L10N tools: Increase quality of translations
by Dimitris Glezos
Hi all.
Some members from the L10N project have identified some issues that need to be
solved to make sure the translations of Fedora are of high quality. Some of them
are infrastructure-related and at today's (-admin) meeting it was suggested to
transfer the discussion here.
I'm sure the folks at Red Hat are doing their best to keep the quality of the
translations high. But the truth is that Fedora's image in the context of
translations is not good; we do hear that a lot, from current and wanna-be
members. We can and should work to improve it. Semi-translated applications are
U-G-L-Y and shout "low QA" in our ears.
Some possible ideas have been listed on the following page:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/L10N/Tasks
Please feel free to chip in and help us out correct whatever doesn't seem
reasonable, break tasks into smaller tasks etc.
The bigger picture of some of these problems are:
* L10N of "local" applications (those listed on [1]) is poor; releases and
package updates contain untranslated strings in many languages. This is
unacceptable for a fully-localized desktop.
* The barrier to contribute to the l10n (be it GUI or Docs) is higher than it
should be (compared to other projects).
* QA of the translations is difficult with the current tools.
Some more concrete ideas to discuss that might concern the InfrProj and the
RelEng team are:
* Integrate better the handling of translation during a "local" package's
lifecycle. Have a flag raised for a package update that introduces new strings
so that translators can translate the new strings before the
repackaging/updating. Include in the schedule for each release a "string freeze
date" and a week later a "translation freeze date" and have all our packages
rebuilt after the latter and before the actual release.
* Move po files on their own cvsroot on cvs.fedoraproject.org to reduce
complexity and maintenance and to increase security (with a new group).
* Move the i18n status pages to Fedora servers (Plone/Turbogears?). Include a
direct link to the pofiles from there so that new members can have something to
work on before getting cvs access.
* In the future, use Plone to automate the QA between team members (ie
coordinators can review translations etc).
* Start working with the complex and tricky path to upstream translations that
no distribution has tackled yet in a successful way. Bring our translators
closer to the upstream projects.
Hope some of the above make sense. :)
-d
[1]: http://i18n.redhat.com/cgi-bin/i18n-status
--
Dimitris Glezos
Jabber ID: glezos(a)jabber.org, GPG: 0xA5A04C3B
http://dimitris.glezos.com/
"He who gives up functionality for ease of use
loses both and deserves neither." (Anonymous)
--
16 years, 7 months
Re: Docs Successes and Needs
by Karsten Wade
Sorry about the delay in responding. Paul Frields and I collaborated
tonight on a response, and I'll be glad to bring you up to speed.
On Wed, 2007-01-17 at 16:11 -0500, Paul Gampe wrote:
Paul W. Frields wrote:
> > Outstanding Issues:
> > 1. Translation Project disconnect - what do we need here in concrete
> > terms?
>
> I had been approached a few times regarding this topic, but as yet do not
> know exactly what is required. Is this project scoped somewhere I can
> reference?
We describe some of the needs below. They've also been voiced in some
recent fedora-trans-list threads by L10n Project members, but no replies
have been seen from the L10n leadership. The community created a Wiki
page some time ago to flesh this out.[1] The goal is to create a way
in which volunteer translators can work more fluidly with Fedora
developers (where Fedora is the upstream source) and with documentation.
A continuing problem is that neither the Documentation team nor the L10n
team is sure what, exactly, they need. But to figure out the exact
needs is going to require input from and discussion with the Red Hat
teams involved. That needs to happen in community space.
> > App rewrites and process changes? Red Hat internal group(s)
> > originally had ownership of this, yet we've seen no progress in the past
> > months... or year(s).
>
> The Red Hat internal group you are referring to here was approached to hand
> over the code to the translation web applications which was done some time
> ago. I am not sure what has happened since then, but depending on the
> scope I may be able to help.
Yes, that group said then they had no time to work on Fedora L10n
infrastructure. Since Fedora Infrastructure now has resources where RH
and non-RH community can collaborate, perhaps L10n is in a better
position to seed this upstream work. Things needed:
* CVS on elvis.r.c merged over to cvs.fedoraproject.org, including
account migration and CLA completion by users (non-trivial).
* Port existing Perl Web app to Python so it can be supported and
maintained by the community.
