China and Africa
You're right; it's hard to be exact. However, we can make good guesses. Take your example of localisation. We know that localizing our software affects projects across the board, whereas putting a person on the ground in a specific country most likely only affects that country. Now, maybe putting that person on the ground has a greater effect in that country than localizing the software. So the analysis does start getting more complex.
I want to reiterate something. This letter is largely focused on Foundation investments. It makes sense, given the Foundation's limited resources, to focus on things that will have broad impacts. However, because we are a distributed movement, it makes sense for people on the ground to engage in local strategies. One of our big next steps is to flesh out the movement roles questions. Specifically, who in this movement should be doing what?
Regarding cost/impact analysis: The regional analysis largely focused on impact and less on cost (other than China). There's another layer of analysis that still needs to be done. Help us flesh this out. A good starting point is Wikimedia market analysis.
Yes, I agree with both you and the letter that on-the-ground precense in Africa ain't something to strive for at the moment. One of the first lessons Gerard tought me when I arrived here was that general strategies that will have an impact on a large amount of projects are something to strive for. And I believe that such strategies not are pushed aside in this letter with point 4,5 and 6 under "Synthesis of the issues to tackle with the strategy" and point 3 under "Recommended priorities for the Foundation" supporting this. At least I believe these statements are sufficient for South America, Africa, Middle East and South Asia. How well they address the issues of reaching China and India I don't know though.
What analysis is supposed to be collected? Under market analysis I find a lot of tables that allready are filled in. But is there some specific collection or analysis of data that needs to be done?
When we put a person on the ground in a particular country, he or she CAN localise for the language he knows. When this person is not part of that countries language(s) and culture(s) he is likely not to be as effective as could be.
When we put someone on the ground in a multi-lingual country, then it should be one of his/her objectives to remove all the roadblocks that exist.. Finding people to localise our software is one of the more obvious ones.
The notion that these approaches are in competition is not that wise; as we understand the processes that promote editors to edit and readers to read, it is only natural to have a person on the ground make those the priorities. Thanks,