Release criteria proposal: i18n criteria

[Kamil Paral]

> On Mon, 2011-10-24 at 08:41 -0400, Kamil Paral wrote:
> 
> > > "All critical path actions on release-blocking desktop
> > > environments
> > > should correctly display all sufficiently complete translations
> > > available for use"
> > 
> > As usual I'm providing feedback only after it has been agreed on.
> > Sorry for that. But I have worked in l10n area for quite some time
> > and
> > would like to add my thoughts. It seems to me that we implemented
> > this
> > criterion somehow backwards.
> > 
> > 1. This is not an i18n criterion, this is an l10n criterion. i18n =
> > making the software translatable. l10n = translating the software.
> 
> No it isn't. It's specifically designed to *not* be an l10n
> criterion.
> That's why it says that all sufficiently complete translations which
> are
> available should be displayed: the code should not break display of
> the
> translations. It does not make any requirement at all for any
> translations to be available. If there wasn't a single word of Fedora
> translated to anything but English, the criterion would not be
> broken.

> > a) that national characters don't get screwed up (i.e. white boxes
> > instead of ěščřž)
> 
> Yes.
> 
> > b) that all translations available in the PO/MO file should also
> > appear in the application
> 
> Yesish.
> 
> > c) that there must be no missing translations (this is the original
> > purpose of the criterion, but I wouldn't have guessed it without
> > reading bug 706756).
> 
> No, and no, this is not the purpose of the criterion. It's not about
> missing translations.

In that case everything's perfect and I just misunderstood it. 

What confused me most is probably the phrase "all sufficiently complete translations". I am not sure about its purpose. Does it mean that if German has 90% complete GNOME translations, but Nautilus (even though fully translated) shows in pure English, it is a blocker; but if Arabic has 20% complete GNOME translations, and Nautilus (even though fully translated) shows in pure English, it is not a blocker? I.e. Nautilus code is broken, but only for Arabic -> Arabic translations are too incomplete -> not blocker? Is that the intended purpose?

Not saying it's wrong or right, probably both. Just clarifying.