Re: Translating Gnome with launchpad.net

[danilo gnome org (Danilo Šegan)]

Hi Christian, Mikel,

On December 23rd, Christian Rose wrote:

> On 12/23/08, Mikel <mikelisimu yahoo es> wrote:
>> I see that there is a team of Gnome in launchpad.net
>> https://launchpad.net/gnome
>>  Currently we (asturian team) works in launchpad translating Ubuntu and I
>> download the translations to submit to bugzilla.gnome.org.
>>  My question is if we can have an asturian translators team for Gnome in
>> launchpad and, in that case, we have to submit the translations to bugzilla
>> or launchpad it's synchronized with svn.gnome.org?
>
> Launchpad is for Ubuntu only.

That's completely false.  However, for all practical purposes, people
are _usually_ talking about translating Ubuntu in Launchpad.  Ubuntu
contains certain versions of GNOME software, and those might not be
exactly the same ones as those upstream.  So, if someone decides to
translate Ubuntu's GNOME components, they have to understand that
there might be slight deviations (they usually total to 20 messages
across all GNOME packages, and are usually just additions, so wouldn't
affect submitting to GNOME).

> If you translate in Launchpad, only Ubuntu will automatically benefit.

Depends on what one calls "automatically".  If you translate in
POEdit/Gtranslator/Kbabel nobody will automatically benefit (not even
your own computer where you did the translation).  Launchpad is a
better PO translation tool than those in that it allows better
collaboration, and at least something (Ubuntu) is going to use your
translation right away.

For upstream projects (like GNOME), translators have to understand
that they have to manually submit files upstream (i.e. to commit).
That's no different to the new Vertimus/Damned-Lies combination,
except that Launchpad is more powerful (unfortunately, also
proprietary, but not for long).

Launchpad has never let anyone translate GNOME projects in Launchpad
unless they understand these terms.  That's why there is a GNOME
Translators group where only upstream translation teams are allowed
when they confirm they understand these rules.

> There is *no* synchronization to the GNOME SVN repository.

That's true: one would have to do that manually (at least in one
direction: Launchpad can easily support a sync from GNOME SVN to
Launchpad).

> GNOME SVN is "upstream" and everything that is contributed to GNOME
> SVN will therefore automatically benefit all distributions, including
> Ubuntu and everything else. What you translate in GNOME SVN will soon
> arrive in Launchpad, and in the counterparts of other distributions.
> For this reason, translating directly to GNOME SVN instead of in
> Launchpad makes a lot of sense.

Actually, using Launchpad as a tool (even working on Ubuntu), and then
submitting upstream might give one the best of both worlds.  I.e. one
can think of Launchpad as a replacement for KBabel/Gtranslator/Emacs
po-mode, which means that you still have to commit to GNOME SVN once
you are done.  Launchpad is a great tool which allows much better
workflow than any other tool out there (that I know of).  And it's
soon going to become free software (July 2009).

Cheers,
Danilo