Re: 2.6 and 2.8 schedules

[Dafydd Harries <daf muse 19inch net>]

Ar 22/03/2004 am 13:07, ysgrifennodd Mark McLoughlin:
>   + The hard string freeze date appears a little late, but we're 
>     proposing that from "slushy string freeze" on developers must report
>     each new string to gnome-i18n but it doesn't need explicit approval 
>     and then from "hard string freeze" each string requires approval, 
>     but the default answer is to be "no". Only the most neccessary 
>     string changes would be allowed.
> 
>     The idea here is to avoid the "string freeze fiasco" we had this 
>     time where the string freeze constantly broken. The slushy freeze 
>     should raise awareness that developers about the need to slow down 
>     the rate of string changes, while at the same time giving 
>     translators the information needed to keep up with changes. 
>     Hopefully, things would have slowed down sufficiently by hard string
>     freeze that there would be very few more string changes and that the
>     remaining 4 weeks left before the final release would be enough for 
>     translators.

I think this sounds promising and I (for one) am certainly happy to give
this a try for the next cycle.

> 	Feedback/ideas are very welcome. Unless there are any major
> disagreements we'll go ahead and post the schedule on the website in a
> few days time.

One of the biggest problems I've seen translators face is that there is
no set date for translations. It all depends on when the maintainer of
each module decides to make their own release. There's a latest date for
this (tarballs due), but not an earliest date, so comitting translation
updates near the tarball deadline is a gamble. There's nothing to
prevent a module maintainer making a release/tarball weeks before the
end of the cycle, thus nullifying all translations submitted afterwards.

It means that translations which would get into GNOME don't and, in
extreme cases, that languages which would be supported/complete aren't.
I don't know the extent of the problem, but at any rate, many
translators are worried and confused about whether their hard
translation work will actually get included or not.

Could we consider some way of giving translators a date before which all
translations committed would be guaranteed for inclusion in the coming
release? I think that would be really helpful.

In effect, a date before which no tarballs are allowed to be made, a few
days before the final release, in order to allow translators to make the
most of the string freeze.

Of course, this is all dependant on the cooperation of module maintainers.

-- 
Dafydd