Open Week - Translating with Launchpad - Carlos Perello and Danilo Segan - Thu, Apr 26, 2007
TZ UTC-4
(02:01:38 PM) ***carlos introduces danilos, he will be driving the session
(02:01:45 PM) danilos: Welcome to "Translating with Launchpad" Session. Thanks for joining us.
(02:01:45 PM) danilos: I am Danilo Segan, and I will be your host together with Carlos Perello Marin ("carlos" on the channel).
(02:02:08 PM) danilos: I'd also like to announce that since recently, we've got a new member of the Launchpad Translations development team: Jeroen Vermeulen or jtv on IRC (when online), and you can catch all three of us regularly on #launchpad channel for any questions or issues.
(02:02:34 PM) danilos: Launchpad is a platform for collaborative development of free software, and a major component of free software development is doing translations.
(02:02:58 PM) danilos: Launchpad provides system for management of translation work, and system for doing translations over the web or offline.
(02:02:58 PM) danilos: To start doing translations, head over to http://translations.launchpad.net/
(02:03:18 PM) danilos: Launchpad can help translate distributions and projects, and help their maintainers organise entire translation effort.
(02:03:26 PM) danilos: Launchpad can help individual translators find software to translate, translation teams to join, and makes it easier for them to do translations.
(02:03:42 PM) danilos: Launchpad can help translation teams organise, share effort and standardize terminology to use.
(02:04:03 PM) danilos: = Distributions and Projects =
(02:04:03 PM) danilos: For distributions or projects, there are many benefits.
(02:04:11 PM) danilos: They can leave entire translation organisation on Launchpad, which provides privilege control, team management, PO uploads and downloads via tarballs, use of big existing pool of translators and translations.
(02:04:33 PM) danilos: For example of a distribution taking maximum advantage of Launchpad Translations system, check out https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/ (but you probably knew that already)
(02:04:45 PM) danilos: Maintainers/distributors can track their imports using translations import queue page at https://translations.launchpad.net/translations/imports
(02:04:58 PM) danilos: Since we love helping project maintainers use Launchpad as their translation service, you can send any questions in the Q&A part of the session (I am leaving a lot of time for questions).
(02:05:14 PM) danilos: So get your questions ready, there will be plenty of time to answer them :)
(02:05:25 PM) danilos: = Translators =
(02:05:25 PM) danilos: Last session showed that we get most interest from translators, so here's what it can do for them. I'll describe the basic usage and how you can make most of Launchpad.
(02:05:49 PM) danilos: As a translator, first thing you'd want to do is set your preferred languages (Launchpad can sometimes pick them up based on your IP address, but don't rely on that):
(02:05:49 PM) danilos: https://translations.launchpad.net/+editmylanguages
(02:06:20 PM) danilos: Then you can either join one of Ubuntu translation teams (https://translations.launchpad.net/translations/groups/ubuntu-translators) or start your own, or you can simply translate any of the projects which are using Launchpad for their translations: https://translations.launchpad.net/translations/+products-with-translations
(02:06:47 PM) danilos: When you go either to a translation overview page for a package (https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/feisty/+source/debian-installer/+translations) or a product (https://translations.launchpad.net/silva/), you'll see a list of templates which you can translate, and their translation status for your preferred languages (so you can see why was that important above).
(02:07:07 PM) danilos: Clicking on the language title will take you directly to the page where you can add your translation suggestions (or review other suggestions, depending on your privileges).
(02:07:33 PM) danilos: Alternative way to find what to translate is to head over to choose distribution release from the start page, such as Ubuntu Feisty, and then choose language you want to work on from that page: https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/feisty/+translations
(02:08:08 PM) danilos: When you click on a language, you'll get a list of all packages you can translate for Ubuntu Feisty, sorted by priority (as given by Ubuntu packagers and Launchpad Translations team).
(02:08:35 PM) danilos: When finally on the translation page, you see a list of translatable messages, ten per page, with their translations, suggestions and a field to enter new translation. Using that is, hopefully, clear, and if not, file a bug so we can make it clear. Some things are trickier (such as 'need review' marking), so feel free to drop by #launchpad and ask for explanation any time.
(02:09:16 PM) danilos: It's important to note that your privileges determine what you can do: eg. for Ubuntu, if you are a member of Spanish translation team, you can submit translations directly. If you are not, your submissions will only appear as suggestions in Spanish translation, and a member of Spanish team will have to approve it.
