RFC: Source string editing

[Adam Weinberger <adamw freebsd org>]

Developers and module maintainers clearly spend an enormous amount of 
time writing code, and making their apps and libraries do what they want 
them to do. Less attention is given to strings, however -- and 
understandably so. And there are a number of modules written by people 
whose first language is not English.

But no team spends more time dealing with strings than the GTP. Each 
source string is looked at by over 100 people. Noone other than an end 
user is more likely to notice a spelling or grammar error in a source 
string than a translator!

We've been urged before to file bug reports when there are strings that 
need fixing. However, many of these reports are ignored by the 
developers, as their attention is tuned much more towards maintenance of 
code, not strings. And furthermore, it is frankly tedious to file a bug 
report saying, "There's an extra 'e' in this word, of this line, of this 
file, of this module."

I'd be interested in seeing how many module maintainers would like to 
give blanket approval to the GTP to edit strings to fix spelling and 
simple grammar errors. Presence of a README.strings or something to that 
effect could mean a green-light to the GTP to fix small errors as they 
crop up.

Doing so would better utilize the resources that the GTP can provide, 
would take some of the burden of development off of module maintainers, 
and would help GNOME put its best foot forward (GET IT?!).

I'm interested in what others think of this concept. Is this a good 
idea? Would developers likely be interested in this?

# Adam


--
Adam Weinberger
adamw magnesium net || adamw FreeBSD org
adamw vectors cx    ||   adamw gnome org
http://www.vectors.cx