Re: Georgian (ka) GNOME Localisation Project - Nothing done since 2004

[Christian Rose <menthos gnome org>]

I'll try to sum up some points.


On 2/7/06, Aiet Kolkhi <aietkolkhi gmail com> wrote:
[...]
> As I have informed you on this list earlier, we have succesfully
> finished the first stage of localization, which consisted of glossary
> creation. As we have had very few products localized in Georgian
> language yet, working up a suitable Georgian glossary was not an easy
> step to undetake. I had to create an online tool and invite all the IT
> experts, linguists and GNOME users to participate in the creation and
> discussion of Georgian terms. The tool offered all the registered
> memebrs to offer their translations as well as discuss existing ones.

That is hopefully good news.


> We have also had some collaboration problems, as my team has been
> using offline l10n tools and glossary while Vladimer and his friends
> have been active on Rosetta online translation tool, which was
> introduced by Ubuntu folks to aide l10n. As the tool has been quite
> buggy at the first stage, we had to ask Rosetta coordinators to remove
> several dublicate gnome modules so that we could avoid dublicate
> translations.

I see this "collaboration problem" more as a symptom of a coordination
problem. I'm not saying Rosetta is better or worse than offline tools,
but if the team was properly organized, you would probably not have
these "collaboration problems"...
Anyway, please read on below.


> I would kindly ask Vladimer and his friends, in case they prefer to
> use online Rosetta tool and not the offline l10n tools, to use the
> official GNOME Localization Project registered at Rosetta tool
>
> https://launchpad.net/rosetta/groups/gnome-translation-project/

That's perhaps a solution, if they are allowed to join that team in
Rosetta (I see that you are controlling it). Vladimer, what's your
opinion?


> rather than several GNOME modules which are unfortunately also
> available in all the l10n projects of various Ubuntu distributions.
>
> This would ease the integration of the translated modules into the
> GNOME CVS, as well as avoid dublicate, mutiple translations and a
> waste of valuable time and efforts.
[...]
> Christian,
> Vladimer has also expressed his desire to support the Georgian l10n
> team with coordination efforts as well. Of course, he will be welcome
> to do so should he, after a few months, have significant contribution
> to the project, as well as have been active in supporting and
> attracting other members.
>
> As Christian will agree, it is only fair that the l10n teams are
> coordinated by people who have been actively supporting the projects
> by aiding the members, handling PR, doing QA, as well and having
> significant controbutions to the l10n.

Please do not put words in my mouth.

I agree that aiding (and encouraging!) volunteers is a very important
aspect of being a team coordinator.
However, at the end of the day, so is also producing visible results.

Often, a partial and non-finished translation in CVS can be better
than no translation at all, since the partial translation can serve as
a reminder to people that the software they use actually can be
localized into their language, that there is room for improvement, and
that they can be of help. Furthermore, partial translations in CVS
will help volunteers and users see that there is some actual progress
going on, and that everything is not just pretty words and no action.

I cannot judge whether you have been aiding and encouraging new
volunteers. Perhaps you have, perhaps you have not. I wouldn't know.
However, what I do know is that:

1) The new Georgian GNOME effort was announced a long time ago (June
2004, when you took over after Alexander Gavtadze).
2) To this day, there has been almost no progress at all in GNOME CVS
wrt Georgian translations. And it's what's in GNOME CVS that counts.
3) At the same time, there have been some progress with Georgian KDE
translations and some other projects (like Mozilla). Clearly, the lack
of a glossary cannot be the explanation for everything.
4) There have been numerous complaints about the lack of progress, and
new contributors are reporting that they are not feeling welcome.

So what do you propose to fix these issues?


Christian