Re: open translations database

["Kenneth Christiansen" <kenneth gnu org>]

Hi Aoife,

Thanks for your reply!

>I would like Sun's efforts to be directed toward helping 
>the open source community with tools and processes working 
>towards improving the overall quality of Gnome and similar 
>open source localised products. I do not see Sun actively 
>involved in the translations of the applications, unless 
>explicitly requested by the country teams.
This sound really good!

>For our perspective the translators are the experts and no 
>term is wrong.  Our QA team would be concerned with 
>inconsistency, where one translator has a preference for 
>one term and another translator has a preference for 
>another term.  This causes confusion to the user.
I understand you completely. Especially because of this, we 
[the Danish team] has a working group who make an official
list of good and bad translations. In the future we will 
also have examples, comments, etc in this list.

>We feel that these are process related solutions and I 
>would like to join your purposed team of translators, i18n 
>developers, etc. to start discussion how we can best move 
>forward.

>Do you want to create an alias, then people can add 
>themselves if they are interested?.

I will ask Martin (of Gnome fame) to create a 
gnome-i18n-tools@gnome.org list. If anyone has a better idea
for a name tell now ;)

Also, I will suggest an irc meeting on irc.gnome.org sometime 
after the weekend. 

People who would like to join this discussion, please give 
dates and Greenwitch times for when you are available next week.

The headline for the meeting will be "How to handle the i18n 
process". Please send me idea for items to discuss. Here are 
some of mine

- What apart from Gnome is of our responsobility
  (GNU, Mozilla, other Gnome friendly dists?) 
- Can we readapt the gettext developement
- XML translation, bonobo-ui
- Sawfish, lisp translation
- The Gnome translation scripts
- Documentation on how to make a program support
  i18n, and how to translate
- How to handle other things than po files
- Consistency
- Wordlists
- Mozilla, AbiWord XP-translations
- Problems with the current tools
- Making sure that all files get translated
- Making package maintainers aware of the importaince
  of well translated products
- Status of translations
- How to handle size depending translations
- Keybindings, accelerators
- etc etc

Please 

Cheers, Kenneth

-------------------
My available times:
-------------------
Monday:    18:00->
Tuesday:   19:00->
Wednesday: busy
Thursday:  19:00->
Friday:    busy
-------------------

Aoife



> Delivered-To: gnome-i18n@gnome.org
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> Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2000 18:36:04 +0100 (CET)
> From: Kenneth Christiansen <kenneth@gnu.org>
> X-Sender: kanikus@llephaane.bergsoe.dtu.dk
> To: Christian Rose <menthos@menthos.com>
> Cc: GNOME i18n list <gnome-i18n@gnome.org>
> Subject: Re: open translations database
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> 
> 
> I am looking very much forward to this aswell ;) The 
more we can do to
> ease the translations with tools (I am activily 
developing these myself), 
> QA-testing, etc. the better for the whole open source 
community.
> 
> One of the things that this community really need is an 
better translation
> process. The problem is often not the quality with the 
translations, but
> that the translator cannot keep up with all the new 
strings, cannot figure
> out the meaning, cannot figure out weather to change a 
keybinding or not 
> (which ones are already used?). Also, the Gnome apps are 
often not tested
> carefully if they are totally translatable, comments are 
missing in the 
> pot files, applications are being released without the 
translators ever
> knew that a release was pending.
> 
> I am sure that Sun can be a great help in this 
respect...maybe we cannot
> solve all, but we can atleast do a try. I recomment that 
we gather some of
> the most active translators, i18n developers, etc. and 
then in a small
> group discuss how to do all this together with the new 
Sun people. Also
> this way we can define the way to do this, so people do 
not feel that Sun
> is going to take over their domain (I know Sun will not 
do this, but you
> can easily misinteprediate it, if someone QA-person at 
Sun suddently
> starts to say that it's called "laptop" and not "bærbar" 
in Danish.)
> 
> I say this, since I know that a lot of the people who 
are translating are
> doing it also for their own language. This is a good 
thing I think! We do
> not want to scare these people away, just because of 
small things like
> this. These people (myself included) believe that it's 
still possible to
> learn people new words...so for instance if most 
computer nerds in Denmark
> are saying "Device", this does not mean that it is the 
word we will settle
> on. If the original translation team decide that "Enhed" 
is better, then
> "Enhed" it is. - This is very importain if Sun is 
offering QA-help, that
> we get a good descussion started first (in the language 
team, with the sun
> person for that language), and that the QA-person will 
look at the
> translators as equal people.
> 
> Well I am not trying to say that this would ever happen 
;) I just want to
> point out, that we need to make sure that is does not, 
orelse the free
> software translation project has failed.
> 
> Cheers, and hopes for a good cooperation,
> 
> Kenneth Christiansen,
> 
> GNOME, GNU, Red Hat translator
> and i18n tool developer
>  
> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, 2 Nov 2000, Christian Rose wrote:
> 
> > Hello Aoife,
> > 
> > I believe most teams are interested in working 
together with people from
> > Sun and it's contractors with improving the GNOME 
translations.
> > Of course, I can only speak for the Swedish team, but 
we look very much
> > forward to hear from Sun and the Swedish freelancer 
working for Sun (is
> > there one?), possibly with a QA on existing GNOME 
translations.
> > 
> > 
> > Christian
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > > Aoife Dunne - Sunsoft ELC wrote:
> > > Gustavo, I can have our Brazilian Portuguese 
freelancer
> > > perform a QA on GNOME translations and report 
his/her
> > > feedback to the Brazilian Translation Team.  Let me 
know if
> > > you are interested.
> > > 
> > > Bye for now
> > > Aoife
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
##########################################################
#############
> > Christian Rose
> > http://www.menthos.com                        
menthos@menthos.com
> > 
##########################################################
#############
> > 
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> > 
> 
> 
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Aoife Dunne
Program Manager
European Localisation Centre
Sun Microsystems Ireland Ltd
Hamilton House
East Point Business Park
Dublin 3
Ireland
Tel.:  +353-1-8199-266
Fax:. +353-1-8199-261
Email: aoife.dunne@Ireland.Sun.COM