(02:09:57 PM) danilos: Translation page also allows filtering translated, untranslated and entries which need review. This can help you complete big translations which lack only a few translations to be complete again.
(02:10:21 PM) danilos: On that same translate page, you can download (look for 'Download' in the Actions menu) PO files to work offline using any of the PO editors (GTranslator, KBabel, POEdit, Emacs+po-mode, any text editor), and you can upload them back using 'Upload a file' in the Action menu on the left.
(02:10:55 PM) danilos: Now, lets get to organising translation teams.
(02:11:06 PM) danilos: = Translation teams =
(02:11:06 PM) danilos: Launchpad can help you organise your translation teams.
(02:11:15 PM) danilos: Translation teams are general Launchpad teams which can be assigned one of the translation duties (eg. https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-l10n-es is in charge of translating Ubuntu into Spanish)
(02:11:40 PM) danilos: This is controlled using something we call 'Translation Groups'--https://translations.launchpad.net/translations/groups/. This provides a mapping between languages and teams which translate for them.
(02:12:14 PM) danilos: Every distribution or project can select a translation group they want to use for their translations.
(02:12:37 PM) danilos: Members of translation teams should *only* be trusted translators: they will have full power over translations for that language, and you should NOT let anyone in.
(02:13:28 PM) danilos: We've had a lot of problems upstreams complaining about bad translations, and most of them were due to badly managed teams (i.e. teams allowing anyone in). So, don't do that, and be strict about who you let in :)
(02:13:49 PM) danilos: At the moment, to organise work you need to coordinate outside Launchpad: use mailing lists, IRC, Jabber or whatever. We will be solving this.
(02:14:30 PM) danilos: And I am done with my short overview of what can Launchpad do for translators. I *do* expect a lot of questions later on, but now I'm continuing with our plans for the future.
(02:14:58 PM) danilos: = Future =
(02:15:00 PM) danilos: We've got big plans for the future, and some of the priorities are the
(02:15:00 PM) danilos: following:
(02:15:11 PM) danilos: - Search for translations (yes, infamous bug 44 in LP)
(02:15:20 PM) danilos: (you all saw that coming, didn't you)
(02:15:26 PM) danilos: - Support for legacy KDE PO files (plural forms and context)
(02:15:42 PM) danilos: - Native support for other translation formats (Mozilla, OpenOffice.org...)
(02:15:59 PM) danilos: - Fixing import queue to give priority to human provided PO files and PO files for products over PO files for distribution (which there are usually too many of, so products and people wait because of them)
(02:16:23 PM) danilos: - Improve speed (we're taking concrete steps to make this happen :)
(02:16:48 PM) danilos: - Improve mechanisms for upstream cooperation (I expect some Qs in Q&A about this)
(02:16:57 PM) danilos: - Make team management more flexible and powerful
(02:17:12 PM) danilos: - 'Open' Gutsy translation by May 31st
(02:17:20 PM) danilos: We welcome suggestions on what should we focus on, even if we've got so much work to do already to make Launchpad rock.
(02:17:32 PM) danilos: So, now to some interesting bits.
(02:17:38 PM) danilos: = Tips, tricks and trivia =
(02:17:54 PM) danilos: There's got to be some stuff you didn't know. Or you did, but didn't share with others :)
(02:17:59 PM) danilos: When uploading, choose 'Published upload' if you don't want to override others' translations that have happened in the meantime.
(02:18:28 PM) danilos: You can download PO files to find a specific string in it (many have done this already)
(02:18:38 PM) danilos: For Ubuntu, start translating from the top of https://translations.beta.launchpad.net/ubuntu/feisty/+lang/sr (for Serbian): they are sorted by priority.
(02:18:55 PM) carlos: (remove beta from the given URL)
(02:19:06 PM) danilos: Don't forget to update Last-Translator field when translating via PO files, and also never remove or change X-Rosetta-Export-Date field from PO header (or you won't be able to re-import it).
(02:19:27 PM) danilos: carlos: thanks, that's right, the link should be https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/feisty/+lang/sr
(02:19:50 PM) danilos: Use Google with "site:translations.launchpad.net" to search for strings as a workaround. This will commonly give you pointer to someone's translations page, but you can pick a template name from there, visit it, and switch over to your own language.
