[ Please keep the Debian Dutch localisation list Cc'ed when replying ] Hi all, The Debian Dutch localisation team did a rewrite of the content of the web page www.debian.org/international/dutch/index.nl.html (already operational) and is in the process of bringing in sync its English counterpart. Please find attached a draft of www.debian.org/international/dutch/index.en.html. While none of the Debian Dutch localisation team members is a native English speaker, a review by the Debian English localisation team would be very helpful. Thanks, Frans
#use wml::debian::template title="Translation project: Debian in Dutch"
# The content of this page is completely the responsibility of
# the Debian Dutch l10n Team
<h1>Translating Debian into Dutch</h1>
<p>Translating is teamwork and Debian counts a lot of active translation teams,
all dedicated to make Debian available in the language of their local
communities. In order to support the effort of those localisation teams, Debian
has built a central localisation infrastructure.</p>
<p>The aim of the Dutch localisation team is to make sure that there
exists also a Dutch version of the Debian operating
system and its documentation.</p>
<p>If you are willing to help translating Debian into Dutch,
we do welcome you wholeheartedly in our team. We hope that the
information on this page is sufficiently clear and elaborated to get you
started translating effectively.</p>
<h2>The Debian Dutch localisation team</h2>
<p>Contributing to the translation of Debian is 100% a volunteer effort.
This leads to each member of the team spending as much or as little
time on translations as he/she sees fit. So, as a translation volunteer,
you don't have any performance obligation.</p>
<p>But indeed we do expect you to comply with the rules of the
<a href="$(HOME)/code_of_conduct">Debian code of conduct</a> and
to behave and communicate in a constructive way.</p>
<p>All communication among team members takes place on the
<a href="https://lists.debian.org/debian-l10n-dutch/";>Dutch localization mailing list</a>.
This mailing list is the central and even only coordination entity.
Therefore, being a team member, it is highly recommended to subscribe to it.
All traffic on the list is public and gets archived. Debian has a
profound conviction that such an open way of proceeding can not but
being beneficial to a high quality level of work.</p>
<h2>Linguistic guidelines</h2>
<p>With regard to spelling, vocabulary and grammar we follow the
directives, guidelines and recommendations of the
<a href="http://taalunie.org";>Nederlandse Taalunie</a> (Dutch Language Union).
This body is the official authority for these matters and is
authoritative for all the Dutch-speaking countries and territories on the globe.
By taking this position we reaffirm that our translations are aimed at
anyone who is a member of that Dutch-speaking community in the world.
Therefore we try to avoid as much as possible local dialect.
We simply lack the necessary manpower to manage several locally-based
translation variants. This is clearly demonstrated through the small amount of
completed translations, realised by such efforts in the past, as can be seen on
<a href="$(HOME)/international/l10n/po/nl_BE">https://www.debian.org/international/l10n/po/nl_BE</a>
and on <a href="$(HOME)/international/l10n/po/nl_NL">https://www.debian.org/international/l10n/po/nl_NL</a>.</p>
<p>In the course of time a limited <a href="https://ddtp.debian.net/ddtss/index.cgi/nl/wordlist";>lexicon</a>
has been put together. It aims at reaching a certain level of uniformity in translations.
We suggest that you take a look at it regularly while translating.
Probably this lexicon still can be extended and it is even not impossible
that some of the translation suggestions in it may be of a suboptimal quality.
Suggestions for extensions and improvements are welcomed. But of course
they have to be discussed thoroughly on the <a href="https://lists.debian.org/debian-l10n-dutch/";>mailing list</a>.
The ultimate aim should always be to combine correctness with intelligibility.
As it comes to the translation of technical terminology this can sometimes
prove to be a very tough deliberation.</p>
<h2>What can be translated?</h2>
<ul>
<li>The web site
<p>There is a great chance that the Debian web site fulfils the role of being
one of the first and most important sources of information for people that
start using Debian or are considering to do so. It would therefore be
good to eventually have translated into Dutch
as much as possible of the information it contains.
You may find information on the translation of the Debian website
<a href="$(HOME)/devel/website/translating">here</a> (still not in Dutch).
Everyone can help with the translation of web pages, but uploading
them to the server, so that they become a part of the Debian website,
can only be accomplished by a Debian developer. The
<a href="https://lists.debian.org/debian-l10n-dutch/";>mailing list</a>
is the place to discuss this and make arrangements in this respect.</p>
</li>
<li>The Debian installer
<p>This is the first program a new user has to deal with,
as it gives him/her information during the process of installing
Debian on his/her system and guides him/her through it. Therefore Debian
makes a special effort to have this piece of software translated in as much
languages as possible. Information on the translation of the Debian installer
can be found <a href="https://d-i.alioth.debian.org/doc/i18n/";>here</a>
(still not in Dutch).</p>
</li>
<li>Configuration information and questions (po-debconf strings)
<p>Some programs need user input in order to set their configuration right.
