Re: Persian translations

[Danilo Segan <danilo gnome org>]

Elros Cyriatan <cyriatan@fastmail.fm> writes:
>
> If I'm correct up to here, I think the most important question is whether you would
> agree on the glossary, if it would be ready. If you don't, it would probably be
> better not to work on the same translation (cooperation would still be possible of
> course). If you do, I think there's no problem. Translation would be possible right
> now, the work would only need to be revised when the glossary is ready.
>

As someone who has had the chance to work on the glossary along with
working on translations, I'll add my 2c in a minor support of Elros's
point.

Roozbeh, Abbas, 
I think you should also bear one important thing in mind -- there are
no forthcoming stable Gnome releases in the very near future (apart
from Gnome 2.4.2 which you're probably not planning on working).

So, if you concentrate on working on unstable, you don't have to care
about laws, until we approach release time, when you go and clean up
the translations. You've got about three months till that point, and
then you've got about a month to clean up translations.

This has several advantages, like motivating translators, avoiding
accumulating untranslated strings, having early testers and getting a
better grasp of work involved.

Certainly, every approach has some merit over the other, but I hate
to see translators being discouraged.  And any delay is bad for
translation work. The thing with Free Software is that people usually
lose time later on (I've never met anyone in the Free Software world
who really had more spare time "later on" :), and even if they really
do want to do all what's best, they never produce.

So, my main idea about contributing is not to wait for someone else
to do it -- Free Software doesn't work that way -- but rather, to do
it yourself.  

So, in the same manner, instead of waiting for someone to produce
that glossary, you might help with that too.

If glossary needs to be made compatible, do it the yourself as good as
you can, and submit that to the proper academical institution.  Most
government organizations have too much administrativia that stops them
from actually doing the work, so they delegate it to a commitee, which
delegates it to a subcommitee, which forms task forces, which organize
workgroups, which elect you to do the work :)

So, just skip the administrativia, and *help* with the glossary right
away -- that will keep people involved and busy, so no time to
complain ;)


Of course, having a helping hand from the institution is very
helpful, but my experience is that it comes after most of the work is
done, not prior. And yes, even then is such a support very
beneficial.


Oh, my 2c turned out to be rather long -- sorry about that.

Cheers,
Danilo