Summary of the the discussions on documentation translation at UDS

[Adi Roiban]

În data de Ma, 01-12-2009 la 08:24 +0000, Matthew East a scris:
> Hi,
> 
> 2009/11/30 David Planella <david.planella at ubuntu.com>:
> > We talked to Jim Campbell and decided to move the xubuntu-docs
> > translations out of the Ubuntu distro series and to a separate project
> > in Launchpad.
> >
> > This is due to the fact that the xubuntu-docs package is no longer in
> > main, which is a requirement for translations to be there (and for
> > templates to be updated upon package upload).
> 
> Is there any possibility of an exception to this requirement in
> Launchpad? Obviously the translations are still there, they are just
> not being updated, which seems a bit silly.

If xubuntu-docs package is well maintained, there is no reason not to
have xubuntu-docs in main.

> > The advantages in having translations in a separate branch will be
> > mainly for maintainers: they will no longer have to worry about updating
> > templates (they'll be updated in Launchpad upon commit) or exporting
> > translations (they will be automatically commited to a branch daily) -
> > this functionality is not yet available in source packages.
> >
> > The only disadvantage will be that the translations will not have as
> > much visibility as they had inside the Ubuntu distro series in Launchpad
> > before.
> 
> This seems to me to be quite a prominent disadvantage. Equally, from
> translators' point of view, I think that it's very confusing to have
> translations in different places and to have to look outside the
> Ubuntu distribution in order to translate Ubuntu native source
> packages. It's the same with other native Ubuntu projects - there
> doesn't seem to be any consistent rule about whether such projects
> should be translated as upstream projects or source packages.
> 
> Having said that, it's the translators who should take a decision
> about this. The only thing that concerns me from a documentation team
> point of view is consistency: I'm not very happy about a different
> approach being taken to xubuntu-docs as to ubuntu-docs, kubuntu-docs
> and edubuntu-docs. I think that we should standardise on a particular
> approach, and adopt it. When I last asked about whether it would be
> appropriate to move ubuntu-docs translation to a Launchpad project to
> take advantage of the automatic import/export features, from memory I
> recall that the answer was "no" because of the confusion caused by
> having translations in different places in Launchpad.

>From my point of view, in an ideal word, xubuntu-docs should be
translated alongside the other docs.

At least in the last year the xubuntu-docs were not updated and there
were no translated html files was shipped with xubuntu-docs.
This can be very disappointing for translators as their work is not
used.

I have talked with Jim Campbell and told me he will rework the current
xubuntu-docs and that the new version of xubuntu-docs will be based on
the latest ubuntu-docs.

I think that we can start building the translations infrastructure in
xubuntu-docs project and if everthing is ok we can move them to Ubuntu.

For Lucid, Ubuntu translations will only be opened at the end of
February. Having xubuntu-docs translations in a separate project will
alow us to see and test the translation prior to that date.

Also in Ubuntu, you need special permission to download all translations
from xubuntu-docs in a single click.

Since there are no plans to use the current xubuntu-docs translations
templates from Jaunty, Karmic and Lucid, I think hiding them is a
reasonable action. 

> (Incidentally, it seems to me that if translation moves to the project
> space rather than the package space, renaming the templates is no
> longer necessary.)
No need to rename xubuntu-docs if they are hosted in a different
project.

Since we are going to see a new beginning for xubuntu-doc, having
translations in a dedicated project will give us greater flexibility in
handling them, as we will not be stuck with the Ubuntu process.

As soon as xubuntu-docs translations are well maintained, there is no
reason no to have them alongside ubuntu-docs translations.

Cheers

PS: Maybe we can have a quick chat tomorrow, during the Ubuntu
Translations monthly meeting.

-- 
Adi Roiban