Is Aptitude upstream?

[Khaled Hosny]

On Sun, Aug 01, 2010 at 11:38:01PM +0800, Arne Goetje wrote:
> 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.

I think this is a very bad advice actually, we are not helping better
localisation by wasting time doing downstream translations that are very
unlikely to be used upstream. We should instead encourage Ubuntu
translators to communicate with upstream projects to reach a common
background. For example, though packages in Ubuntu might be slightly
older than current upstream releases, usually the differences are
minimal that it is very easy to translate the latest version upstream
then "backport" it to the version in Ubuntu and then fix any
differences. This means with next upstream sync, the difference will be
zero to very minimal. Most translation teams are underpowered unpaid
volunteers, we need to manage those limited resources for the greater
benefit, not wasting time redoing translations and re-reviewing
translations.

Regards,
 Khaled

-- 
 Khaled Hosny
 Arabic localiser and member of Arabeyes.org team
 Free font developer