Re: Here we go again *SIGH*

[Anna Jonna Armannsdottir <annajonna gmail com>]

On þri, 2009-03-03 at 14:41 +0100, Vincent Untz wrote:
> I would also point out that having no freeze break (with requests from
> the developers, of course) would be bad: having some breaks is a good
> sign, showing that the development is active and not dead. Of course,
> we
> don't want tons of freeze breaks. And of course they should be
> approved
> first.
> 
> Vincent

The responses from the developers indicate quite clearly that they 
are not satisfied with the methods of string freeze. 
Presently a number of developers, are deliberately breaking the 
string freeze and thereby creating trouble for translators. 
The argument seems to be: "We break string freeze because we can". 
Both developers and translators are working on volunteer basis, 
doing their best. 

To stop this from developing into a conflict, I suggest the 
following changes in the development process: 

* The development in trunk branches very early into releases, 
giving developers more time to fix bugs in a release. 
During this time, the developers focus on the branch. 

* After an early branch, a string freeze is imposed on the 
trunk, giving translators time to translate the trunk. 

* We introduce release po files that are essentially 
the strings in a release but not in the trunk it 
branched from. This would make the work of the translator 
much easier. 

* When string freeze is released off the trunk, new strings 
and translations can be merged back from the release(es)
to the trunk. 

So essentially this describes two ideas: release-po files, and 
separating the work area of developers and translators. 

It goes without saying that the string freeze would have to 
be 100% effective, with no possibility to break it. 

What do you think? 
-- 
Anna Jonna Ármannsdóttir coordinator 
The Icelandic GNOME Localisation team 
http://l10n.gnome.org/teams/is was 11% translated