Afrikaans translators story

Hi Jonathan,

> 1. One of the questions is "What's the purpose of having an
> ubuntu-specific translation project?"
>
> A: Ubuntu contributions are fed back upstream, this means that, when you
> translate a piece of software (such as OpenOffice.org or GNOME) into
> your language, that it will be contributed into the upstream
> OpenOffice.org and GNOME projects, which means that the translations
> will be available for any system that uses this software, including
> other Linux distributions such as Red Hat and SUSE, and even other
> operating systems such as MacOS, Windows, Solaris and FreeBSD.
> 
> (if anyone can expand on this, that would be great too, I also want to
> do a bit of exlaining on what Rosetta is)

There are a number of projects that have chosen to use Rosetta as the
main way of doing translations for their upstream releases.

Here's one example; the Silva content management system.

  http://www.infrae.com/newsitems/silva_translations



> 2. A tougher question is, "Is there an overlap with existing translation
> projects such as translate.org, or are they complementary? Will you be
> feeding back to or working with other projects?"

I looked at translate.org, and it was a "redirect you to various
click-through advertising" site.  Later, I looked at translate.org.za.


> I must admit, it's something I've wondered about too. Not sure if
> translate.org submits upstream as well though... I think I'll contact
> them and ask.

The translate.org.za project started in 2001, three years before
Launchpad.  I expect they would submit translations upstream.  It makes
a lot of sense to do that as it gets more people looking at and using
your translations, and keeps the upstream projects aware that there is
translation going on.

-- 
Steve Alexander