[Fedora-trans-list] Re: new mailing lists for translators

[Sarah Wang]

Hi Martin,

I suspect your concern is quite common so I'm replying to the entire 
mailing list as well. Hope you don't mind.

Sarah

Martin Mewes wrote:
>  Hi Sarah,
>  
>  I recently signed up as a translator, but I do not get any info
>  somewhere on how to start or what needs to be translated or anything
>  else like this. 
I totally agree with you about the lack of instructions/procedures in 
regard to translation. The main webpage for Fedora Translation Project 
(http://fedora.redhat.com/projects/translations/) is quite bare.  I'm 
working with the webpage maintainer to try to get more info on the 
website at the moment. Please bear with me :)

>  
>  Translators are redirected to fedora-devel-list or fedora-docs-list
>  which I signed up both.
>   
Well, in the future, we are going to use fedora-trans-list mainly to 
post any instructions, information and discussions.

>  All I found was:
>  
>  http://fedora.redhat.com/participate/documentation-guide/
>  
>  but does this belong to translators to or just to writers of
>  documentation?
>   
That's for the writers of documentation. However, we still can translate 
it if the community feel it's valuable. Right now, we are trying to set 
up seperate CVS repository to store documenatation translations.

>  On the main page for Translators I only find:
>  
>  "All translations are done via po files."
>  
>  ??? - I simply do not know what this is, because I only use "joe" or
>  "vi" or maybe "kile" within KDE in order to do LaTeX and so on.
>  
>  It would be very nice if you could help me out.
>   
"po" file is normally generated by GNU gettext tool. It contains 
original msg and translated msg pairs. It's used very commonly for 
software interfaces. You will noticed that all software translations are 
in po file format.

The advantage of po format is its maintainability. It can be easily 
updated and merged using the existing gettext tools.


>  
>  bis dahin - kind regards
>  
>  Martin Mewes
>

[Martin Mewes]

Hi Sarah,

normally I would not do a reply2all, but I do not find any info about 
on how to subscribe to fedora-trans-list.

Am Donnerstag, 11. Dezember 2003 02:53 schrieb Sarah Wang:

>  I suspect your concern is quite common so I'm replying to the
>  entire mailing list as well. Hope you don't mind. 
No, that's not a problem.

Ans after I could subscribe to that list you will get my reply to the 
list :-)

Martin

[Martin Mewes]

Hi Sarah,

finally subsciption to the list needed to be nodded by the Moderator. 
Uhh, this list seems to be very secure :-)

Am Donnerstag, 11. Dezember 2003 02:53 schrieb Sarah Wang:

>  > I recently signed up as a translator, but I do not get any info
>  > somewhere on how to start or what needs to be translated or
>  > anything else like this.
>
>  I totally agree with you about the lack of instructions/procedures
>  in regard to translation. The main webpage for Fedora Translation
>  Project (http://fedora.redhat.com/projects/translations/) is quite
>  bare.  I'm working with the webpage maintainer to try to get more
>  info on the website at the moment. Please bear with me :) 
The question is. How can we help you out of this situation?
Is there anything in order what we (or at least I) could do?

>  > Translators are redirected to fedora-devel-list or
>  > fedora-docs-list which I signed up both.
>
>  Well, in the future, we are going to use fedora-trans-list mainly
>  to post any instructions, information and discussions. 
Yes, I want to translate and not to documentate stuff.
Contents of HOWTOs and Documentation should not be part of this list, 
but technical advisories on what techniques should be used.

As Webmin/Usermin-WTCO I know what you are talking about.
The question is/was always regarding the use of which HTML-Entities 
should be used based on HTML 3.2 or HTML 4.0 or use of ä or 
better &#ddd; stuff and so forth.

The only goal was trying to speed up the process of translating the 
software with user contributed shell- or perl-scripts, how to package 
translation files and finally upload them to the upstream (/me) who 
after QA was done forwared all data once a week to the maintainer of 
the complete software himself.

It resulted now in a weekly FAQ as there is no room for discussion 
anymore, because problems seem to be solved if no other "weired" 
languages like /kisuaheli/ ;-)

>  > All I found was:
>  >
>  > http://fedora.redhat.com/participate/documentation-guide/
>  >
>  > but does this belong to translators to or just to writers of
>  > documentation?
>
>  That's for the writers of documentation. However, we still can
>  translate it if the community feel it's valuable. Right now, we are
>  trying to set up seperate CVS repository to store documenatation
>  translations. 
To get more folks in here it needs to be more publizised (correct 
spelling?). And to get more as well, the Main-WebPage needs to be 
available in different languages as well as a start point.
I am ready to help thing put to german if needed.

