Re: Import from Launchpad

["Djihed Afifi" <djihedlists googlemail com>]

>
> You're not very fair, here. There has been new tools aimed to track
> differences between upstream and downstream.
> You can check the "Changed" column in your language package list in
> Launchpad, which tells you how many strings have been modified from
> upstream.
> Then, in the package, you can filter all these strings ('Show:'
> drop-down menu, 'changed in Launchpad') and compare the upstream and
> changed strings. Then, you can either revert to upstream in two clicks
> (if you have necessary rights), or use the string improvement in your
> upstream file.


The point is, I don't need to, and I don't want to.
I don't have time to run around every distribution and check what they
have changed.
We already review, and re-review translations (via a two tier
process). It's the distribution's problem if they change my (IMO)
correct strings.

In the end, I don't care if users don't use a distribution because of
its bad translations. The problem is that sometimes ubuntu doesn't get
the flak, it's the translators who do. I distribute tarballs of
translations for everyone who asks.
>
>
> > Sometimes, this mess makes ubuntu miss releasing translations. Glade-3
> > in ubuntu came without translations *at all* despite it being 100%
> > translated to over 20 languages.
>
> AFAIK, that is a packaging problem, where there isn't any pot file in
> the source.

The process did it. Had there been no middle management of
translations, they'd just be in the glade source tarball and they
get'd released fine. Checkout debian packages for example. FYI, a bug
has been fixed about this, but the translations are not released yet
after over 2 months. So much for "up to date translations".

>
> > This is getting political, but I just hate this situation and I shake
> > my head every time I see weird strings in ubuntu GNOME interfaces.
>
> We have very good relationship in French team between upstream and
> Ubuntu translators, and all is going pretty well now.
> Like in many other stuff, it's a more a matter of establishing
> relationship than technical or political problems.
> Peopleware! :-)

Good for you, you have the people.  it worked for you because you had
the people. And they were willing to coordinate.
It may work for large teams and language with lots of translators.

But it doesn't for those who don't have the manpower. For that,
centralisation of upstream is best.

Languages with small teams are stretched enough, offering redundancy
for them is dubious at best.

I did my homework, I tried to contact the launchpad language
coordinator, I got no reply. The launchpad coordinator appears to be
inactive and I don't feel like challenging the leadership in the
mailing lists. I don't even have the time for that. I tried to be
active with the launchpad contributors by emailing them. No one of
them is active for a long time, you talk to one person and some new
newbie comes in and wreaks havoc.  Now I don't want to do that
anymore. Launchpad lowered the bar too low for anyone to click
"help->translate" and wreak havoc on existing translations.

This is a real problem with languages that don't yet have an agreed
widely known standardised set of terms. Everyone thinks their term is
the correct one and they should change everyone else's.

The proper thing to do is to lock upstream translations. I'll give you
that they should probably offer untranslated stuff after the release.
But I don't want to run around this limitation and fix ubuntu's
problem.


>
> Claude


Cheers,

Djihed
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> gnome-i18n mailing list
> gnome-i18n gnome org
> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-i18n
>