Hello all,
I wrote these notes because of this:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UDSJaunty/Report/Community. In UDS 2009 the following
topics, "Make Rosetta attractive for upstreams" and "Launchpad Translations"
left blank. I have no idea if the suggestions are techinaly viable, but here
they are.
Launchpad Translations Problems
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Launchpad translations (rosetta) is a great collaborative tool for translating
just about anything. That is correct but... it also is a great mess! And why is
that? The main reasons appear below:
Problem 1:
If you are in country that a Gnome, a KDE, a OpenOffice or a Debian translation
team exists you are out of business. You can only translate ubuntu
documentation, debian patches, some packages and the projects that use
launchpad for translations. The result is that a new translator has no idea
which packages to translate. If he translates a random package his work will
probably will be lost, because the package is being translated upstream and
imported to launchpad from an upstream translation team.
Solution 1:
All packages must be tagged as Gnome, KDE, Debian, OpenOffice, independent or
Ubuntu patch packages, in order the translator to know where a package is being
officially translated.
Problem 2:
A Gnome, KDE or OpenOffice translator doesn't likes launchpad translations. But
why is that? Because launchpad does not include the development branch of his
project, instead it includes only Ubuntu's version (Many guys want to translate
via Launchpad but they can not). That is because Gnome project, for instance,
does not use launchpad for translations (we all know that) but an average
translator would like better to work on his project via launchpad translations.
The main reason is because launchpad is easier.
Solution 2:
The average translator must have a choice. The development branch of project
can be imported and hosted by launchpad and it can produce a .po file that is
valid to the project. The procedure of translating, lets say gnome project, it
will be the same. The translator must e-mail his mailing list to inform the
team that he is translating a package and then, when he is done he must send it
back for review. The procedure of translation can be done in launchpad.
Problem 3:
The Ubuntu final localization is being produced from many translation teams
with different translators, different styles, different translations for the
same terms, so it has a reduced quality. An excellent example is the Greek main
menu (Application, Places, System) where in some cases we have translations
like Applications > Internet > (description) then (name of the program) and the
next application is Applications > Internet > (name of the program) then
(description). Also a translation administrator many times has no idea what
"Scrape" or "Toggle" is, or there is no translation in his language, so he has
to decide the term himself.
Solution 3:
Creation of a computer term dictionary divided in sections like CD-burning,
Torrents, Web Browsing etc which will include numerous terms for each section.
This dictionary should be community driven and also should have a voting system
that a launchpad user can propose a translation for the term and also can vote
the best translation for the term. This system should be a great Canonical and
Ubuntu community contribution to the open source community and i think it's
technically viable via launchpad.
It also be useful to create an ubuntu Applications, Places, System translation
package for all the menu titles that been used in basic ubuntu so the titles be
unified. An example is Totem. Gnome project refer to this player as Movie
player in the Applications menu and not as Totem Movie player, like the pattern
used in Rhythmbox which is refered as Rhythmbox Music player. Also totem is
actually a multimedia player not a movie player. The average non technical user
finds odd to play mp3s with a movie player! These things can be corrected with
this package.
Problem 4:
If anyone wants to upload a simple .po file in launchpad for translation (for
personal use) he can not.
Solution 4:
Creation of an online translation tool like kbabel or poedit that uses the
launchpad translations memory so anyone can translate or suggest a string of
the file. The administrator must be the guy who uploaded the file.
Problem 5:
An administrator (a reviewer) has absolutely no idea where he can find new
suggestions for translations to review.
Solution 5:
Provide a list of packages with new suggestions in all translations packages to
translation administrators in his profile.
Can you note the technical mistakes of these suggestions???
Thanx in advance
Giorgos Kainourgiakis
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