Re: Do not touch l10n files [without notifying translators]
On Wed, May 14, 2003 at 01:03:07PM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
> On Wed, 14 May 2003 19:17:50 +0200, Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña <jfs@computer.org> said:
>
> > On Wed, May 14, 2003 at 02:18:04AM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
> >> As a package developer I hold veto powers over anything shipped in
> >> my package, since it is my signature that goes with it, and I am
> >> responsible for all bugs.
>
> > You do hold upstream responsible for the bugs in their software
> > right?
>
> I don't shrug off my responsibilities so lightly. I am
> responsible for all my packages. I may need help to solve or diagnose
> some bugs, but every single bug on my packages receives my attention,
> and I work on trying to gather enough information to help upstream
> debug those issues.
>
> In case the upstream does not respond, or does not think it is
> a bug, I create local patches.
>
>
> > From my point of view, same should go for translators.
>
> Sure. When (if?) translated descriptions are included in
> packages, I'll contact the translators fiirst, perhaps including
> local changes until the matter is resolved. Just like I do with
> upstream code.
So, I would say that you are handling translations right, and there is no
need to get hurt by Denis's complain. It wasn't directed at all maintainers,
but to the ones feeling confident enough to corrupt l10n files *without
informing the translator of their changes*.
I admit that his tone was quite categorical, but he was only repporting a
problem which exists (we have some example of bad habits, but giving any
name would only lead to more people feeling insulted, and a bigger flamewar,
which would help nobody). If you don't do the stuff he is complaining about,
if, as Colin said, the collaboration between you and the tranlators
colaborating on your packages is based on mutual respect, everything is
perfect, and there is no need for yet another flamewar here.
Please don't get me wrong. I understand that the tone of the complain may
lead too easily to such flamewar (ie, I don't say that you or anybody else
wanted to get this flamewar), but I would like people to understand that
instead of flooding -devel yet another time, we should document somewhere
what the best current practices are concerning l10n (yours are good
candidate), and try to ease the collaboration needed to achieve the l10n
goals.
> > Translation-related bugs should be the responsibility of the
> > translation teams (and should be forwarded to them).
>
> While translations reside outside my package, the bugs shall
> be reassigned (or closed), not forwarded. When the translation is in
> my package, the bug shall be forwarded, and perhaps I'll use local
> patches to correct the issue.
That's an interesting point. I asked for a translation pseudo package, so
that developpers can reassign bug repports about translations to somewhere
where translators can be made aware of the issue and work on it to help the
maintainer, but this request never leaded to any concret decision. :)
In my opinion, one of the problems here is that we have no infrastructure at
all to ease the l10n work, neither do we have any infrastructure to handle
properly the l10n bugs. I dream of something like the dbuild and
packages.qa.debian.org or qa.debian.org/developer.php for translators, but
there is still a very long road until there.
First step being to create a DT (debian translator) status, or renaming
Debian Developers to Debian Contributor, since the former name clearly do
not capture all the ways to contribute to Debian. You may think that it's a
dummy name problem, but the problem more complicated.
In the past, I applyed to become DD with stating that I do not want to
maintain any package, only become translator. And most of the questions I
was asked was how to deal with bug repports against my packages, and how to
use lintian and yada to increase the quality of my packages...
[in the meanwhile, I begun helping to fix RC bugs, and repackaged doc-rfc to
solve the issues repported against it, for example, so those questions where
not that useless to that extend, but that's another story]
So, to summarize myself, if we would live in a perfect world, we would:
1. Document the BCP concerning l10n, and repport as bug any maintainer or
translator not sticking to it (and only them)
2. Think about improving (creating?) the l10n infrastructure within Debian.
Much more thinkings (=flamewar? ;) are needed for that.
Bye, Mt.
--
Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are.
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