Re: open translations database

[Aoife Dunne - Sunsoft ELC <Aoife Dunne ireland sun com>]

Hi Stefan (correct this time I hope)

Please see my response below

> Subject: Re: open translations database
> From: Stefan Rieken <StefanRieken@SoftHome.net>
> To: Aoife Dunne - Sunsoft ELC 
<Aoife.Dunne@ireland.sun.com>
> Cc: whampton@staffnet.com, gnome-i18n@gnome.org
> Date: 02 Nov 2000 08:07:01 -0100
> Mime-Version: 1.0
> 
> Hello,
> 
> Well, I am sorry to say that my reply is going to be 
short: Evolution crashes like a nightmare all of a 
sudden. After editing 4 replies and getting crashes at 
the end, one gets the idea and makes his replies 
shorter.
> 
> > Dear Stephen & All
> 
> It's Stefan! ;-)
> 
> 
> > My name is Aoife Dunne and I am the project manager 
responsible 
> > for the GNOME Localisation at Sun.  
> 
> This is very nice. Now let me race through your topics 
before fate strikes again (it must have something to do 
with today, I broke everything already today).
> 
> > Terming Tool 
> > ------------
> 
> Does it produce relevant terms? I mean, we're not 
waiting for a database containing words such as 
"electron" and "hairdryer". How many relevant terms are 
there anyway, and do we need a program to retrieve them? 
I'm mainly thinking of terms such as "scrollbar" and 
"listbox".
> 
> These terms may vary between different GUIs. For 
instance, the Amiga had - I believe they were called - a 
"dropdownbox", but not a "dropdownlistbox". Collecting 
these terms and agreeing upon them might be a little bit 
harder than this. I'm not sure. Anyone?
> 
> Even if we had relevant terms, people would have to 
look 
> at these terms. This is where the TM comes in mind, 
see 
> below.

Here is an example of the terms.  The original terms are 
created using the developers English terms, thereafter 
the term listing can be clean-up and unwanted terms can 
be deleted.

Remove 		Panel		Transmit 	Edit 
Display 	Distribute 	Export 		Extract 
Import 		Measure 	Position 	Secure 
Separate 	Supply 		Cancel 		Copy 
  		
The term listing should have the apporpriate 
application, if different across applications.



> > Translation Memory 
> > ------------------
> 
> The TM is the idea I had in mind, but then come true. 
It would just be great to have this running on e.g. 
linuxi18n.org.

Sound good, we should check this out.


> You wonder about licensing terms. Maybe the community 
wouldn't even need an open source license, if they can 
just use it online.

Yes, difinately should be considered as a good option


> But there's a whole other thing. The TM is not feature 
complete, and it probably never will be if it doesn't 
allow for community contributions. You might call me mad 
on this one, but you'll have to admit that a lot of 
"Business Scheme" features in my proposal aren't in the 
tool that you describe. Most other ideas that came in 
reply to my mail, aren't there as well. There are 
language-specific needs for features as well.
> 
> Anyway, what I'm trying to say, this would be a heck 
of an open source project, with aid from developers of 
all languages, each knowing what is important for their 
language, and everyone working on their (good) ideas.


I agree completely, we should investigate


> BTW, the Terming Tool gets really useful if you can 
couple it to the sentences that the TM has to work out, 
so that translators get the translations for the terms 
right away and only have to construct the sentences.

Yes, you are correct and it is planned to be one of the 
features in the TM tool we are currentlly developing.


> > Style Guides 
> > ------------
> 
> Sounds swell. Do you think we can use these guides in 
such >terms that the GNOME Documentation Project would 
be likely >to adopt them? 

They are very much county specific guide lines. However, 
if English documentation style guides do not exist, 
maybe we should look to create one. 

>If these guides get their place at developer.gnome.org, 
>they would get wide attention.

Should we just ask the web mater for permission?. Any 
suggested location?.

> > * possible act a the host for the translation memory 
database, 
> > populating newly translated products.
> 
> If this is going to work out, I think linuxi18n.org is 
a good starting point. We should contact them if this 
gets serious.
> 
> > * provide linguistic quality assurance feedback and 
implement 
> > linguistic changes if necessary checking for 
grammar, spelling, 
> > inconsistencies etc.
> 
> "Linguistic quality assurance feedback" is a good word 
for Scrabble :-)
> 
> However, I don't exactly get what you mean here: that 
Sun would hire translators to check for grammar? Or is 
this also a software solution?
> 
> Now, I am going to press "Send" (OK, "Versturen" 
:-)...
> 
> Greets,
> 
> Stefan
> 

Cheers
Aoife