It's way better to be master of one's own fate. Open source offers an easy and attractive way to localize all software, not least due to the foresight and lack of cultural prejudice of the Free Software Foundation providing such an excellent tool as gettext . Having myselfbeen involved in localization efforts for the LyX document processor, I believe this alternative to be a fully realistic one. Talking about diversity in the context of free software, it's not just about ethnodiversity. The notion of diversity as freedom lives and prospers in Linux.
People are different, so whyshouldn't software be.
Besides, freedom works . Freedom works for hatching world-class software, but just as well forevolving mature, workable standards. If you're content to just have the trains run on time, you won't even achieve as much as that. Freedom is no luxury. The small, indigenous peoples' languages are perfectly adapted to their needs, local environment, way of life.