Phone translations policy proposal

Fri Apr 24 08:41:18 UTC 2015

On Fri, Apr 24, 2015 at 3:41 AM, Ask Hjorth Larsen <asklarsen at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hello
>
> Although the release date is unknown, maybe a tentative deadline could
> nevertheless be provided, e.g., "translations committed before $DATE are
> guaranteed to be included".  Then the developers have a string freeze
> starting a few days before $DATE.  When the phone can be released at any
> date ("soon"), the developers should probably not be committing changes to
> the user interface (and thus strings) anyway.  Would this be feasible?
>

This is again a really good point, and I think we should be able to tie
that deadline to a particular milestone.

One point I've also been trying to make is the rolling release nature of
the phone, so while I think it will still be important to rally translators
around a concrete date, as translators we might need to change a bit of
mindset and not wait exclusively to the final deadline to start
translations –once we have a string freeze policy in place (which from the
conversations I anticipate to be of a rolling nature). This is how it's
worked for the Catalan team for the phone translations (we're a small team
too), and I believe the Spanish team tend to continuously translate so that
untranslated strings do not accumulate (granted, they're a much bigger
team).

>
> The reason is that a lot of us have the motivation to do a job before a
> fixed date, but not the time to keep it continuously at 100% with proper
> review procedures after that date.
>

Indeed, I can see that too.

>
> For the first release, many strings and perhaps even entire modules were
> added after our initial translation deadline.  I assume this was because it
> was the first release and things were not as well under control as they
> will be during subsequent ones.
>

Releasing the first ever phone was a huge effort from developers across
Canonical and the wider Ubuntu community, including designers, translators,
advocates and many more contributors. It was not only about writing code,
but about defining a product, creating new and essential infrastructure
(e.g. the system-image server to deliver OTAs), redefining the whole
platform (!) for secure app access, incremental updates and a whole set of
APIs and tools for app developers. It wasn't as much of not being under
control, but about juggling with priorities. But all that said, I agree
with the fact that a string freeze policy is necessary.

With this I mean it's been challenging to keep up for everyone: I myself
have limited time to work in translations (either in my time in Canonical
or as a volunteer contributor), the same as everyone, and I've spending
some if it to try to make it easier to have visibility on the translations
to focus on with the stats site [1] and generally sending calls for
translations and encouraging developers to do it themselves. What I'm
trying to say is that everyone can contribute beyond the realm of doing the
translations, but also with initiatives to make the work of translators
easier. This discussion is a good example, and I'd encourage anyone to
continue on this trend to start new discussions on the mailing list, or at
the upcoming Ubuntu Online Summit [2].

In summary, I think together we've managed to pull an amazing first release
with an impressive list of languages: 40 language packs are preinstalled on
the phone, which is no small feat! Ubuntu has a tradition of not staying
complacent and innovating, so while I think there's quite a lot of the
plumbing now done, the next release with the road to convergence will build
on these, but there is still a lot to do and everyone can help! :)

Cheers,
David.

[1] http://projects.davidplanella.org/stats/vivid
[2] http://summit.ubuntu.com/uos-1505/

>
> Best regards
> Ask
>
> 2015-04-24 2:39 GMT+02:00 Cheng-Chia Tseng <pswo10680 at gmail.com>:
>
>>
>>
>> Fòram na Gàidhlig <fios at foramnagaidhlig.net> 於 2015年4月24日 星期五寫道：
>>
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>>> Hash: SHA1
>>>
>>> > The benefit with opening translations in advance here would be that
>>> > they would be done by Ubuntu Translators and would be consistent
>>> > with each team's guidelines, which might not be the case for a
>>> > translations agency. However, in any case for the projects
>>> > eventually open-sourced, translators would be able to fix strings
>>> > after release if required, fixes which would be then probably be
>>> > shipped in an OTA update. My personal suggestion here would be to
>>> > enable Ubuntu Translators to modify or complete the translations
>>> > once the code is available. I know it's not a perfect solution, but
>>> > I think it's the easiest in term of managing the logistics and
>>> > working with manufacturers.
>>>
>>> How will selecting translation agencies work?
>>>
>>> I am doing commercial translation for a big software company and they
>>> ended up using 5-6 agencies, which was a logistical nightmare. Since
>>> we're a minority language and nobody else is qualified to do the job,
>>> we could put our foot down, go through 1 agency only and thus
>>> coordinate the work load.
>>>
>>> Of course, I don't know if Canonical has any power over which agencies
>>> are selected.
>>>
>>> It should also be possible for volunteers to give Canonical a shout so
>>> they can apply to register with the translation agency/agencies if
>>> they want to. Why should others earn the money rather than those
>>> people who have dedicated tons of their free time over the years. It
>>> would also serve translation consistency.
>>
>>
>> Totally agree with you. It would be better that Canonical could have
>> existing translators who need jobs hired first. They know the workflow well
>> and are familiar with the existing glossary translations.
>>
>>
>> The other question I am concerned with is the coordination between
>> translation agencies and volunteer contributors.
>>
>> Mailing list perhaps?
>>
>> For example, there are only 2 main translators for traditional Chinese.
>> It could be said that we don't have much chance to have the language 100%
>> translated. Translation agencies must be involved in this case.
>>
>> However, I have seen many translations of games available in Android or
>> iOS store are in poor quality that we are always laughing at the
>> translations. It is believed the work was done by some cheap translation
>> agencies.
>>
>> We, the translators, would like to ensure the quality of translations so
>> they should follow the guidelines we set and keep the translation in
>> consistency.
>>
>>
>> --
>> Cheers,
>> by Cheng-Chia Tseng
>>
>>
>> --
>> ubuntu-translators mailing list
>> ubuntu-translators at lists.ubuntu.com
>> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-translators
>>
>>
>
> --
> ubuntu-translators mailing list
> ubuntu-translators at lists.ubuntu.com
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-translators
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-translators/attachments/20150424/650d965d/attachment.html>