Ubuntu 11.04 Translations Plans

[Milo Casagrande]

Hi David,

On Thu, Sep 16, 2010 at 19:17, David Planella <david.planella at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> In the Community team at Canonical we are now starting to lay out the
> plans for the 11.04 roadmap for translations.
>
> For this, we really value your input and would very much like to take
> your ideas and feedback into account.
>
> One of the key areas I'd like to work on in this cycle, for instance, is
> outreach: we want to bang the drum and get people excited and involved
> in translations.
>
> What are your thoughts and ideas? What do you think we should focus on?

Maybe, as a short-term goal, I was thinking about reaching out
translator teams, and ask them if they have story to share about how,
a translated version of Ubuntu, has helped people/companies/schools in
a particular way, something that a non-translated version couldn't
have achieved, and share their story on the Fridge, pointing out how
important is the translators work. We should probably try to have more
translators on the hall-of-fame, and start publishing more translators
interview.

What follows is probably a very very long term thing, maybe not
implementable too... but anyway.

I would really like to see a community-driven web portal where
translator groups (but not only them) can get together, a sort-of
Language Portal like Microsoft has, but better and open-source:
http://www.microsoft.com/Language/en-US/Default.aspx

Maybe somebody will turn up their nose because it's Microsoft, but I
think that portal is very well done, and a precious resource for
translators. I've been using that portal for a while to look into how
certain words are translated into my language from a very big software
company like Microsoft. I've done this also to try to keep some kind
of cross-operating-system coherence when translating technical terms
(so maybe users will not feel lost).

Think about this portal as a glossary on steroids, but not only a mere
glossary portal: a new professional look for Ubuntu and FLOSS
translators, and the work they do.

A "forum" where translators can share opinions, and talk about their
language, where developers can get information on how to i18n-ize
their application, what are the tools the FLOSS world has for i18n;
and where developers can find very good and motivated translators to
help their apps reach the most number of people.

What do you think?

Ciao.

-- 
Milo Casagrande <milo at casagrande.name>