On the other hand I see that if some cannot read/understand the 
english original, how can he/she be able to translate things from 
english to ... :-)

[What is po?]
>  "po" file is normally generated by GNU gettext tool. It
> contains
>  original msg and translated msg pairs. It's used very commonly for
>  software interfaces. You will noticed that all software
>  translations are in po file format.
>
>  The advantage of po format is its maintainability. It can be easily
>  updated and merged using the existing gettext tools. 
So how about a FAQ on HOWTO work with po ( at least for folks like me) 
as a start :-)

Freundliche Grüsse
Kind regards

Martin Mewes
-- 
Official Webmin/Usermin Translation Co-Ordinator
http://www.webmin.com/
http://webmin.mamemu.de/ (Mirror)

[Sarah Wang]

Martin Mewes wrote:
>  Hi Sarah,
>  
>  finally subsciption to the list needed to be nodded by the Moderator. 
>  Uhh, this list seems to be very secure :-)
>  
>  Am Donnerstag, 11. Dezember 2003 02:53 schrieb Sarah Wang:
>  
>  
> >>I recently signed up as a translator, but I do not get any info
> >>somewhere on how to start or what needs to be translated or
> >>anything else like this.
> >
> >I totally agree with you about the lack of instructions/procedures
> >in regard to translation. The main webpage for Fedora Translation
> >Project (http://fedora.redhat.com/projects/translations/) is quite
> >bare.  I'm working with the webpage maintainer to try to get more
> >info on the website at the moment. Please bear with me :)
>  
>  
>  The question is. How can we help you out of this situation?
>  Is there anything in order what we (or at least I) could do?
>   
Good call! I'd like to know what information people would like to see on 
this website first, and also welcome suggestions of content 
layout/organizations.

>  
> >>Translators are redirected to fedora-devel-list or
> >>fedora-docs-list which I signed up both.
> >
> >Well, in the future, we are going to use fedora-trans-list mainly
> >to post any instructions, information and discussions.
>  
>  
>  Yes, I want to translate and not to documentate stuff.
>  Contents of HOWTOs and Documentation should not be part of this list, 
>  but technical advisories on what techniques should be used.
>  
>  As Webmin/Usermin-WTCO I know what you are talking about.
>  The question is/was always regarding the use of which HTML-Entities 
>  should be used based on HTML 3.2 or HTML 4.0 or use of ä or 
>  better &#ddd; stuff and so forth.
>  
>  The only goal was trying to speed up the process of translating the 
>  software with user contributed shell- or perl-scripts, how to package 
>  translation files and finally upload them to the upstream (/me) who 
>  after QA was done forwared all data once a week to the maintainer of 
>  the complete software himself. 
The main part of software translation process is already automated. The 
pot files are generated by gettext tools and put into cvs for checkout; 
the po files are automatically updated whenever pot file is updated; 
everyone who has a cvs account will be able to commit the translation 
(althought this procedure needs to be fine tuned); the finished 
translation files will be automatically integrated into the software 
packages.

I believe our challenge is to find the most efficient procedure to 
coordinate the translation as well as maintain the consistency and 
reusability of the existing translation.

>  
>  It resulted now in a weekly FAQ as there is no room for discussion 
>  anymore, because problems seem to be solved if no other "weired" 
>  languages like /kisuaheli/ ;-)
>  
>   
FAQ is necessary in the beginning. Anyone would like to volunteer to get 
the FAQ together. Maybe we can put that on the project website, so this 
mailing list can be used for other discussions.

> >>All I found was:
> >>
> >>http://fedora.redhat.com/participate/documentation-guide/
> >>
> >>but does this belong to translators to or just to writers of
> >>documentation?
> >
> >That's for the writers of documentation. However, we still can
> >translate it if the community feel it's valuable. Right now, we are
> >trying to set up seperate CVS repository to store documenatation
> >translations.
>  
>  
>  To get more folks in here it needs to be more publizised (correct 
>  spelling?). And to get more as well, the Main-WebPage needs to be 
>  available in different languages as well as a start point.
>  I am ready to help thing put to german if needed. 
Totally agree with you there. I'm working with Paul Gampe to get the 
website content into cvs, so everyone will be able to check out and 
translate the module therefore having localized project interface. I 
welcome any suggestions.

>  
>  On the other hand I see that if some cannot read/understand the 
>  english original, how can he/she be able to translate things from 
>  english to ... :-)
>  
>  [What is po?]
>  
> >"po" file is normally generated by GNU gettext tool. It contains
> >original msg and translated msg pairs. It's used very commonly for
> >software interfaces. You will noticed that all software
> >translations are in po file format.
> >
> >The advantage of po format is its maintainability. It can be easily
> >updated and merged using the existing gettext tools.
>  
>  
>  So how about a FAQ on HOWTO work with po ( at least for folks like me) 
>  as a start :-) 
That is certainly a good starting point :)
Any volunteers?

>  
>  Freundliche Grüsse
>  Kind regards
>  
>  Martin Mewes

[Martin Mewes]

Hi Sarah,

Sarah Wang <sarahs(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:

> > The question is. How can we help you out of this situation?
> > Is there anything in order what we (or at least I) could do?
> > 
>
> Good call! I'd like to know what information people would like to see on 
> this website first, and also welcome suggestions of content 
> layout/organizations. 
The following is just a discussion start ...

######################################################################

a) What's this?