(02:20:09 PM) danilos: For those of you familiar with 'Rosetta', you can notice that we rarely use it, and we are favouring just 'Launchpad' or 'Launchpad Translations' for the present and future :)
(02:20:18 PM) danilos: You can use [nbsp] to get non-breaking spaces if you've got problems inserting them directly (Firefox is known to be buggy with them).
(02:20:42 PM) danilos: Don't upload wrong PO files (eg. wrong language): this will mess up suggestions for entire PO file.
(02:20:52 PM) danilos: No need to email us back with 'thank you' for automatic exports (though, we indeed appreciate those :).
(02:21:09 PM) danilos: When you get message that your language is missing plural forms, either email us at rosetta@launchpad.net, or file a ticket using https://answers.launchpad.net/rosetta/
(02:21:41 PM) danilos: And that's it: I'd welcome you to #launchpad on FreeNode and rosetta-users and ubuntu-translators lists
(02:21:49 PM) danilos: = Questions and Answers =
(02:21:50 PM) danilos: This is where I expect Carlos to be a big help. Guys, shoot.<bullgard4> QUESTION: Does Ubuntu prefer American English or British English?
- I've seen this one already answered on chat channel, but lets repeat: it's supposed to be American English, and British English provides a translation. however, it's still very much dependent on the project what base language they use. for example, GNOME does use American English, but some other projects might not (I don't know them off the top of my head). hope this clears it up about the language in use
<bullgard4> QUESTION: How do you define a 'trusted translator'?
- ok, this one is tricky, and doesn't have much to do with Launchpad. I generally trust community processes to determine who is a 'trusted translator'. That means that, over time, people become generally satisfied or dissatisfied with someone. Launchpad helps there with Karma counts, but that's not enough for proper conclusion
<carlos> for instance in spanish team. we require two approved translators to validate the new member translations quality before we actually accept him
<bullgard4> QUESTION: Why are the Feisty translations of Gnome so patchy in German? Some parts are in English, others in German, and I cannot recognize any regular pattern in it.
- for this one, we'd need more details
<carlos> yeah, and a bug report so we can debug it there are several possible reasons: bad translation from package, bad translation using Launchpad, or a bug
<bullgard4> QUESTION: How do you secure that a translation is objectively of high standard and not prone to subjective preferences of one ore two translators in power?
- but it's a problem, and if you've run into case like that, please report it either using answer tracker, or file a bug again a hard one, and not really tied to Launchpad. we simply don't secure that, but again trust community processes which have given us the most of free software and their translations so far
<bullgard4> if you think there is any abuse on people approving translators, you can always use Ubuntu mechanisms to resolve conflicts
<carlos> abuse of having extra rights or permissions is against Ubuntu CoC since we don't have native speakers for all of Worlds languages, we simply cannot ensure quality of translations ourselves, but if enough people complain about people in power, that should be a good indicator that they are doing a bad job, and we can fix that
<bullgard4> QUESTION: How can a rank-and-file Ubuntu user contribute to an improved translation without being admitted to the elusive circle of admitted Ubuntu tranlators?
- like some other free software projects, Ubuntu seems to be meritocracy: you are valued as much as you contribute. when you start, you start by giving out suggestions. then you ask already 'trusted translators' to review your translations. and they'll have a few suggestions to comply with glossary, terminology, etc or they'll be extremely satisfied and once you contributed enough, they'd probably welcome you to the team, having gotten trust in you
<kalila> QUESTION: ok, let me get this out of the way 
are there any plans for "locking" translations? especially ones that are coming from upstream, and only allowing the ones that need to be customised?
We have not planned locking translations yet, but we have planned making it easier to roll back to translations coming from packages (which are usually almost exactly like upstream
There are several things we plan to do to make this happen. First thing we'll do is provide filter on translation pages to look only at strings which are changed from upstream and another is to provide a PO file download which includes only such changed translations (so you can easily merge them with upstream PO files). We'll consider allowing locking translations as well, but not in the short term
<deniz_ogut> QUESTION: How will the translation teams initially form? (So they have the ability to let others in.)