* Renewed vigorous and committed leadership from Translation Project
leaders inside Red Hat, including embracing the Fedora leadership
model.[2]
> > 2. Content from RH, licensed under our terms (OPL w/no options).
>
> Was there a thread discussing the selection of this license?
This was resolved internally at Red Hat between Mark Webbink and Content
Services. It was done to align RHEL docs to be upstream/downstream of
content from Fedora, so they both needed the same license[3].
= = =
[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/L10N
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DefiningProjects#FedoraProjects
[3] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/Licensing/FAQ#RHELDocsLicense
--
Karsten Wade, RHCE, 108 Editor ^ Fedora Documentation Project
Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject
quaid.108.redhat.com | gpg key: AD0E0C41
////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
16 years, 8 months
Fedora Installation Language
by visez.trance＠gmail.com
Hello,
what file(s) do i have to translate in order to have my language (romanian)
available during the installation process ?
Best regards,
Mircea Daniel
16 years, 8 months
Re: Docs Successes and Needs
by Bart Couvreur
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Posting this to fedora-trans too, to get some translators input
Thomas Canniot schreef:
> Le vendredi 05 janvier 2007 à 11:15 -0500, Paul W. Frields a écrit :
>> I should have started this thread on Wednesday but my home schedule has
>> been a bit topsy-turvy of late:
>>
>> The Docs Project has been invited to participate in the next Fedora
>> Project Board meeting. We should be prepared to talk about the
>> successes we've had over the past two releases and what remains to be
>> done. The way I see it, here are some starter issues. I'd appreciate
>> plenty of input, but please keep in mind that the issues should be
>> things the Board cares about (e.g. blockers in other subprojects that we
>> haven't been able to resolve after repeated attempts, resource needs
>> that might require Real Funds -- things we can't provide by ourselves).
>>
>> Successes:
>> 1. Best-in-the-world release notes, provided by the community.
>> 2. Growing contributor base, including work on additional entry-level
>> to intermediate-level guides.
>> 3. Progress toward integrating with the Fedora package universe.
>>
>> Future Predictions:
>> 1. Possible click-thru on Wiki will allow easier contribution without
>> all the GPG+SSH+CLA+EditGroup rigamarole
>> 2. FUDCon presence will result in major updates to available docs,
>> making it easier for new people to learn processes
>>
>> Outstanding Issues:
>> 1. Translation Project disconnect - what do we need here in concrete
>> terms? App rewrites and process changes? Red Hat internal group(s)
>> originally had ownership of this, yet we've seen no progress in the past
>> months... or year(s).
>
> There are simple things that may be sufficient to help improving
> translation.
> 1. make it easy to subscribe to the project in itself. It _is_ really a
> pain to open that much of account to translate a string. That shouldn't.
> 2. do not allow people to commit as they want. New contributors (as well
> as every pieces of translation) must be read over by someone more
> experienced in the projet. A bit like extras packages are reviewed
> before being accepted. This will avoid many mistakes in the
> distribution.
> 3. better communication between developers and translators. For
> example :
> a package sees its .pot file updated. That is the responsibility to
> check regurlary for this kind of update. But developers could say on the
> translation list : i'm going to rebuild the updated software into a RPM
> package by (any date) and all translation done before that date will be
> included.
>
> That's all I'd like :)
Maybe also checkout the thread[1] on fedora-trans-list from a few
weeks ago on this very subject
>
> >From my point of view, I don't think it could be that indispensable to
> have the same webapp than Launchpad offers for translation, that is,
> translation directly from the web browser. I personally don't trust any
> web browser, their stability depending on the websites you are on.
As far as I know Launchpad will never be an option, as it's closed
source. Lately I've been wanting to look into Pootle[1], which offers
some similar functionality and is written in Python.
Maybe all this stuff on L10N should have it's own separate meeting
with the Board, as it's such a big change/challenge to get this right.
I can think of some people who would like to join that meeting then,
and we should get people from Docs and Infrastructure in that meeting
as well (just my 2 ct).
Greetings,
Bart
[1]:
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-trans-list/2006-November/msg00035.html
[2]: http://translate.sourceforge.net/
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16 years, 8 months
Desktop-effects
by Igor Pires Soares
Hello Guys!
Today I was looking into my "Translate" directory and noticed that there
is a desktop-effects folder, but there is only one po file inside. I
would like to know how to make a po file for my language.
Thanks in advance,
Igor Pires Soares
16 years, 8 months
