comps headsup: plan to drop langpacks from language-support groups in comps-f17.xml.in

[Dimitris Glezos]

On Fri, Sep 9, 2011 at 9:50 AM, Ankitkumar Rameshchandra Patel
<ankit at redhat.com> wrote:
> Related note. How about we also change the way we manage translations
> for packages?
>
> This gives more control over translations to translators also
> translators become independent from package maintainers and can reduce
> burden from package maintainers taking care of translations!
>
> Shouldn't we have translations packaged independently from RPM packages?

This is indeed possible. We did this in MeeGo and worked quite well. Here's the
workflow we already implemented with MeeGo:

 1. Developer has neither POT or PO files in git. No need to.
 2. Developer builds his package. His Makefile produces the POT on-the-fly and
    includes it in the RPM.
 3. Developer pushes his SRPM on build system. His SRPM contains one POT file
    and no PO files.
 4. Transifex Middleware App monitors the build system for updates on packages.
    It detects a new version of the Anaconda SRPM. It downloads it, extracts
    the POT file from inside and pushes it to Transifex.
 5. Transifex imports the file and notifies all translators if there are new
    strings available.
 6. Translators provide translations either offline or online.
 7. Localization packager uses Transifex client to pull all translations for
    eg. F17 and push a update on the language packs. LPacks are splitted eg. as
    fedora-langpack-ui-pt_BR etc.
 8. User sees an update on yum and installs it.

Advantages:

- Developer is isolated from the need to host translations -- less clutter in
  his repo and changelog.
- Developer does not need to remember to update his POT and pull translations,
  often forgotten (eg. the "pull fresh translations after deadline).
- L10n packager and language teams can push updates to their language any time
  they want.
- CD/DVD can include only a couple of lang packs, so smaller size. Upon
  selection of the language, yum (or even the installer) can download the lang
  pack right away.
- Process works well with release cycles, since there is a string freeze
  period.

Possible drawbacks:

- During Updates cycles (after a release is shipped): Between the time the
  developer pushes his package and the time the lang packs are updated, the
  user may see a couple of English strings on his UI. This happens also when
  the developer hosts his PO files, unless he decides to have small
  string-freezes every time (don't know anyone who does this).

- Need to take extra care to avoid having a new langpack shipped to a user
  every day, since for some countries this might cause issues).

Hope this helps.

-d



-- 
Dimitris Glezos

Transifex: The Multilingual Publishing Revolution
http://www.transifex.net/ -- http://www.indifex.com/