Re: Translating The GIMP

[Christian Rose <menthos menthos com>]

"R.I.P. Deaddog" wrote:
> > I myself would probably convert the sv.po in Gimp HEAD to UTF-8, like in
> > GTK+, if I was kindly asked to, and it was recommended, but I still
> > don't want others to touch the PO file.
> > I think I could live with having to run iconv back and forward every
> > time I touch the file, maybe I could also live with the different
> > charset breaking the translation memory I use. But please let me still
> > maintain the file, and don't touch it!
> 
> There are two kind of people that commit po files into HEAD branch; one kind
> is so stupid that they can't even distinguish between HEAD and stable
> branch, and another kind knows very well what they're doing. So how about
> a method distinguishing these two kind of people?

I don't think it has anything to do with stupidity. It's probably just
that people don't know about branches and/or how to check out different
branches. Every other project using its own system with branches
probably doesn't help either. I guess we've all been there, not knowing
how to properly use branches, unless we were born with knowledge about
CVS.

I have no good solution for solving this. I think that information helps
though. Every translation request mail to gnome-i18n should contain
information about what branch(es) to use IMHO, and if the maintainer is
really worried that translations will go to the wrong branch, including
instructions in the mail on how to check out the correct branch(es)
probably doesn't hurt. Also, some projects use files named
"TRANSLATORS_READ_THIS" or similar in the po directories in the "wrong"
branch, with information about the right branch to use. It's buttugly,
but effective, I think.

Also, once the maintainer sees a translation go to the wrong branch,
replying to the translator as soon as possible and ask if it wasn't
really meant for the stable branch probably also helps.

Again, I don't think this solves this problem completely, and I also
suspect GIMP in particular does many of these things already, but I
think it helps.


> For example, send a piece of email to committer/last translator. If they do
> reply and acknowledge/reject the overwriting of HEAD branch po files, then
> one knows they are still actively maintaining the file; otherwise one can
> safely assume the file is not actively maintained, and can be overwritten
> freely.

Agreed, but it should be done soon after the commit. I don't think
reverting a translation update because the translator happens to be away
from his mail for a week some time during the summer is a good thing.
But yes, I agree, Communication is King.


Christian