Is Aptitude upstream?
Arne Goetje
arne.goetje at canonical.com
Sun Aug 1 15:38:01 UTC 2010
On 08/01/2010 10:41 PM, Hannie wrote:
> On https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/maverick/+lang/nl/ I find
> many templates that should not be translated by us, Ubuntu Dutch
> Translation Team. With Gnome and KDE it is not so difficult, because it
> is usually in the name. But with others I am not sure if we should
> translate them or not. One of them is Aptitude. Is this upstream
> (Debian), or not?
> https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/maverick/+source/aptitude/+pots/aptitude/nl/+translate?field.alternative_language-empty-marker=1
> In fact, only few of the 1340 templates are NOT upstream (e.g.
> (K)Ubuntu-docs, software-center, app-install-data).
> Would it not be a good idea to mention in the list of templates whether
> it is upstream or Ubuntu?
> Hannie Dumoleyn
In general, you should translate any template where translations are
still missing, no matter if they come from upstream or they are native
to Ubuntu.
The reasons for that are:
* usually we package _stable_ releases of upstream software. For
those, upstream usually won't update translations any more. There may be
exceptions to this rule, but for most software we can assume this to be
true. If the strings you translate and submit back to upstream for
inclusion into the current development release get accepted, they will
be marked as coming from upstream with the next package update where
they are included. If upstream rejects them or translates them on their
own in the meantime, the translations in Launchpad will get marked as
'Changed'. Those should be reviewed and switched back to 'Packaged' (=
coming with the source package) where appropriate.
* sometimes, we have patches in Ubuntu, which add or modify some
msgids in the code. Those modifications won't be translatable upstream
and therefore will show up as untranslated, even if the rest of the
template has been fully translated upstream and we have the same version
in Launchpad.
* if the upstream is Debian (like for aptitude), of course it would be
nice if the translations made in Launchpad could be sent back to
upstream (usually as a bug report to that package with the updated .po
file attached or by contacting the Debian translation teams directly).
However, it may take some time until the new translations make it into
the upstream package. In case we won't sync or merge that package from
upstream any more for the current release (Maverick for now), we still
have the translations in Launchpad. (The same is true for all other
software. Automatic syncs from Debian have been disabled already,
therefore even if upstream has newer translations, it's not sure they
will make it into Ubuntu for the upcoming release.You still can download
the updated .po files from upstream and upload them into Launchpad
manually, if you wish.)
The templates in Launchpad are sorted according to their importance in
Ubuntu. The more important ones are in the front and should be
translated first.
If you are both a member of the upstream translation team, as well as a
translator for Ubuntu, it does make sense to translate upstream and then
upload the same .po file into Launchpad. But if the versions between
upstream and Ubuntu differ, you still need to complete the missing
translations in Launchpad (they may have gone away in upstream already),
although I would do that closer to release time when it is sure that the
version in Ubuntu won't get updated any more (usually after UI string
freeze).
Cheers
Arne
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