	Description of the Fedora-Trans-Project.

i.e.	The Fedora-Trans-Project has started at ... in order to
	translate famous Linux Software and its documentation
	into main languages. This would be for now french, german,
	spanish, portuguese and <some flavours of chinese, japanese>.
	If a software is written by source in russian maybe, well
	we try to get this into english as well :-)

	Our goal is to offer a "complete" distribution and that
	the entire distribution consists of HOWTOs and MANPAGEs in
	the languages listed above. In that way Fedora shall be a
	distribution for beginners as well, as for experts.

	Various distributions just offer Linux-Software as is and
	exspecially leave beginners alone, but if Linux wants to
	konquer the desktop it has to speak the native language not
	only partly in the GUI but on the console as well.

	The Fedora-Trans-Project is trying to get this job done.

b) Who we are?

	No names here, but only volunteers who want to
	be contact persons for foreigners.

i.e.	We are mainly not programmers, but interested enthusiasts.
	Everyone just works on a part of this project. More info can
	be found in "Organization".

	If you really want to speak to a single human before taking a
	job here you may send out an eMail to the following
	volunteers:

	Maintainer of the Project in common:

	Paul Gampe - <pgampe(a)redhat.com&gt;, Maintainer
	Sarah Wang - <sarahs(a)redhat.com&gt;, Maintainer

	Maintainers of Localisation:

	German - vsuihdfuiidfuidgf efwdffhurf 
	French - ifuofreui frfrfrf
	Japanese - ruieuiruier weruirer

	
c) How to join?

i.e.	Very easy just visit:

	https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-trans-list

	and subscribe to the main list.

	Or visit

	one of these listed pages to go directly to your language.

	German: fedora-trans-de.

	French: fedora-trans-fr.
	
	Spanish: fedora-trans-es.
	
	Italian: fedora-trans-it.
	
	Brazilian Portuguese: fedora-trans-pt_br.
	
	Japanese: fedora-trans-ja.
	
	Korean: fedora-trans-ko.
	
	Simplified Chinese: fedora-trans-zh_cn.
	
	Traditional Chinese: fedora-trans-zh_tw.


d) Organization

i.e.	Every language has one maintainer responsible for
	his/her language. Normally those folks are voted
	for one year by the community, but as an initial start
	we (Sarah and Peter) decided who will take the job.

	The job of this person can be taken as an "Editor in Chief"
	for his language who is responsible to cvscheckin translations
	coming from contributors.

	He/She is the final frontier before translations are going
	into the main distribution.

######################################################################

> The main part of software translation process is already automated.
> The 
> pot files are generated by gettext tools and put into cvs for checkout; 
> the po files are automatically updated whenever pot file is updated; 
> everyone who has a cvs account will be able to commit the translation 
> (althought this procedure needs to be fine tuned); the finished 
> translation files will be automatically integrated into the software 
> packages. 
I think you need to find a way that a responsible human checks the
automated translations as the final frontier. Nothing should be just
being done by a machine.
As for my Webmin-work I do have some automation but the main work must
be edited because there are so many things cannot be automated if you
want to have a usuable localisation.

> I believe our challenge is to find the most efficient procedure to 
> coordinate the translation as well as maintain the consistency and 
> reusability of the existing translation. 
Yes :-)
That's why I invented a main human upstream before anything is going
into the main source tree which is used to build the distribution.
Q&A is absolutely necessary.

> FAQ is necessary in the beginning. Anyone would like to volunteer to
> get 
> the FAQ together. Maybe we can put that on the project website, so this 
> mailing list can be used for other discussions. 
Well I volunteered to write something together as a first starting
point in this eMail. Now let's check the feedback on this.

> > To get more folks in here it needs to be more publizised (correct
>
> > spelling?). And to get more as well, the Main-WebPage needs to be 
> > available in different languages as well as a start point.
> > I am ready to help thing put to german if needed.
>
> Totally agree with you there. I'm working with Paul Gampe to get the 
> website content into cvs, so everyone will be able to check out and 
> translate the module therefore having localized project interface. I 
> welcome any suggestions. 
I do not know that much of cvs but I am willing to learn to use it in
order to improve myself :-)
If you teach me, I'll get that page into german and mybe I can "hire"
some Webmin-translators to get the page to french and maybe into an
arabian flavour ;-)

[What is po?]
> > 
> >>"po" file is normally generated by GNU gettext tool. It contains
> >>original msg and translated msg pairs. It's used very commonly for
> >>software interfaces. You will noticed that all software
> >>translations are in po file format.
> >>
> >>The advantage of po format is its maintainability. It can be easily
> >>updated and merged using the existing gettext tools.
> > 
> > 
> > So how about a FAQ on HOWTO work with po ( at least for folks like me) 
> > as a start :-)
>
> That is certainly a good starting point :)
> Any volunteers? 
For native germans I found an excellent HOWTO with pictures here:

http://www.fask.uni-mainz.de/cafl/doku/Linux/LinuxTranslation.html

It is based on KDE2 but I think it is somehow usuable.

bis dahin - kind regards

Martin Mewes

-- 
http://webmin.mamemu.de/
Official Webmin/Usermin Translation Co-Ordinator 2003/2004
Proud Agent 2.0 Beta Tester and NewsHoster