Jono: Localization of Wiki Entries Discussion

[Jono Bacon]

On Sun, 2007-02-25 at 11:55 -0700, Joey Stanford wrote:
> There are several benefits but also several issues with this concept and
> I think more discussion is needed.
> 
> Jono: please provide your perspective to the list on this topic.

Sorry for being last to the party - been insane recently.

I think translated documentation would be a good thing, and I believe
that everything is always nicer in your own language, despite the
prevalance of the English language around the world. There of course a
few issues here:

 * Wiki's are always changing, and we don't want the different
translated versions of the documents to get out sync. We would need to
ensure that the documents are all well translated and are all reflective
of the same reference document (the English one).

 * Rosetta is a string translating tool and not suitable for documents
really.

So, if there is enough interest to make some documentation available, it
would really need to be made in releases. As in, there would need to be
a freeze date for the English docs, and then some time to ensure all
translated versions are translated to the same standard before a final
release. This would achieve the goal, but also add much more complexity
to the documentation and restrict documentation when the docs were
frozen.

There is no clear solution to this problem, but I am open to comments,
and I think having some releasable translated documents would be great.
This is also something that could happen at a LoCo level.

	Jono

-- 
Jono Bacon
Ubuntu Community Manager
jono(at)ubuntu(dot)com
www.ubuntu.com / www.jonobacon.org