Re: Can we add avahi to d-l?

[Petr Kovar <pmkovar gnome org>]

"Dimitris Glezos" <dimitris glezos com>, Sat, 30 Aug 2008 13:40:25 +0300:

> On Sat, Aug 30, 2008 at 10:55 AM, Claude Paroz <claude 2xlibre net> wrote:
> > Le samedi 30 août 2008 à 04:05 +0200, Petr Kovar a écrit :
> >> Gabor Kelemen <kelemeng gnome hu>, Fri, 29 Aug 2008 21:11:18 +0200:
> >>
> >> > According to this blog entry, avahi can be translated via Transifex:
> >> >
> >> > http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/pa-on-tx.html
> >>
> >> A minor remark on Transifex follows, please ignore if you wish...
> >>
> >> So to submit new translations for avahi, pulseaudio and other upstream
> >> projects, one has to go downstream, join the Fedora Project community,
> >> i.e. apply for an account, sign the Contributors License Agreement,
> >> even supply one's postal address and telephone number. [1] Hmm, seems
> >> like a victory... for Red Hat, indeed. ;-)
> 
> Disclaimer (if it matters at all): I don't work for Red Hat. :-)

As Claude said, Transifex is a really good project, and I love the idea
behind it, even though I don't regard it as a broadly usable or universal
solution for open source l10n (at least not know), however, as an auxiliary
one, it has a big chance to sort out (some of) our l10n problems. 

Nevertheless, it seems we don't quite understand each other here...

> > There is a sort of implicit convention among translation projects that
> > upstream translations for common software is not hosted in downstream
> > tools.
> 
> +1. And that was one of the design principles of Transifex:
> Translations should always be hosted upstream and shared among all
> projects.
> 
> It's worth noting that translations submitted through Transifex
> (Pulseaudio and packagekit are notable examples) are still *hosted
> upstream*. 

I think it doesn't actually matter to us translators where the source
code with message catalogs is hosted, what does matter to translators is
where they are supposed (or should I say forced?) to go to submit a
translation.

> Projects with a Tx instance just have an entry-point to the
> source: the maintainers trust a (downstream) community to submit
> translations to their VCS.

The problem likely lies here: Fedora Project is more downstream than GNOME
(or the Translation Project), i.e. GNOME (as well as the Translation
Project) is upstream to Fedora.

> In fact, any community can have its own Tx and do the same. Heck, even
> a translator himself can have his own Tx instance using his SSH keys
> to help him organize his work. That's why in Transifex's context, the
> term 'upstream/downstream' loses its meaning: there are just projects
> to submit to and communities that want commit access. Fedora and GNOME
> are both "downstream" to Pulseaudio, and also to system-config-printer
> which happens to be developed on fedorahosted.org.
> 
> > Transifex is a really good project and I hope we'll soon be able to take
> > advantage of it for GNOME and other upstream projects, but I'm clearly
> > against dispersing upstream translations among various downstream
> > projects.
> > I suggest using the Translation Project until there is a common
> > agreement about a shared/upstream validated Transifex instance.
> 
> Now _this_ is a really cool project. And  it makes total sense, since
> it kinda loses the point to force upstream folks choose from a bunch
> of downstream-hosted Tx instances. The idea is to have a common Tx
> instance [^1] where translators can submit stuff to any project. With
> good user groups, permissions and stuff, this might even make L10n
> suck less!

Now the question regarding the idea is where is that place with a Tx
common instance. It's at Fedora, not at the Translation Project, as Claude
suggests to move Tx there, and as probably should be done, nor at GNOME (in
this case too, all GNOME translators would be more than happy). :-)

So, (my) points about the current Tx implementation at the Fedora Project
still stand, and unfortunately will stand as long as translators are
required to register at the very downstream, sign some special license
agreement, and supply highly personal data to Red Hat, and this all just to
submit a translation to upstream.

Now I see you are going to have a Tx session in Brno, maybe we could have a
talk there at FUDCon, I'll try to attend. :-)

Best,
Petr Kovar