Translation teams and the GTP (was Re: Translating The GIMP)

[Christian Rose <menthos menthos com>]

This is a rather separate thread, so I'm replying to it seperately.


Sven Neumann wrote:
> > > For the HEAD branch, we should try to find a responsible translation
> > > maintainer for each language. The language maintainer should have CVS
> > > commit access and is responsible for coordinating his/her team of
> > > translators.
> >
> > You've just described the GNOME Translation Project.
> 
> hmm, not all of our translators are part of the GNOME translation
> project and GIMP != GNOME. For that reason, I'd like to maintain a list
> of language maintainers in the GIMP source tree. If the GNOME
> translation project wants to take this job and thinks such a list is a
> waste of time, this is something we can and should consider, but it
> needs to be discussed.

I cannot speak for all of the GNOME Translation Project (GTP;
http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gtp/). However, what you described
is confusingly similar to the GTP.

Yes, GIMP != GNOME, but noone has to use GNOME to be a member in the
GTP, nor do they have to contribute anything to GNOME at all, except the
GIMP translation in this case if they want to do that.
Also, GIMP uses GNOME CVS, and the GTP is basically just a collection of
volunteering translators, some of them with GNOME CVS access, divided
into ~40 language teams. Each team has a team coordinator that should
keep track of who does what, and most teams also have at least one
person with GNOME CVS access (often the coordinator), that can commit
translations for their language team. So I don't see many reasons not to
use this existing setup.

Also, if you have trouble getting much else done besides committing
translations that you recieve, I'd suggest also actively encouraging
existing GIMP translators to try to submit their translations to their
corresponding GNOME translation team so it can be committed that way,
and only send it to you if that doesn't work. The people in the GNOME
translation teams with CVS access do after all have CVS access because
they should commit translations for their language. That's what they are
supposed to do. :)

I know there are different opinions on this, we've had an extensive
debate on this in Galeon (hi Yanko! :) but IMHO this is policy that is
suitable in many cases. It reduces workload for developers, and also
encourages translators of the same language to work together and
communicate, which in turn usually gives better translations. IMHO of
course.


Christian