Introduction

The purpose of this page is to document the series of steps required to create a new Ubuntu Translation team to be included in the Ubuntu Translators group in Launchpad.

Translating Ubuntu is a rewarding effort to provide users with the operating system in their language, but at the same time it carries a great deal of responsibility.

We want to make sure users get the most of their native language support, and while lowering the barrier for contributions, we also need to make sure that translators are aware about this responsibility, best practices for translations and of the existence of other projects' translation efforts.

Before you apply

Here's the checklist to create a new Ubuntu translations team:

• Check existing team. Make sure there isn't already an existing Ubuntu translations team for your language. If this is the case, you can skip all subsequent steps and ask to join the team instead.

• Locale, keyboard and fonts. Make sure the language has a defined code, keyboard and fonts. You can skip this step if your language fulfills all requirements.

• Launchpad team. Create a new Launchpad team for your language. The team's name must accord to the following rules:

  • ubuntu-l10n-<ISO 639 language code> - Where <ISO 639 language code> is a two-letter or a three-letter (if the two-letter one is not available) ISO 639 code. You can search for the code for your language here. If you don't find your code there, you may want to look at the more comprehensive ISO 639-3 list

• Moderated subscription. Make the subscription policy of the new team Moderated or Restricted.

• Team information. Add some brief information on the team's page. This should include:

  • A welcome note with the purpose of the team
  • A note on how to join the team
  • Links to the team's existing communication channels (e.g. mailing list, forums, IRC channel, wiki, etc)

• Team communication. The team should have a communication channel to coordinate the translation activities. This can be any of: a mailing list, IRC, forums, etc. This can be arranged after the team has been accepted, but it is a requirement.

• Guidelines. The team should have a set of translation guidelines. This can be arranged after the team has been accepted, but it is a requirement.

• Upstream collaboration. The team should be aware of any upstream translation efforts (e.g. GNOME, KDE, Mozilla, OpenOffice.org, Debian, etc.), and coordinate with them if possible. You'll find more information about the different upstreams here.

• Coordinator. The team should have a coordinator, who should subscribe to the ubuntu-translators mailing list and forward any relevant announcements or information to the team.

• Application. Once all points have been addressed, simply file a support request and the Ubuntu Translations Coordinators will add the team to the Ubuntu Translators group.

After the team has been accepted

• Announcement. Send an e-mail announcing that the team has been created to the ubuntu-translators mailing list.

• Contact data. Add the team's contact data to the global translation teams list

• Ubuntu l10n mailing list. If you wish to do so, you can request the creation of an official Ubuntu mailing list for your translation team by sending an e-mail to rt(at)ubuntu(dot)com. The name of the list should match the name of the team in Launchpad (ubuntu-l10n-<language code>).

• Guidelines. Remember to add the translation guidelines to your team.

CategoryTranslations