languages have gone ahead and transliterating the brand names
which is against the branding guideline.

I think all the of us in the l10n teams understand the challenge the
"English only policy" presents to languages using different scripts. We
have debated over this for as long as the conversation started several
years ago. We have considered transliterations in parenthesis following
English, we couldn't reach any agreement. We will continue pressing for
reconsideration or workaround. However, before that happens, let's adhere
to the guideline.

Peiying

[Peiying Mo]

Good suggestion Michael. Our conversation doesn't stop at where we are
today.

I am curious how some of the big and well known companies are dealing with
their brands on their *official sites*: Apple, Google, Facebook ... in
Arabic or non-Latin based script languages.

On Wed, Dec 16, 2015 at 10:47 AM, Michael Bauer <fi...@akerbeltz.org> wrote:

> Though if there are legal implications as Khaled said for *not*
> transliterating, then we're potentially setting us up for a lot of toing
> and froing and frustrating people, not to mention any legal issues.
>
> Perhaps it would be good to know what exactly the legal implications are
> (and where) for languages like Arabic?
>
> Michael
>
> Sgrìobh Peiying Mo na leanas 16/12/2015 aig 18:44:

[Michal Stanke]

Hi Pei.

We have restarted discussion about translating Firefox Account to Czech.
Are we allowed to translate the "Account" part?

Also do you or someone else know, if there are any graphics and logos on
websites etc. with "Firefox Account" on it, which cannot be localized to
Czech, and where to track them?

--
Michal Stanke

2015-12-16 20:34 GMT+01:00 Peiying Mo <p...@mozilla.com
<mailto:p...@mozilla.com>>:

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[Francesco Lodolo]

Hi,
The account part has always been localizable[1], and I'm not aware of any
graphics involving it
https://transvision.mozfr.org/string/?entity=browser/chrome/browser/syncBrand.dtd:syncBrand.fxAccount.label&repo=release

Francesco

[1] We had that question many times, in different channels, and that's why
having one centralized place to track them all would help a lot

[Stefan Plewako]

> Wiadomość napisana przez Peiying Mo <p...@mozilla.com> w dniu 16.12.2015, o godz. 19:44:

>
> Regarding branding localization, Mozilla policy in the past has always been
> keeping them in English! There is no change in this regard. We have
> noticed many languages have gone ahead and transliterating the brand names
> which is against the branding guideline.
>
> I think all the of us in the l10n teams understand the challenge the
> "English only policy" presents to languages using different scripts. We
> have debated over this for as long as the conversation started several
> years ago. We have considered transliterations in parenthesis following
> English, we couldn't reach any agreement. We will continue pressing for

> reconsideration or workaround. However, before that happens, let's adhere
> to the guideline.

Hi,

In general in Polish localization we don't have really strong need to adapt, transliterate or localize brand and product names themselves apart from declension. The problem starts when someone declares that some part of the sentence shouldn't be localized…

Some examples:
- Firefox Sync and especially the short version, Sync (forced "Sync" instead of localizable "Synchronize")
- Firefox Account ("Please sign in to reconnect your Firefox Account and continue syncing")
- Firefox Hello and especially the short version, Hello ("Say Hello to")
- Firefox for iOS
- other brand and product names that do not really exist outside Mozilla marketing

When we find such problematic name, we either opt to start changing it in all places as least complicated (and sometimes only acceptable solution) or ignore such occurrence and do not add the name (changed or not) to localization.


Regards,
Stefan

[Daniel Añez Scott]

After checking the document I see Lightbeam, Marketplace, Open Badges, and Sync have to "absolutely yes" be localized.
We haven't done it that way so far in Mozilla Hispano translations. After discussing about it, we've kept those names in English, treating them as brand names. Hope it's fine.