open translations database

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

Fri, 03 Nov 2000 Christian Rose  wrote

> > * A lot of applications had untranslated text.
> 
> I think this applies to everything about free software 
translation :-)
> There's always a shortage of manpower, and often the release
> coordination is non-existant with regards to documentation and
> translation (lack of communication). So a translator might not 
even know
> that a new release is on its way, and the software is released 
with
> whatever is in it in terms of translation at release time.
> The manpower issue is part of why we (I at least) had hopes about 
Sun
> having manpower, to help making everything translated :-)

Christian, if you are experiencing manpower difficulties, let us 
know what applications (or part components) you would like us to 
translate, we will translate and delivery you back our translations 
for integration.  Unfortunately, we do not have manpower for all 
languages, but for those languages we do, we are more than willing 
to give help where needed.


> > * Extended characters ÅÄÖåäö are sometimes displayed 
AA,AE,OE,aa,ae,oe.
> 
> I think this is a software problem, not a problem with 
translation per
> se. We never put "transcribed" iso-8859-1 (latin-1) characters in
> translation .po:s. That would be an almost as terrible thing to 
do as
> translating with Babelfish :)
> 
> I think they get like this when the program is for some reason 
not set
> to display iso-8859-1 characters correctly (for example when the 
locale
> is not set properly). When a problem like this occurs, they're
> automatically "transcribed" into US-ASCII (at least that's what I
> think).
> So this is a coding problem, and one the program developers 
should be
> notified of. Maybe Sun could help with this as part of its QA 
help?

I believe this is under control.

> > *  Some Inconsistencies
> 
> Yes, unfortunately, there are. We try to keep them to a minimum, 
but as
> long as there are several translators, there will be issues with
> inconsistencies. We have our own online word list with common 
terms
> (http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/~d95mback/gnome/ord.shtml) but it 
lacks a
> lot, and it's easy to forget to use it :-)

They look good.  Kenneth Christiansen <kenneth@gnu.org> is going to 
create a new alias to start discussion on "How to handle the i18n 
process".  Creating a term listings for each languages should 
appear high on the agenda. We should look to merger all available 
term listings together as a starting point.

Kenneth wrote: I will ask Martin (of Gnome fame) to create a 
gnome-i18n-tools@gnome.org list. If anyone has a better idea
for a name tell now ;)

Aoife


> Delivered-To: gnome-i18n@gnome.org
> Date: Fri, 03 Nov 2000 19:09:14 +0100
> From: Christian Rose <menthos@menthos.com>
> X-Accept-Language: sv, en
> MIME-Version: 1.0
> To: GNOME i18n list <gnome-i18n@gnome.org>, keekorok@eircom.net
> Subject: Re: open translations database
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
> X-BeenThere: gnome-i18n@gnome.org
> X-Loop: gnome-i18n@gnome.org
> X-Mailman-Version: 2.0beta5
> List-Id: Internationalization (I18N) of GNOME 
<gnome-i18n.gnome.org>
> 
> Hi Aoife (and Gerry)!
> 
> 
> Aoife Dunne - Sunsoft ELC wrote:
> > Gerry Ekstrom is our Swedish freelancer, his e-mail is
> > "keekorok@eircom.net".  I chatted to Gerry and he is very
> > interested in getting involved.
> > 
> > Gerry spent a few hours looking at the overall Swedish quality
> > of Gnome and found it to be very good.  At a high level, the
> > main issues reported were as follows (see the attached QA 
report
> > for details).  The report outlines suggested changes, however,
> > the translators are the experts of the product, so feel free 
not
> > to take our suggestions on board.
> 
> I've had a look, it was very interesting indeed. I personally 
agree with
> most of Gerry's comments. Most of the problems are real 
translation
> errors, due to sloppy translations/too little coffee at 03:00 in 
the
> morning. Or something :)
> 
> 
> > * A lot of applications had untranslated text.
> 
> I think this applies to everything about free software 
translation :-)
> There's always a shortage of manpower, and often the release
> coordination is non-existant with regards to documentation and
> translation (lack of communication). So a translator might not 
even know
> that a new release is on its way, and the software is released 
with
> whatever is in it in terms of translation at release time.
> The manpower issue is part of why we (I at least) had hopes about 
Sun
> having manpower, to help making everything translated :-)
> 
> 
> > * Extended characters ÅÄÖåäö are sometimes displayed 
AA,AE,OE,aa,ae,oe.
> 
> I think this is a software problem, not a problem with 
translation per
> se. We never put "transcribed" iso-8859-1 (latin-1) characters in
> translation .po:s. That would be an almost as terrible thing to 
do as
> translating with Babelfish :)
> 
> I think they get like this when the program is for some reason 
not set
> to display iso-8859-1 characters correctly (for example when the 
locale
> is not set properly). When a problem like this occurs, they're
> automatically "transcribed" into US-ASCII (at least that's what I
> think).
> So this is a coding problem, and one the program developers 
should be
> notified of. Maybe Sun could help with this as part of its QA 
help?
> 
> 
> > *  Some Inconsistencies
> 
> Yes, unfortunately, there are. We try to keep them to a minimum, 
but as
> long as there are several translators, there will be issues with
> inconsistencies. We have our own online word list with common 
terms
> (http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/~d95mback/gnome/ord.shtml) but it 
lacks a
> lot, and it's easy to forget to use it :-)
> 
> 
> I had an initial check on Gerry's report. I couldn't find any of 
the
> problems Gerry mentioned in my copy of gedit (0.9.2). Everything 
was
> properly translated, except one single untranslated "Help" menu 
item.
> Gerry's report didn't mention any gedit version number, so it 
might have
> been checked against an older version.
> 
> 
> > Christian, let me know how we can help.
> 
> We in the Swedish team look forward to working with Gerry. :)
> Normally we use the sv@li.org mailing list to discuss Swedish 
GNOME
> translations. This is the mailing list for the Swedish part of 
the
> Translation Project, but we're all friends, and as most of us 
Swedish
> GNOME translators are translators in the Translation Project too, 
we use
> their list for discussing GNOME translations. Discussions are in
> Swedish, and subscription info is on
> http://www.uddeborg.pp.se/sv/dok-2.html.
> 
> Also, many of us usually hang out on the #swedesex IRC channel 
(yes,
> that channel name is a joke, and nothing else) on 
irc.se.gimp.org.
> Occasionally, Swedish translations are discussed there too.
> 
> 
> Christian
> 
> 
> 
> 
###################################################################
####
> Christian Rose
> http://www.menthos.com                    	    
menthos@menthos.com
> 
###################################################################
####
> 
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Aoife Dunne
Program Manager
European Localisation Centre
Sun Microsystems Ireland Ltd
Hamilton House
East Point Business Park
Dublin 3
Ireland
Tel.:  	+353-1-8199-266
Fax:.	+353-1-8199-261
Email:	aoife.dunne@Ireland.Sun.COM