Re: [ubuntu-us-ma] The Free Software, Open Source promise: what FOSS means for non-coders

[Savvas Radevic]

>> > When explaining this to people I use the analogy of a car

 Really useful -- I will probably use it sometime in one of my
persuading attempts.
 Not long ago, during a discussion with a friend of mine, he was
complaining that Ubuntu was too difficult for him and that he was
going to uninstall it. A week passed by and he was still complaining.
Out of the blue, while eating a tuna sandwich, I came with this
analogy and told him:
 "Listen, Linux is like tuna fish. There are people that are allergic
to tuna fish and people that don't like it -- once they try it, they
simply never try it again. Some others like tuna with some lemon,
others with green salad and two slices of bread, making tuna even
tastier. Now, I like my tuna with all of the above."
 I took a big bite somewhere here. :P
 "You became accustomed to Windows and now hate the taste... or the
look & feel of other operating systems. Since you can't be allergic to
Ubuntu, and from what I can see you are still in doubt and
complaining, you surely can add some flavour to it, make it run 'your
way'. It's customisable, but it's new and you can ask me questions or
post them at a forum to make it better, to suit your taste."
 I was smiling during a small pause, I couldn't believe the perfect
analogy I came up with!
 "And since you have a lot of companies packing their own tuna fish
cans, you surely must be able to find one tuna fish can that suits
your taste. Likewise, Ubuntu is not the only Linux operating system,
they're called distributions -- or distros for short -- and you have
OpenSUSE, Debian, Linux Mint if you want to spice it up a bit... the
list is endless"

 Another week passed, he tried OpenSUSE. From what I was told, he was
having hardware problems on a laptop. Well, he is still using it on a
daily basis while browsing the Internet. :)
 Analogies are a perfect way to make your point!

-- 
loco-contacts mailing list
loco-contacts@lists.ubuntu.com
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/loco-contacts

Announcing the Ubuntu.com Website Localization Project

[Chris Johnston]

Good Day;

It is my pleasure to announce a new project to better the Ubuntu.com website
experience, specifically for users who prefer a language other than English.
The new project, called Website Localization [1] will put a short (4-5 word)
message on any www.Ubuntu.com  web page directing
users to more resources in their preferred language.

This project has two main parts to it. The first part of the Website
Localization project is the technical aspect of the project. It is the goal
of the project to create a script that will pull out of a users web browser
their preferred language. After obtaining this information, the script will
cross reference this language against a list of languages that have approved
resources offered, and then display a short link to their languages landing
page.

The second part of this project is creating landing pages for as many
resources as possible. This part of the project will be done by LoCos and
the i18n team. The landing pages will be on the wiki, and will be ever
changing to direct users to the best information that we can give them.

Currently, the goal is to have the project completed and implemented by the
end of May. I would also like to have a working demo of the project by April
19th so that we have plenty of time to fix any problems that arise prior to
the final implementation of this project.

I can't do all of this myself, so I am going to need help from the Ubuntu
community. At this point, I need some assistance with the technical side of
the project. I need a few people to create the script that will detect the
users preferred language, and then show them a link to the landing page in
their language. If you have the skills needed to help out with this Website
Localization project, please send me an email with your name, launchpad
account, a little bit of information about the experience you have and your
general ability (time zone, and anything else that may help me out). My goal
is to get a group of a few people to work on the technical aspect of this
project and have a meeting in the next few weeks to discuss the project in a
little more detail, and determine the best way to make this happen.

[1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Website/WebsiteLocalization

Respectfully,

Chris Johnston - cjohnston
Ubuntu Member
chrisjohns...@ubuntu.com
www.chrisjohnston.org
-- 
loco-contacts mailing list
loco-contacts@lists.ubuntu.com
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/loco-contacts

Re: Announcing the Ubuntu.com Website Localization Project

[Savvas Radevic]

Hi Chris,

 I already have a "working" version of a multi-lingual php-based
website[0]. I say "working", because it's a website pack, more or less
centralized to work for ubuntu-cy. I don't know if it's good from a
security point of view (I surely hope so), nor if it is suitable for
the cause you need it, but I thought to let you know about it anyway.
:)

If ubuntu.com website is using php, using the wonderful php-gettext
[1], you could use the common.php [2] (to load and setup languages)
and header.php [3] (to specify the "select language" drop-down box) I
wrote:

There's also a bash script, update-pot.sh [4], that I run every time I
want to update the *.po translation files.

The translations (*.po files) are tracked in launchpad[5]. The .po
files are found in "i18n" folder and the machine-translation files
(*.mo) that are actually used by the website are found in "locale"
folder[7].

Cheers!

[0] http://www.ubuntucy.org
[1] https://launchpad.net/php-gettext/
[2] 
http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-cy-webteam/ubuntu-cy-website/trunk/annotate/head%3A/common.php
[3] 
http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-cy-webteam/ubuntu-cy-website/trunk/annotate/head%3A/header.php
(See "Language box")
[4] 
http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-cy-webteam/ubuntu-cy-website/trunk/annotate/head%3A/update-pot.sh
[5] https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu-cy-website
[6] http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-cy-webteam/ubuntu-cy-website/trunk/files
[7] https://code.launchpad.net/ubuntu-cy-website

-- 
loco-contacts mailing list
loco-contacts@lists.ubuntu.com
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/loco-contacts

Re: Announcing the Ubuntu.com Website Localization Project

[Dmitry Agafonov]

2010/3/17 Chris Johnston :
> Good Day;

And good news!
...
> I can't do all of this myself, so I am going to need help from the Ubuntu
> community. At this point, I need some assistance with the technical side of
> the project. I need a few people to create the script that will detect the
> users preferred language, and then show them a link to the landing page in
> their language.

