Restricted access to .po files annoys developers

[Tim Müller]

Hi,

> > "It appears Rosetta does not allow direct and unrestricted download
> > of .po translation files any longer. I now have to be logged in and
> > request for a file to be exported and then wait for a mail with a link
> > to the exported .po file. And that for each single language. (...)"

I'm the 'annoyed developer' referenced in the subject who wrote this :)


> If it has been possible in the past to fetch files without being logged
> in, I can't remember it, (...)

It was possible at some point. Not only do I remember it, I also wrote a
script to pull updates from Rosetta and put it into my application's CVS
repository and used it for a while. The po files were available at


https://launchpad.ubuntu.com/rosetta/products/$package/$template/$languagecode/po

back then. Not that it really matters, it's just not that I'm making
this up entirely ;)


>  (...) and I can't guess how that could work. As the
> procedure involves mailing the user who requests the file, it's
> necessary to be logged in so Rosetta can mail the user to a confirmed
> email address (to prevent abuse, etc.).

As far as I can see, any reasons not to provide direct non-authorised
download locations for .po files or tarballs thereof are purely of a
non-technical nature. Technically, it would surely be feasible to either
put regularly updated snapshot tarballs somewhere at a predefined
location or have the server generate tarballs or individual .po files on
the fly from the database. If it's worth the effort is another question
of course, but the fact remains that this was possible at some point in
the past and is not any longer. Seems just that either no one noticed or
no one bothered to complain about it :)


> The quote you refer to also mentions you need to download each po
> individually. This is not true. (snip instructions)
> To get here, of course, will need you logged into the system.

Indeed, you are quite right, and I apologise for spreading wrong
information.

It appears I was simply too dumb to find this. I was looking at an
individual translation and then picked the 'Download' option from the
menu in the left. When you do that, it only asks you whether you want
a .po or an .mo file and doesn't give you the option to download all
translations together. And I didn't notice that the menu changed to
'Download translations' when I went back to the package page (since it
always says 'Overview', I didn't realise it was contextual). Again,
apologies. Seems obvious in retrospect :)

Exports in form of single tarball with all .po files are quite
acceptable to me and I'm glad someone dug further and it turns out I was
wrong. Rosetta is an exciting platform for translations and I hope it
will stay open to outside developers like me who would like to make use
of it for their translation needs.

Having said that, it would be nice if you at some point added back
direct access to translation data again. IMHO translation data, esp.
data that has been created by a community of external translators,
should be available and accessible directly in the same way that patches
in bugzilla/launchpad, package source code and package diffs are
accessible. At least that's how I feel.

 Cheers (and sorry for the confusion)
  -Tim