My thoughts on bzr sub-teams

[Algis Kabaila]

On Thursday 26 November 2009 18:44:09 Martin Pool wrote:
> 2009/11/26 Ian Clatworthy <ian.clatworthy at canonical.com>:
> > Does this sound like a sound strategy? In particular, I'd like to know
> > if there are non-core people out there who would be interested in taking
> > on the leadership positions I described either in existing teams or
> > suggested teams, assuming we agreed to form them.
>
> It's been clear recently that subteams can be a really powerful tool
> to give people a easier way to do what they want to do.  (I was going
> to say "to contribute", but that's almost a selfish way to look at it
> - the point is that they already want to have things happen, but some
> things make it more welcoming than others.)
>
> In particular if someone wants to say improve the documentation or
> build packages or improve the help text there should be as few
> barriers as possible in the way to that, recognizing both technical
> and social things, and that a full-on developer mailing list may seem
> like a social barrier in itself.
>
> Launchpad Translations developers say their goal is: the only
> precondition to do translations is to know English and one other
> language.  It's a nice way to put it and we should aim for something
> similar.

I would like to voice one person's support for the views expressed by  Ian C 
in the email that started this thread and the supporting statements in Martin 
P email.

In an earlier thread Alexander has mentioned the problem of translation that 
he has experienced.  It impresses me as identifying a very serious difficulty in 
translation, difficultly which is common to translations to many different 
languages - lack of terminology and the incredible temptation to use English 
words for technological terms.  I am not a Russian speaker (or reader), but I 
know enough Russian to realise how easily one can end up using English words 
for technical terms. There is a crying need for various dictionaries, but the 
job can not be delegated to linguists - it need to be done by technical 
people. It is essential that the dictionary reflects well the technical meaning 
of words as they are used in applications. 

In case of Bazaar, there are some curious, accepted terms, viz. a branch may 
contain a tree and not other way round.  In nature it is the tree that has 
branches. That's fine, but when translating, perhaps there are better more 
intuitive words for the same action that would be better employed.  So one 
sometimes must be forgiving to translators if they struggle to find an 
appropriate term.  

There are some curiosities in Lithuanian and I could fill pages with it, but 
just to quote some examples:

file is often called in Lithuanian "failas" (pronounced "file'as" with last a as 
in *a*rm - Lithuania has a phonetic spelling).  But there is a word 
"aplankas", which is a nice sounding word and has been used to translate 
"file".  So,  "aplankas" may be used.  But if someone keeps saying "failas", so 
be it.

bit and byte are  "translated" as baitas and bitas. It's a terrible mutilation 
of a lovely old language, but it is the dominant use.  After all, the French 
have a "weekend", Germans talk about "jobs", which is often pronounced closer 
to "chops" than "jobs" and so on. So one simply can not make hard and fast 
rules and apply without exceptions, as the true linguists may want to do.

So I congratulate you all in making a policy decision to form a translators 
group.

I am very much encouraged by the formation of other groups and particularly 
separate mailing lists, even if the lists are not very busy. 

In a way, that already shows that they are achieving their purpose.  
Personally, I do admire the senior people, like the three persons that I have 
put as the recipients of this email, for their incredible capacity to read 
such volumes of email, to comprehend and to write their comments.  Your 
capacity is truly amazing!  Whilst I was writing one email, the bazaar main 
mailing list increased by some 40 new emails...

Heck, if I continued reading the bzr main list without selection, I for one, 
would not be able to do anything else at all.

So a specialised group mailing list is a life saver for me - thank you!

OldAl.