and my 0,02% (as a german speaker)
i've only german speaking customers. They coming from the caribian island, from spain, canada or malaysia (and also from the german speaking country's austria, switzerland and germany). All of them are native germans or german speakers and all of them talk with me in german. Noboby will talk in the "internet language" english. One of the customers comes from kuweit and of course, he talks in english with me, but why? his native language is arabian and he ask me "can you talk in arabian please? its easyer to explain something in my native language...". We're looking for a common ground and english was the solution to talk
And if you are a russian, you talk russian with your russian customers and a guy from the nederlands talk nederlands with his customers from there (i was living two years there and also a little longer in sweden), i know a little bit about the language problems
i was born in the gdr and learn english in the scool for 3 years (from 1975 - 1978), but i dont need english there. favorite foreign language there was russian. i was a good russian speaker at this time and it was planned for me to go to moscow for a studium over 6 years. No problems for me, we have a lot of russian army people here and i was often the translator. But then i found my wife and she say NO to the studium, so i stay here in germany and i dont use the russian language since this time. Today i have two russian physiotherapeuts and understood nothing if they talk in her native language.
i know, a lot of german users have the same problem, learning a foreign language in the scool and dont use it over 30 and more years.
my kiddies starting with english in the scool with 8 years and learn it over 10 years in scool and highscool, they reading english book and looking english tv, so thats no problem to talk or write english only in a forum like this.
from my point you must make a different between a user support and a development for the core or addons - development language is english and nobody has a problem with this. i build also some addons, but my english is not good enough to start a discussion about a new idea in english only. For a description of a module i can use a translator or write it in my bad english, but if somebody send a special answer maybe to a better way in a function inside of my addon, its not possible to understood for me (sometime)
so i've two possible way's: talk in my native language or put all in the trash

i use the first way and talk and test with german speakers, but on private way's (PN or email) and not more here in the forum. Maybe, if everything is finish, you can show a new addon here in the general area, maybe....
in april/may we have here a big discussion about this problem and one result of this was a the order, that the "general heading" is the main division for developements of the core and addons, so that we have not longer development discussion in the foreign languages subforen.
the target is, that the most people using this general area for their question around wb, doesnt matter, what the problem is.
we know, that the most of the WB-Users are non-german-speakers and coming from all over the world, but we have also a lot of users in the four languages in the
language specific supporta user, who speaks only his native language, needs a place to ask, if he has a problem and if he talk only in italian or in german, it doesnt matter, that he use the general area or one of the language specific forums
with the upgrade of the forum here and the new structure, we see, that a lot of the german-only-speaker use private way's to solve the problems and every time you found the question in the mail "
i think, its not longer allowed to post a german question in the wb-forum" and thats also a problem: if the user is thinking, here is not the right place for a "german" question, he search for another place or way.
And thats way i say, you need a different between development and user support.
A lot of other systems try "english only forums", but all of them has problems, if their has (maybe) a big foreign language speakers comunity. the most of them has language specific subforen now
This will probably be deleted anyway.
and why?
its a clean formulated opinion without attack on a special person like other postings in the last time (wb is dead, using wp, its better, chief developer is stupid etc...), i'm sure, that nobody here has a problem with your post
we know, that it was a problem, that the wb 2.8.4 was not going online immediately after the problem was solved in the begin of the last year. problem was the rebuild of the access-files for the news-posting (if used). in this time, it was correct, to search for a better solution for the rebuild, one day or one week, it doesnt matter. my problem is, that nobody see the problems around this time. i remember, that we talk about wb over 3-4 ours on every chrismas day, i remember, that i stay on the phone on the sylvester day from 20.00 - 23.00, i remember, that here starts a s***storm, that Dietmar (Luisehahne) has minimum one hearth attact and a little bit later a stroke, that Darkviper lost one or both parents and i remember, that we all here make our "wb-work" in our freetime after the normal job, after the family, homework etc.
its a hobby, not more. And if you have only two developers and you lost both of them in the same time, you have a problem, everywhere.
At the point, it a simple question:
has a developer the right to a private life 
yes, from today's perspective it was the wrong way with the 2.8.4, but the intention was correct (in this day's), searching for a better, a safe way to upgrade
all wb-variants to 2.8.4. Now it is too late to start a discussion about the "old times", its not possible to going back and start in another direction.
a lot of people was angry about the long time and i understood, why.
i lost any of my customers because of that discussions (wb are dead, no more development etc) and also because i work with the wb 2.8.4 (
we need a official version, not a test-version, if we change the web-agentur, nobody knows this 2.8.4), but you must know, the most of the angry users here are professional webdesigners and builds a lot of wb-installation every year and maybe, their have a fear because the future of their work. Everyone earns his money with WebsiteBaker and the developer has to build the base for that in his spare time - immediately

of course, i'm not happy with the actual situation, but i cannot change this. i can build a module or template, but not the core - i need a developer for that! I'm sure, the most people here cannot develope a cms core, maybe two or three or four, but not more
And if i need another human to earn my money, its not helpfull, if i start personal attack's to this person. i use my phone, skype, PN or mail and ask: whats happend?
i think, everyone should try to put themselves in the position of the developer
- Are you ready to spend your spare (or life-) time for wb?
- Are you ready to receive all the personal attack's from other users if you are not fast enough?
- Are you ready to put your WB-Development before your family?
- Are you ready to to receive some critical comment about your work in the core?
a simple example....
since 2011 or 2012 we have here coding instruction for database select's to make it safer (
see here), but nobody read this or use it in the modules. actualy we have only a handfull of addons with this safe select's. i understudd, that its not possible, to rebuild all the modules in the same time, but for a new addon version?

as a chief developer you have to look at all of this, you are also legally responsible, if your code are not safe, but if you say: hey, your addon is not safe, please use our instructions for the code, the answer is a s***storm
i, for my part, ask, why i need backthicks for the fieldnames and why i need a masked variable-names in a select and if i understood the answer not correct, i ask again. i have to learn it for myself, for my next addon, for my job. but in this time, when i learn it and repair my own addons, i dont earn some money and i think, thats the problem: nobody will spend the time to learn.
For me, it doesnt matter, learning one time, using in the future the next years - its not a personal attack from a developer to give me some work, its a
international standard.
Nobody has the idea in the job, to go a own and different way from the company instructions. if the car factory say's: we're using 8 airbags now to make the the car safety, its not possible for the worker to build in only one of them. But here, its possible to ignore the instructions, its possible to say:
we dont need coding standards, i go my own way - take the module or leave it the wb-core btw full package has ca 4000 files and in the most of them are old db-select like this, so it needs any time to fix the old code to make it safe and possible to work in mysql-strict mode, to build in a new translate class working together with the actual language standards and change all calls in this 4000 files, to build a new secure form and implement it into every form and and and.....