Re: Debian gsoc for i18n
2011/2/20 Christian PERRIER <bubulle@debian.org>:
> Quoting Stan Ioan-Eugen (stan.ieugen@gmail.com):
>> Hello,
>>
>> My name is Ioan Eugen STAN and I want to participate in Debian gsoc. I
>> was involved in Squeeze (and Lenny) release notes localization for
>> Romanian and translated some po-debconf's. During this time I got in
>> touch with how things are going and I noticed that things need to be
>> improved in i18n.
>
>
> I have mixed feelings here (which indeed explain why I didn't followup
> immediately).
I was beginning to think nobody cares about improving i18n.
> At very first, I really welcome a GSOC proposal around i18n
> infrastructure. Moreover, coming from someone who already has proven
> his involvment, it makes me confident that it could succeed.
>
> I'm however puzzled by the point about Pootle. We certainly need to
> have a good online translation tool...but our main problem, as of now,
> is to make it fit the way Debian packages are developed (highly
> distributed...no central place where you can be sure that PO files
> are).
>
> This is more what limited the use of Pootle until now...much more than
> the quality of the tool. Indeed, what we have on i18n.d.n is a too old
> version of Pootle, not inline with recent development of the
> framework.
>
> Upgrading churro to squeeze would already bring it more inline and I
> think we could end up with backporting the latest version and maintain
> this.
>
> So, assuming the Pootle is not suited is not necessarily the good
> approach and I'm not sure that ${fancytool} is better suited..:-)
As I mentioned, I am not very familiar with i18n internal workings. I know that
po files can be generated at the same time as building the binary package and I
assumed that these files can be aggregated in a central place by doing
some processing
on packages. It seems that I identified the wrong problem.
I was thinking of replacing Pootle because it lacks a way to
encourage competition among translators (like display a top list of
translators).
(I am thinking of ways to attract translators here).
> Still, I don't want to discourage you and it would probably not be a
> great idea to rule your proposal out..just for this.
> However, what you also need to find a a mentor... and, here is the
> reason for which I didn't answer immediately: I can probably be seen
> as "the mentor to have"...however, I'm not sure sure I could be able
> to give the needed time and attention all over the GSOC months. My
> involvment in Debian varies from month to month, depending on my
> professionnal activities, which are more and more demanding. So,
> really, I would be very careful before replyign "yay, I can mentor
> you"...and if anyone else feels like (s)he can do that, please feel
> free to speak and don't assume that, because this is i18n, bubulle can
> do everything..:-)
Thank you for your support, I still wish to improve i18n and I am open
to ideas as to what can be done.
Regarding mentoring, I can work on my own, without constant mentor
attention, so please consider mentoring
me. I usually ask for a list of things tobe done/learned and go on my
way. If I don't manage I can go and ask
other people.
If anyone else wishes to see some changes to i18n, this is a great
time to take action, so please, speak up.
Regards,
--
Ioan-Eugen Stan
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