Translation evaluation of the modules proposed for 2.10

[Christian Rose <menthos gnome org>]

According to http://www.gnome.org/start/2.9/, January 10th will bring us
a feature and module freeze, and the inclusion of proposed modules will
be decided upon by then.

I have gone through many of the proposed modules during the last week,
in order to both translate them into my own language, and at the same
time evaluate them from a translation perspective. The evaluation was
only done on a quick string/message basis and quick searches in GNOME
Bugzilla, so I haven't actually run the software to test if there are
more internationalization problems in the UI. As a consequence, this is
by no means a complete assessment. Still, I hope this can be useful. At
least it's probably better than no evaluation at all.

These are all my own opinions, and doesn't necessarily reflect the
opinions of all GNOME translators. However, I suspect most or at least
many translators share similar opinions regarding the proposed modules.


pygtk
=====
This module is proposed for the developer platform and has no
translateable messages as far as I know.


gnome-schedule
==============
179 translateable messages.
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/buglist.cgi?product=gnome-
schedule&keywords_type=anywords&keywords=string
+I18N&bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED
This is in my opinion the most problematic module of all the proposed
ones, at least from a localization perspective. gnome-schedule has some
really major localization problems with its use of ordinals and string
concatenation in the UI. Some problems have been fixed, but still, I
would recommend gnome-schedule not to be included now, but perhaps in a
later GNOME release, when the remaining problems may have been fixed and
been properly tested.


gnome war pad (gwp)
===================
Gnome war pad uses neither cvs.gnome.org nor bugzilla.gnome.org. The
former is an absolute necessity for translation by the GNOME Translation
Project, and the use of both is probably an important prerequisite for
contributions by other members of the GNOME community as well. Because
of this, my recommendation is to not include this module, at least for
now.


polypaudio
==========
The same is true for polypaudio; it seems it uses neither cvs.gnome.org
nor bugzilla.gnome.org. However, it's unclear whether localization and
translateable messages is a concern for this module. If so, my
recommendation is to not include this module, at least for now. If it
doesn't have or need translateable messages, then this is of course
irrelevant, and please disregard from this.


libgnomesu
==========
34 translateable messages.
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/buglist.cgi?
product=libgnomesu&keywords_type=anywords&keywords=string
+I18N&bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED
This is a no-brainer from a translation message perspective; few
messages and relatively simple ones as well. Unfortunately, libgnomesu
uses Glade, which brings wellknown translation problems with Glade into
the equation, but it's not worse than any other Glade-using module
currently in the desktop. In my opinion, this module is safe to include,
at least from a translateable message perspective.


gwget
=====
138 translateable messages.
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/buglist.cgi?
product=gwget&keywords_type=anywords&keywords=string
+I18N&bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED
Slightly more messages, and gwget also unfortunately uses Glade, and has
problems caused by the use of it. Still, in my opinion this module is
safe to include, at least from a translateable message perspective.


gnome-doc-utils
===============
59 translateable messages.
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/buglist.cgi?product=gnome-doc-
utils&keywords_type=anywords&keywords=string
+I18N&bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED
Relatively few messages, but at least one problem in the interaction
with intltool, and some clarification with comments needed. Still, in my
opinion this module is safe to include, at least from a translateable
message perspective.


totem
=====
353 translateable messages.
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/buglist.cgi?
product=totem&keywords_type=anywords&keywords=string
+I18N&bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED
Quite a few messages, and unfortunately totem uses Glade, so it has
Glade-related problems as well. Still, in my opinion totem is a mature
piece of software, at least translation-wise, and so it's quite likely
safe to include from this point of view.


galago
======
Galago neither uses cvs.gnome.org nor bugzilla.gnome.org. Appearantly it
uses freedesktop.org Subversion and Sourceforge's excuse for a proper
bug tracker.
IIRC there was some discussion in the past about doing like other fd.o
modules and using the independant Translation Project
(http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/contrib/po/HTML/) for translation, which
sometimes is an acceptable compromise in case moving from fd.o to
gnome.org is out of the question, but so far this seems to not have
happened.
As a consequence, my recommendation is to not include this module, at
least for now.


libnotify
=========
The same is true for libnotify. However, the author claims there are no
localization concerns with this library (there are no translateable
messages).


notification-daemon
===================
The same is true for notification-daemon. The author claims there are no
localization concerns with this library (there are no translateable
messages).


nautilus-sendto
===============
18 translateable messages.
Unfortunately, it seems that nautilus-sendto doesn't use
bugzilla.gnome.org. Thus, it's not possible to query whether there are
more problems with it that have been reported. On the positive side,
this module has very few messages, but on the negative side, there are
many (although minor) problems with those. However, since the module
doesn't use bugzilla.gnome.org and further status is unknown, my
recommendation is to not include it, at least for now.


goobox
======
166 translateable messages.
Unfortunately, it seems that goobox doesn't use bugzilla.gnome.org.
Thus, it's not possible to query whether there are more problems with it
that have been reported.
In addition, unfortunately goobox uses Glade, so it has Glade-related
problems as well. However, these are probably no worse than any other
Glade-using GNOME module.
On the positive side, there appear to be few message-related problems
from a quick look at the messages. On the negative side, it's not
possible to know whether there are more problems that have been reported
previously. Because of this, my recommendation is to not include this
module, at least for now.


gnome-backgrounds
=================
22 translateable messages.
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/buglist.cgi?product=gnome-
backgrounds&keywords_type=anywords&keywords=string
+I18N&bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED
Few messages, but it's often not trivial to translate names correctly.
Comments to provide more context and reasons for the different names is
probably needed, in order for translators to be able to translate these
background names. Still, in my opinion this module can safely be
included.


gnome-menus
===========
27 translateable messages.
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/buglist.cgi?product=gnome-
menus&keywords_type=anywords&keywords=string
+I18N&bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED
There's not much to say about this one; most of these messages have
already been included previously. The only new thing appears to be that
they have been moved to a new module. Can probably safely be included.


gnome-user-share
================
Unfortunately, gnome-user-share doesn't use bugzilla.gnome.org. In
addition, it doesn't seem to have a functional gettext/intltool setup.
Even though I strongly suspect this will get fixed eventually, the lack
of time left for GNOME 2.10 freezes makes me recommend this module not
to be included, at least for now.


gnome-keyring-manager
=====================
141 translateable messages.
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/buglist.cgi?product=gnome-keyring-
manager&keywords_type=anywords&keywords=string
+I18N&bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED
There appears to be some minor message problems, but nothing serious.
Can probably safely be included.


sound-juicer
============
204 translateable messages.
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/buglist.cgi?product=sound-
juicer&keywords_type=anywords&keywords=string
+I18N&bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED
Quite a lot of messages, but not excessive by any means. Unfortunately
sound-juicer uses Glade, so it has Glade-related message problems.
However, these are probably no worse than any other Glade-using GNOME
module. Furthermore, some special sound-juicer messages would probably
benefit from translator comments that describe their purpose, but still,
these are only minor problems. Can probably safely be included.


Summary
-------
Safe to include from a translateable message perspective...?

pygtk			--
gnome-schedule		NO
gnome war pad (gwp)	NO
polypaudio		NO/--
libgnomesu		YES
gwget			YES
gnome-doc-utils		YES
totem			YES
galago			NO
libnotify		--
notification-daemon	--
nautilus-sendto		NO
goobox			NO
gnome-backgrounds	YES
gnome-menus		YES
gnome-user-share	NO
gnome-keyring-manager	YES
sound-juicer		YES

(-- = n/a if it doesn't need translateable messages)


Christian