Hello, speaking both with my translator and my Debian Maintainer hat on, I can state the following:
a) There are lots of "drive by" translators. Systems like launchpad or
DDTP even *encourage* this. In this case, it is most likely not
possible at all to contact individual translators.
b) In structured projects (Debian, Fedora, OOo, KDE, GNOME) there are
often language teams. In this case, translations are often
"channeled" via the team. So if you want, you can try to collect
the names in the copyright, but a team adress is more valuable.
c) Licenses are often alien to translators. They focus on the content
and do not fill in the header. I've asked to get at least "same
license as package" filled in, sometimes people respond, sometimes
they don't.
d) I know translators who like to do an initial translation but not
maintenance. So if you want, you could contact the teams from b)
(if they exist) and ask if someone would maintain the translation
or at least provide an update. This is a lot of work, given the
number of languages available. Just watch the efforts for d-i on
this list.
Notwithstanding a close examination of policy I would agree with Neil:
Take what you can get (see a),), hope that some review takes place
(see b)), assume that translators want their content to be distributed
(see c), why else would they invest the time on some "random" web
site) and be happy if updated come in (see d)). Unless there are bug
reports regarding translations I would also agree that fixing (RC)
bugs is more important than trying to "fix" the copyright file with
regard to translations (though I try).
And regarding completeness: Send a call for translations regularly
(e.g. using podebconf-report-po), giving sufficient time for
responses (depending on the size, 10 days is a good time frame), and
then upload. It's simply impossible to get all po files at 100%. (Of
course, having an active upstream relieves you from that).
Greetings
Helge
--
Dr. Helge Kreutzmann deb...@helgefjell.de
Dipl.-Phys. http://www.helgefjell.de/debian.php
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