HEC develops a wide range of software related to water resources, many of which work together and share databases in order to function. Language support, in terms of the coding needed to enable customization or translation of interfaces, is not consistent amongst HEC software. Also, internal testing of HEC software is done almost entirely with English (United States) as the language and dialect environment. Software like HEC-EFM and HEC-EFM Plotter, which offer language support, may require additional code enhancements to remedy problems that arise when applied in different language environments. This is the nature of software development. As a software expands, imperfections need to be resolved to achieve design performance.
With language support, knowledge of different languages is also a fundamental challenge. The developers of HEC-EFM and HEC-EFM Plotter invite partnerships to help translate these software, supporting documentation, and demonstration projects from English to other languages. These partnerships do not provide participating organizations with any exclusive advantages, whether competitive, financial, or other. No funds or source code will be exchanged. HEC will support these efforts by providing already publicly available text documents and assistance with questions pertaining to the translations. Partnering organizations perform translations and provide translated documents back to HEC for free distribution via the web, with no constraints.
This offer recognizes that user communities for these software are global and that a simple way to promote good water and ecosystem management practices in other parts of the world is to provide technologies in native languages, free of cost.