Release of translations

[Michael Bauer]

Hi everyone,

14/05/2013 14:19, sgrìobh David Planella:
>
> As in any project, there are areas in which there is room for
> improvement, but the fact that Ubuntu is translated every single release
> in more than 40 languages by volunteers, with contributions ranging from
> upstream projects and Ubuntu itself, I wouldn't make me call it an
> unholy mess by any stretch.
Of course you are right, there are always things which are not working 
quite as they should, I think everyone who's done any localization 
accepts that. But there are certain aspects of Launchpad/Ubuntu which 
are troubling. Please consider the following constructive criticism:

For translators (i.e. people who only do translation and otherwise have 
no deep insight or interest into the Launchpad/Ubuntu/Canonical setup, 
the situation is very confusing. In only understood today what this 
"Canonical" thing is that people keep mentioning. As a localizer I'm a 
bit like Sid the Sloth, I see software, I translate it. I saw Ubuntu, I 
translate it. And since all the arrows for Ubuntu point to Launchpad, 
one ends up equating the two. And without researching the background of 
Ubuntu (you could argue that's my fault), the translator is in the dark 
as to who Canonical is.

Again from the same angle, you're then working on Ubuntu - or at least 
you think you are - and then discover eventually that not everything on 
Launchpad is Ubuntu or rather, that Launchpad pulls together a whole lot 
of po files from all sorts of projects which may or may not be "core" 
Ubuntu and which may or may not be set up to link with the 
out-of-Launchpad-projects. Like the ancient Firefox project that's on 
Launchpad, or the Chromium project (that I ended up working on for a 
while till I learned that it's not maintained). That's *really* not good 
and way beyond the normal lumps and bumps in a localization project. 
You're right, 40 locales is quite an achievement but on the other hand, 
it probably also entails a huge amount of wasted effort that people have 
put into translating things that will never see the light of day. If 
that was clearer or more streamlined, then my guess is there would 
probably be more than 40 locales.

I have looked at the documentation - in terms of the questions of "just 
a translator", there are many things it doesn't answer.

So here are my suggestions:
1) make it real clear which modules on LP are Ubuntu specific and which 
are other projects
2) kill/retire/archive the dead projects (like Firefox 3.6, Chromium 
...) or at least slap a big "RETIRED" sign on them.
3) make it real clear which modules are on LP will result in a 
translation for Ubuntu but not necessarily upstream. If I understood 
this right, it might theoretically happen that GIMP will get translated 
twice, once on LP and once on/at GIMP. Or link up with these external 
projects to share the translations.

> As you all know, in recent cycles my focus has not been on translations,
> and others who helped coordinating translations have also got busy with
> life.
Of course that happens, 2012 was a bad year in terms of OS l10n for me 
too. But I think these issues must have started appearing a long time ago.
> However, quite recently, the unstoppable Pierre Slamich and a group of
> other intrepid translators have taken the reigns on an initiative to
> improve the current situation.
That sounds good :)
> much welcome, but so far any recent reply you've sent has been very
> negative. You are free to express your opinion by all means, but being
> negative without being constructive and not getting involved does not
> help the effort others are putting into this, let alone new contributors
> like Michael.
Well, it's frustrating if there's a long term problem and you feel like 
nothing much is happening and eventually you get a bit cranky. I'm 
currently in cranky mode with Mozilla because their l10n is seriously 
getting messed up and they're ignoring it, passing the buck or whatever. 
Perhaps it's just a communication issue and it would help to say "We 
know it's not great, it's on the to-do list but right now we don't have 
the resources/time".

> I would encourage everyone to participate in the translations UDS
> sessions, get involved and move forward, as we've always done in the past.
I'll have a shufty but I'm not a developer I'm afraid.
> - For stable releases, the plan is to release updates of language packs
>    regularly. As stated, this has not been working well indeed, and
>    it'd be good to discuss the way forward at UDS.
>
> I hope this provides an overview and answers your questions.
It does - many thanks for taking the time to explain!

Michael