Shevchenko Scientific Society

21, Gen. Chuprynka St.

Lviv, 79013

October 13, 2003

William H. Gates III

Chairman & Chief Software Architect, Microsoft Corporation

1 Microsoft Way

Redmond, WA 98052

Dear Mr. Gates:

Shevchenko Scientific Society, the oldest Academy of Arts and Sciences in Ukraine, has for some time petitioned Microsoft for a Ukrainian version of the XP Professional operating system and the MS Office suit.

Naturally we were elated when in January 2003 Microsoft announced that it had released a Ukrainian Interface Pack to XP Professional. However after a careful examination of this interface by a committee consisting of software professionals, representatives from the Ukrainian government’s Standards Commission on Technical Terminology, as well as representatives from the Ukrainian Ministry of Education and Science the committee was extremely disappointed with the result. The committee’s consensus is that the implementers of the Interface simply added Ukrainian words to the existing Russian Interface. Furthermore, most of the words that were added are pidgin Ukrainian: words outside the scope of Ukrainian contemporary standard language. It appears that the created product is a mockery of Ukrainian, Russian and English languages: in short, a medley of three languages.

As a result we were compelled to hold a seminar on “Linguistic Analysis of the Terminology in the Ukrainian Interface to XP Professional.” The invited participants were software experts, technical terminology experts and representatives from Microsoft. We are enclosing an abridged version of the conclusions and recommendations drafted at the seminar.

As a consequence of our analysis we respectfully request that Microsoft revise, from the original English, the Ukrainian Interface to XP so that it is consistent with Ukrainian language standards. Such a revision would be in keeping with Microsoft’s tradition of improving subsequent releases in response to customer needs.

The Shevchenko Scientific Society is prepared and willing to lend its expertise (in a consulting capacity) to the development of the next version of the Ukrainian Interface to XP.

We have informed the Ukrainian Ministry of Education and Science of this request and provided them with all the relevant information.

Attached:

1. Seminar Resolutions - 1 page.

2. Linguistic Analysis of Ukrainian Versions of Microsoft products. – 3 pages.

Respectfully,

Oleh Romaniv

President, Shevchenko Scientific Society – Ukraine

Member-Correspondent, National Academy of Sciences - Ukraine