sync with upstream in Launchpad

David Planella david.planella at ubuntu.com
Wed Nov 3 13:26:03 UTC 2010


(Answering Oier's direct e-mail some days ago to the list as well, as I
think this can be usefult to everyone else here)

El dl 01 de 11 de 2010 a les 11:34 +0100, en/na Oier Mees va escriure:
> Hello,
> I have a question regarding translation syncronization in Launchpad.
> In our translation team (basque) a translator translated simplescan in
> its main Launchpad page [0] as it uses launchpad for development and
> translations. Besides, there were already some strings translated in
> the Maverick specific package [1] of simplescan. 
> Now the question, how does the sync with upstream work? Because it
> doesn't look like there is a sync between them.  Moreover, It is
> possible to change the translations for each version of ubuntu and I
> think that that is a mess. Isn't it better to allow only the
> translation of strings which have not been translated upstream?(in the
> version specific package)

Before going into the sinchronization details, let me explain a couple
of concepts. If you are already familiar with them, you can skip the
explanation.

You can translate 2 types of products in Launchpad:

      * Projects - e.g. https://translations.launchpad.net/simple-scan
      * Distributions - e.g. https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu

Regarding distributions: right now there is only one - Ubuntu, although
theoretically there could be more. Distros in Launchpad are subdivided
in source packages, and every source package can contain one (the most
common case) or more translation templates.

In the particular case of Simple Scan, the _upstream_ project is
translated in Launchpad. Additionally, there is a Simple Scan source
package in the Ubuntu _distro_, which can also be translated.

There are thus 2 different places where you can translate Simple Scan:
in the upstream project and in the distro's source package:

      * https://translations.launchpad.net/simple-scan
      * https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/maverick/+source/simple-scan

This particular situation currently applies only to upstream projects
where translation is hosted in Launchpad.

Right now there is no sinchronization between translations in the
project and in the distro's source package. This sinchronization needs
to be done manually. It is a relatively easy task, since once you've
translated the application in one of the two places translations will
appear as suggestions in the other. You'll then only have to point and
click to accept translations.

However easy it is, I admit that the situation is still not optimal.
Here are the good news though: synchronizing upstream projects in
Launchpad and Ubuntu source packages is something the Launchpad
Translations developers are actively working on as part of their
upstream integration focus.

The idea is to share translations across projects and distro source
packages through the message sharing mechanism we already have for
distro and project series. If you remember, that is the "translate in
Maverick and translations are done for you in all other series" feature.
In the future, if permissions are set right, it will be "translate
Simple Scan in Ubuntu, and the Launchpad upstream project will be
translated".

In summary, message sharing works nowadays within all series of a
project and within all series of a distro, but not across projects and
distros. In the near future sharing across projects and distros will
work, making life of translators and developers much easier.

> So for Natty, will the upstream translation (which is completed) be
> imported overriding the ones that have been done in Maverick? or what
> will happen?

Generally upstream translations are imported into Ubuntu through the
source package. That means that the upstream developer fetches
translations from the Launchpad upstream project, a package is created
and uploaded and translations are imported into Launchpad, combining
upstream and downstream translations (but giving priority to upstream on
a per-message basis).

Regards,
David.

-- 
David Planella
Ubuntu Translations Coordinator
www.ubuntu.com / www.davidplanella.wordpress.com
www.identi.ca/dplanella / www.twitter.com/dplanella
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