Re: Translations, GNOME and KDE

[Christian Rose <menthos gnome org>]

sön 2004-01-04 klockan 17.45 skrev Jeff Waugh:
> > 1-know very early in the development process which modules will
> > eventually be added and how much strings they count...
> 
> So, in current release schedule thinking, we start compiling the list of
> proposed modules early on in the process (a month after the final stable
> release), and finalise the modules list four months in. We actually changed
> that date for this release, choosing to have the module freeze and feature
> freeze at the same time - perhaps this should be reconsidered.

Yeah, having modules officially proposed early is a great thing, and
something very nice with the current process. That leaves lot of time
for having an initial look at them and see if they fit in in all sorts
of ways.
But whether they will be actually accepted into the release is also
important to know early. Many translators are not particularily keen on
investing a lot of time on a module that might not be accepted when they
could have spent their time translating other stuff that actually was
accepted -- translating GNOME core is an enormous task and translators
are always faced with the issue of how to best spend their efforts.
Having the module selection early definately helps that process. In my
opinion, and from a translation perspective, it of course almost
couldn't be done too early. ;-)


[...]
> > 3-Speak more to us I think we play an important role in the development
> > process, lately I am seeing very nice communication going on BUT still
> > it would be good to ask us about our thoughts on the addition of a
> > module etc... in the official gnome release, I think maybe this is a
> > little bit too far fetched... But Hey let us demand more to get a little
> > bit then nothing ;)
> 
> Definitely not far-fetched, that's definitely what we want to see. But it
> takes work on both sides, usually at critical points such as the modules
> selection discussion. If there aren't enough i18n team members tracking
> issues on desktop-devel-list and forwarding information on, perhaps that
> needs to be addressed.

Definately agreed. If any translator feel they are left out of module
discussions, please subscribe to desktop-devel-list! It's a high volume
list, but you'll get all module discussion you can handle, that's for
sure. And your opinion about translations is worth the same as many
other opinion about the modules, so don't be afraid in bringing it into
the discussion. In fact, the more translators that are reading d-d-l the
better IMHO, since it can't always be the same few that are the first to
investigate new proposed modules to see whether they are kind to
translators or not. ;-)


Christian