What happens to translations through Launchpad? (Arabic Gnome related)

[Djihed Afifi]

Hi Matthew,

>To be fair, that's nothing to do with Rosetta. In any distribution, a
> person with access to the distribution has the rights to change an
> uptream string, whether it be a translation or not.
> 
> So an Ubuntu translator could change an upstream string, even if
Ubuntu
> didn't use Rosetta. And presumably, the same applies to Mandrake
> translators, Fedora translators, OpenSUSE translators, and so forth.
> 
> Again, the same applies to those translators giving back to GNOME or
> other upstreams - they need to be proactive to do so, just as Ubuntu
> translators need to be.
> 
> 

I think the two cases are different: Rosetta allows for more
accessibility to change strings of non-ubuntu applications, which is not
necessarily a good thing.

I believe other distributions selectively change some strings, and then
again it's done by an admin/maintainer, but they don't offer the whole
thing up for change to the public at large.

As a side effect, Rosetta makes redundancy and time wasting very easy.
Just look at this example: Arabic Gnome mainstream translation updated
(probably more than a month ago), ubuntu didn't get the new strings, and
translators could potentially work on already translated files, I
believe some already are.

On coordinating work with the ubuntu team: that's more overhead for
already stretched out translators for little benefit. IMO, coordination
can be summed up as "just don't touch our Gnome files, unless absolutely
necessary". I have yet to see where this is necessary (I'm an ubuntu
user myself).

A solution might be to *only* offer strings which need to be changed for
ubuntu, and direct the translator to the upstream translation team if
needed. ATM, "translate this application..." as it is serves only to
benefit ubuntu, and not upstream.

Djihed

-- 
Work on Arabic Gnome Translation
http://wiki.arabeyes.org/Gnome

Blog: http://djihed.com