ubuntu specific patch translation

[Jonathan Michalon]

Le Thu, 17 Jun 2010 12:33:26 +0200,
David Planella <david.planella at ubuntu.com> a écrit :
> El dc 16 de 06 de 2010 a les 15:21 +0200, en/na Jonathan Michalon va
> escriure:
> > I'm trying to make an Ubuntu specific patch ready for uploading.
> > It's about indicator support within gajim
> > (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gajim/+bug/587272).
> > This adds a new option string which must be translated.
> 
> I've read the bug, but could you give us some more background? For
> example:
> 
>       * Are you the gajim upstream developer?

          Not at all. I'm just a gajim user who tries to make things go on as
          there are a lot of bugs reported and it used to be only an old
          version packaged in Ubuntu. I've started by preparing the merge from
          Debian testing and now I'm trying to reduce the number of bugs.
          Nobody seem to bother about this software so one had to stand up.
          It's me ;) (I hope I've not stolen someone else's baby)

>       * Are gajim translations coordinated in Launchpad or somewhere
>         else?

          Upstream had used Launchpad for the whole project until 2006, but now
          they have their own bug tracker etc. at www.gajim.org. They
          coordinate translations with transifex
          (http://www.transifex.net/projects/p/gajim/)
> 
> > The only string to be translated is:
> >   "Enable _indicator support"
> > The others aren't useful since gajim uses another translation system and
> > works only on the upcoming release.
> > 
> 
> From this comment, I assume that Gajim's translations are done
> externally. If that's the case:
> 
> If you want to get Gajim translated into many languages, I'd recommend
> you as an upstream to use only one way to expose translations, be it an
> existing system you might have or Launchpad. Of course, I'd recommend
> you Launchpad, but that's ultimately your call. But exposing all
> translatable messages in Launchpad for the purpose of having only one
> string translated, seems to me like an overkill: I'd recommend either
> using Launchpad as the only method of translating Gajim, or disabling
> the translations in Launchpad and continue with the existing system.

Absolutely: this IS overkill. But it came out that this is the only way of
getting things translated by the Ubuntu community concerning universe packages.
(Adi Roiban on #ubuntu-translators)
The whole problem is that Indicator support went upstream but they removed it
again arguing API changes too much. This is why the patch is Ubuntu specific
and as such cannot use upstream's mechanism.

> > Furthermore I've seen too much languages available. Gajim has only .po for:
> > be at latin be bg br cs da de el en_GB eo es eu fr gl hr it ja lt nb nl no pl
> > pt_BR pt ru sk sr at Latn sr sv uk zh_CN
> > 
> 
> By too many languages available, I assume you mean that there have been
> translations of Gajim done in Launchpad. Then I'd recommend to make good
> use of those translations, download them and committing them upstream.

Do you mean this comes from the older (2006) parameters? May one decide which
languages are set up? Or should the older code be removed so that it doesn't
disturb the new?

> That's absolutely fine! Feel free to ask us any questions, we don't
> bite :)

Okay, nice ;)
This is a low traffic ML so I'm always a little afraid making noise there...

BTW I'm just wondering whether such one-line-translation-patch are frequent and
if they merely don't get translated? Wouldn't be an easy way of having sentences
translated without the whole background of launchpad projet, bzr branches etc.?
One could just "drop" a sentence, link it to the bug report to which it belongs
and poke around some contributors...

--
Jonathan Michalon
Étudiant en informatique