Attention FLSCo: L10n infrastructure proposal

[Paul W. Frields]

Hello L10n team,

This message is primarily intended for people on the FLSCo, but I hope
it is of interest to other Fedora L10n community members.

With any large team effort, it's natural for there to be specific
areas of expertise that emerge among the group.  For instance, Fedora
recently appointed -- more or less by consensus -- Ian Weller as our
Fedora "wiki czar."  He has done such a tremendous job of maintaining
the wiki and setting up sane rules for usage that we needed to
recognize his efforts with the official capacity to carry out those
important duties.

In much the same way, there is a core group within the Fedora L10n
team that has become very much concerned with the development of
infrastructure that allows community translators to easily help with
translations.  This group includes Dimitris Glezos, Asgeir
Frimannsson, and Diego Búrigo Zacarão, among others.  These
contributors, through working on the various instances of Damned Lies
and Transifex, have shown their commitment to a stronger translation
infrastructure in Fedora and beyond.

Over the past year, there have been some misunderstandings or
miscommunications about current and future translation platforms.
Sometimes one piece of the platform is blamed for the problems of
another piece, or there are problems in keeping the whole L10n team
aware of progress being made.  I believe these are problems that could
be solved by a small, dedicated group, if they are entrusted by the
FLSCo to do so.  That is why I am asking the FLSCo to approve and
support a "Fedora L10n Infrastructure" team, which will be accountable
for moving the Fedora translation platform forward starting now.

The FLSCo is elected by the community to ensure that the entire L10n
team has what it needs to continue bringing the best of FLOSS in
Fedora to the widest possible audience.  One of the things they can do
to ensure that success is to place accountability for the development
of the L10n infrastructure in such a core group.  This is exactly the
same way the FESCo has empowered both the Release Engineering and
Spins groups to take care of specific pieces of Fedora work.

There are several very important pieces of work that need to be
accomplished to provide a solid infrastructure for the L10n team for
Fedora 11 translations.  The Beta freeze is approaching quickly, and
there is still some testing needed to ensure that platform will be
ready for translators.  This Fedora L10n Infrastructure team should
collaborate with each other -- and with the general Fedora
Infrastructure team as needed -- to produce a satisfactory platform
for Fedora 11 translations and beyond.  They should also be reporting
their plans, decisions, and progress to the FLSCo whenever needed, and
regularly to the entire Fedora L10n team through this list.

So, in summary:

* I would like the FLSCo to approve and support placing accountability
  for the L10n infrastructure in a four-person group, including
  Dimitris, Asgeir, Diego, and one more person on whom those three
  people can agree.

* I would like the FLSCo to do this within the next 24-48 hours -- in
  other words, as soon as possible, to make sure we have sufficient
  time for the necessary testing.

I hope FLSCo members will agree and give a "+1" to my proposal.  Thank
you for reading and for all your work in Fedora -- your contributions
make our project a truly global force in free software.

-- 
Paul W. Frields                                http://paul.frields.org/
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