- I am glad we are getting this many questions on translation teams: proper organisation is key to good work. In practice, translation teams form from one person who is devoted and dedicated to working on translations for a language. well, one or a couple. only "larger" languages (I won't define 'larger', but you can guess what I mean) don't have a problem finding enough translators. those initial members usually grow out to be team leaders, and they need to be diplomatic and constructive in their work, ready to change courses, and welcoming to new members. if they are not, they risk staying the only members in the long run. of course, proper knowledge of English and language they translate to is very useful. and how they organise effort is important, but there are many right ways to do it
<deniz_ogut> QUESTION: In my country most of thie translation job is done in KDE or GNOME groups and people from several different distros work there. So translated GNOME applications are used both for Ubuntu and other distros, KDE both for Kubuntu and others. Some applications such as Firefox and OpenOffice have their own teams. Now, won't it create a conflict and mess if we begin to do some translations under Launchpad?
- (I know successful teams who have used mailing lists, others who used bug trackers, web pages, CVS/SVN, or something entirely different for organising themselves). There is indeed risk for conflict, but we try to ensure it's minimal
<carlos> we ask translators to coordinate with them and send them back changes done in Rosetta We are generally using stable releases of most software in Ubuntu, which already have their translation work finished, but other than that, we hope Ubuntu translators are able to coordinate with them, as carlos said
<carlos> the main problem we try to solve is that once GNOME does a release. they don't release new translations after a couple of months we can also suggest people to use Launchpad for translations for upstream projects, and they can contribute their translations back upstream (i.e. it can work the other way as well)
<carlos> but we could have that version around for 2 more years. so we allow Ubuntu translators to have a full translated GNOME/KDE for all that time
the main advantage of Launchpad is that it allows you to have almost real-time updates to translations as translators do them. well, not the main advantage, but one of advantages
<bullgard4> QUESTION: Do make available International Standards (e. g. of ISO) to translators in order to improve the quality of tranlations?
- I don't understand what is meant with this question.
<carlos> could you give us more details about it?
<bullgard4> A tranlator who is knowleadgable will deliver better tranlations. ISO takes care of terminology also.
- ISO terminology is usually limited to English (and French, sometimes). what translators usually need to turn to is *national* standards, not international ones. national and linguistic standards provide good reference for translators. knowing international standards is useful when translating specific applications
<deniz_ogut> QUESTION: Does it give any harm to the process if I translate an application "very partially", online via Launchpad. I mean; I have 15 minutes today, do some; 2 hours next week... and so on.
- no, not at all: this is a big advantage of Launchpad way of doing translations. it's designed specifically to allow such workflow. it can even be several people translating bit by bit. of course, when several people are doing it, it's important to have standard terminology and style guide. but that's something you organise and coordinate inside your team
<rohan> QUESTION: what about languages not using english character set ? e.g. hindi ? is it just as easy to translate ? do i put the translated strings using copy paste or so ?
- I must admit that I don't know much about hindi input. so, I'll let carlos take this one over
<carlos> well, the good think about Launchpad is that we are not directly and editor. so we rely on your web browser. if your web browser/system supports it, Launchpad does too. we already implement the required tags to control text direction based on the language the user is translated into, the rest should be supported by your computer
<pochu> QUESTION: any ETA for the search feature in rosetta? ;)
<carlos> that's more a question for danilos, he's working on that task, but I don't think we have an ETA yet. we started with that task. we hope to finish it soon, but we don't know exactly when I am very bad at giving ETA's, so I can't give it out for you... It won't happen in a month since we've got other important things to work on, but it's one of major things we know everybody is interested in (and so are we)
<pochu> now that you're three in the team, you should get it soon ;)
yeah, having help from jtv is very welcome
<bullgard4> QUESTION: Some translators are proud that their translations are better than those of M$. Do you agree?
I indeed agree. I can positively say that Serbian translations of Ubuntu/GNOME/OpenOffice are better than Microsoft translation of Windows.
However, note that MS is indeed lacking in i18n framework in several places like plural forms support.
(02:59:58 PM) carlos: ok, we ran out of time (03:00:19 PM) carlos: danilos: thanks for driving this session (03:00:30 PM) carlos: and thanks for coming !! (03:00:32 PM) danilos: thanks everybody, I'll stick around -chat for a few minutes as well (03:00:50 PM) carlos: and remember, we are always around at #launchpad (03:01:01 PM) carlos: BjornT: the channel is all yours