Feel free to use my code as a starting point: http://pastebin.ubuntu.com/396941/

You can find me here: https://launchpad.net/~dmitry-agafonov

-- 
Dmitry Agafonov

-- 
loco-contacts mailing list
loco-contacts@lists.ubuntu.com
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/loco-contacts

Re: [ubuntu-us-ma] The Free Software, Open Source promise: what FOSS means for non-coders

[Kevin Cole]

On 03/16/2010 09:06 PM, Danny Piccirillo wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 13:56, Kevin Cole  wrote:
>> On 03/11/2010 04:33 PM, Danny Piccirillo wrote:
>>> For me, the main challenge in explaining FOSS is that you also have to
>>> explain what software is, and how it is created.
>>>
>>>
>>> This is exactly what i'm talking about
>>
>> When explaining this to people I use the analogy of a car: Many people
>> drive but do not care to fine-tune their own car.  Often they will know
>> both the professional mechanic, and the enthusiast who can make anything
>> with four wheels do something marvelous.  Then I ask "What if both the
>> professional and the 'hobbyist' had no permission to look under the hood?
>> What if they could look -- if they paid a fee -- but could not improve upon
>> the original model.  What if they could not explain what they learned to
>> others?"
>>
>> I then often throw in a bit about some of the proprietary diagnostic
>> software that mechanics pay for.  But, I don't have a car, don't drive and
>> can only carry the analogy so far.
>>
>> Still, for many people a light in the brain seems to flicker in response,
>> and we begin to have the glimmerings of understanding.
> 
> I think we should aim for more than the beginning glimmerings of
> understanding. Isn't there a list of promises we can make?

All well and good, but I was addressing the question "What do you do when
people don't know what 'software' is?"

I think the promises make sense if you're talking to a more savvy audience.

-- 
 Kevin Cole|  Key ID: 0xE6F332C7   (GPG/PGP)
 Ubuntu Linux DC LoCo Team | WWW: http://dc.ubuntu-us.org/
 Washington, D.C.  (USA)   |   Phone: +1.202.234.0213

 "Using vi is not a sin. It's a penance." -- St. IGNUcious, Church of Emacs

   ". ! 1 |" -- Rene Magritte's computer



signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
-- 
loco-contacts mailing list
loco-contacts@lists.ubuntu.com
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/loco-contacts

Re: [ubuntu-us-ma] The Free Software, Open Source promise: what FOSS means for non-coders

[Martin Owens]

On Wed, 2010-03-17 at 17:34 -0400, Kevin Cole wrote:

> All well and good, but I was addressing the question "What do you do when
> people don't know what 'software' is?"
> 
> I think the promises make sense if you're talking to a more savvy audience.

It's like a television show, but instead of being watched by a person,
it's watched by a machine that does things by following the tv show.

Martin,


-- 
loco-contacts mailing list
loco-contacts@lists.ubuntu.com
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/loco-contacts

Re: Announcing the Ubuntu.com Website Localization Project

[Aron Xu]

Hi,
We've already had a running localized website:
http://www.ubuntu.org.cn , it seems to be based on python and can sync
the content from the main site. Hope this information can help, the
site maintainer is oneleaf at gmail.com.

Regards,
Aron Xu

On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 3:32 AM, Chris Johnston
 wrote:
> Good Day;
>
> It is my pleasure to announce a new project to better the Ubuntu.com website
> experience, specifically for users who prefer a language other than English.
> The new project, called Website Localization [1] will put a short (4-5 word)
> message on any www.Ubuntu.com web page directing users to more resources in
> their preferred language.
>
> This project has two main parts to it. The first part of the Website
> Localization project is the technical aspect of the project. It is the goal
> of the project to create a script that will pull out of a users web browser
> their preferred language. After obtaining this information, the script will
> cross reference this language against a list of languages that have approved
> resources offered, and then display a short link to their languages landing
> page.
>
> The second part of this project is creating landing pages for as many
> resources as possible. This part of the project will be done by LoCos and
> the i18n team. The landing pages will be on the wiki, and will be ever
> changing to direct users to the best information that we can give them.
>
> Currently, the goal is to have the project completed and implemented by the
> end of May. I would also like to have a working demo of the project by April
> 19th so that we have plenty of time to fix any problems that arise prior to
> the final implementation of this project.
>
> I can't do all of this myself, so I am going to need help from the Ubuntu
> community. At this point, I need some assistance with the technical side of
> the project. I need a few people to create the script that will detect the
> users preferred language, and then show them a link to the landing page in
> their language. If you have the skills needed to help out with this Website
> Localization project, please send me an email with your name, launchpad
> account, a little bit of information about the experience you have and your
> general ability (time zone, and anything else that may help me out). My goal
> is to get a group of a few people to work on the technical aspect of this
> project and have a meeting in the next few weeks to discuss the project in a
> little more detail, and determine the best way to make this happen.
>
> [1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Website/WebsiteLocalization
>
> Respectfully,
>
> Chris Johnston - cjohnston
> Ubuntu Member
> chrisjohns...@ubuntu.com
> www.chrisjohnston.org
>
> --
> ubuntu-translators mailing list
> ubuntu-translat...@lists.ubuntu.com
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-translators
>
>

-- 
loco-contacts mailing list
loco-contacts@lists.ubuntu.com
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/loco-contacts