Re: Proposed Freeze Change

[F Wolff <friedel translate org za>]

Op Ma, 2011-10-10 om 18:26 -0400 skryf Johannes Schmid:
> Hi!
> 
> > > Consequently the same question goes for "String Change Announcement
> > > Period" - CC'ing gnome-i18n as I'm wondering if translators still
> > > consider the "String Change Announcement Period" useful.
> > 
> > I'm all in favour of dropping it, for the following reasons:
> > 1. I doubt it is really useful for translators
> > 2. I think only a minority really announce new strings
> > 3. It would be easy to do something automatic from l10n.gnome.org if
> > needed
> 
> Agreed, can we just merge the "String freeze" into the "The Freeze",
> too? Because if you cannot change UI/features it is unlikely that
> strings will change and if they do, as Shaun pointed out already, you
> just sent a mail. I18n didn't block many strings the the last cycles and
> it oftens gives us the oppertunity to fix the string (english, type,
> whatever) before it is commited.

Personally the string announcement period hasn't been something I
tracked really, so I'd be fine with dropping it, also for the reasons
that Claude mention.

To merge everything sounds attractive to some extent, but my impression
is that the time after UI/feature freeze is when we change the way we
look at our software and some things are more likely to get attention:
 - old, easy bugs, like strings
 - typos in new text
 - disambiguating context needed
 - things not marked for translation

>From experience we know that strings are not all that unlikely to change
despite UI/feature freeze. So the idea of "just send an email" doesn't
reflect the need we have for a real freeze, which means that there must
be some time where people actively look at string related changes to
finalise them. If we manage to get people to give attention to that
before the freeze, we'll be doing very well. There will always be room
for important freeze breaks. But if this becomes a situation where the
first half of the string freeze is when strings are fixed, then
translators will just be loosing out on half a freeze.

Friedel

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