Rosetta/bzr (was: What is an Upstream?)

[Dominik Zablotny]

Dnia 07-11-2006, wto o godzinie 17:39 -0600, kiko at async.com.br
napisał(a):
> Not to say I don't agree that history is a required feature for good
> QA

Since discussion concentrates on history availability, so I'd like to
point out other aspects. They may be irrelevant for making any
translations, but important for making quality ones:

1) Most of external data is stored in version control systems. It is
easy to move data between them, but not between VCS and Rosetta - here
we have one-way, central-navigated traffic. Extracting single files from
Rosetta is *unnecessary* manual work.

2) To correct single string noticed in application or reported by
someone, you need in fact export and import template. Doing that in
local .po files is many times faster and you can grep all of them at
once.

3) You sometimes need to do a bulk replace, with or without per-string
review. Imagine how fast it is with Rosetta ;)

4) Translation teams often have their own dictionaries and string
translation databases compatible with KBabel. There's no way to
synchronize them with Rosetta, in any direction, or for example to use
specific suggestions only for GNOME or KDE

5) Offline work - translators from developing countries could save on
connection.

6) To do correct translation, it is often needed to run application with
new file, which can be somewhat automated. Would new translators bother
to import .po files, if they are not used to them?

7) Spell/grammar checking - in Rosetta, you need to stick with solution
available for your browser, if any.

Speaking less serious, my proposal to lower entry barier even more is to
print templates on a dead tree, spread them through ShipIt together with
Ubuntu CDs and collect translated sheets :-P

-- 
Dominik Zablotny
xmpp:doza at sztorm.net