Already during the installation process the user has been asked
some of this kind of questions. Packages are offering their
configuration questions and accompanying clarifications, if any,
in a separate file that can be translated into Dutch.
Information on the translation of these so called debconf templates
can be found <a href="$(HOME)/international/l10n/po-debconf/README-trans">here</a>
(still not in Dutch).</p>
</li>
<li>Package descriptions
<p>With their favourite package management program users can control
what software is installed on their systems or look for additional
software that suits a particular purpose. The short description of each
available package that is shown by the package management program can make it
easier for users to make the right choices. Also these package descriptions
are subject to translations. General information on that topic is to be
found <a href="$(HOME)/international/l10n/ddtp">here</a> (still not in Dutch).</p>
<p>Out of concern for keeping the coordination and follow up of translations
concentrated on one single location, the Debian Dutch localisation team agreed
on making use exclusively of the email interface of the DDTP project
(with exclusion of the web interface) and on submitting draft translations to the
<a href="https://lists.debian.org/debian-l10n-dutch/";>mailing list</a>
for review.</p>
<p>In practice this includes the following steps:</p>
<ul>
<li>Requesting a package description (for translation) with the email interface:
<p>This can be done by sending an email to <code>pdesc@ddtp.debian.net</code>
with the subject <code>GET <em>package name</em> nl.UTF-8</code>.
No other content is needed, so the body of the message can be left
empty. Hence the description of that package that is to be translated,
will be send over to you.</p>
</li>
<li>Writing a draft translation and sending it to
the <a href="https://lists.debian.org/debian-l10n-dutch/";>mailing list</a>
for review.</li>
<li>Submitting the translated package description to the email interface:
<p>This step has to be taken after the review process came to an end.
Again this is accomplished via an email to <code>pdesc@ddtp.debian.net</code>.
That message needs not to have a subject nor a content. It only needs the translated
package description as an attachment. The DDTP email interface is expecting
to receive that attachment base64 encoded. Because this is the standard
behaviour for attachments by most email clients, you don't have to worry
about the encoding yourself.</p></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Debian documentation
<p>There is an ongoing effort within Debian to provide for additional and
better documentation on behalf of users and developers alike. Usually it
is available both as a package and on the Debian website. More information
is to be found at "<a href="$(HOME)/doc/ddp">The Debian Documentation Project</a>"
page (already translated to Dutch). However, a lot of the documentation itself
is for the moment not yet available in Dutch.</p>
</li>
<li>Application software (po strings)
<p>A lot of developers are taking care themselves of the coordination of
the translation of the software they write or leave it with an initiative for the translation
of free software, such as <a href="https://translationproject.org/";>The Translation Project</a>
or other similar initiatives. In such cases the upstream sources that are
used by Debian package maintainers already come with translations included.
Nevertheless the Dutch translation of application software is far from being
completed. And for some specific pieces of software Debian has in fact
to be seen as the main or only upstream developer, so that no external
body takes care of its translation. It is always a good habit to
submit translations for application software that are made or
completed within the context of a Debian localisation team,
not only to the Debian package maintainer
but also to the upstream developer itself.</p>
</li>
<li>Man pages
<p>Man pages describe in a standardised way how to use a command
at the command line. Also their translation often is taken care of outside
of Debian.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h2>Operational procedures</h2>
<p>In order to support the effort of Debian localization teams,
a tracking system has been set up. Via its
<a href="$(HOME)/international/l10n/">main page</a> and the numerous
underlying pages one gets detailed information on the progress
of the internationalisation of Debian. Thanks to it the distinctive localisation
teams are presented with an overview of the ongoing activities within their
team, of the already finished translations and of the areas that still need
the attention of a translator.</p>
<p>To be able to offer such a support, information has to be collected by the
tracking system on several locations within Debian. One of these locations
where the tracking system is actively listening, are the localisation team
mailing lists.</p>
<p>For the tracking system to be able to understand what is going on in the
field of Debian localisation, a complete set of pseudo-URLs has been
developed. It boils down to a standardized format of the subject field
of email massages that are send to the mailing lists, so that it passes
information on the element or file for which translation is under way and at which
stage of the translation process it has to be situated.</p>
<p>A pseudo-URL consists of the following components:</p>
<code>[status] type://package-name/file-name</code>
<p>Of course, email massages with a subject field that has not been
formatted this way, can also be used and send to the mailing list,
but they won't be understood and tracked by the localisation tracking
system. That kind of messages are mostly used if one wants to discuss
general matters not directly related to the translation of a specific file.</p>
<p>Below we shortly discuss the various components of a pseudo-URL.</p>
<dl>
<dt>status</dt>
<dd>The status of a translation or the stage in which a translation
of a specific element is in.</dd>
<dt>type</dt>
<dd>This describes the kind of element or file for which a translation is being prepared.
The localisation tracking system knows the following types: po-debconf,
debian-installer, po, po4a, man and wml (webwml is obsolete
and instead wml should be used now).</dd>
<dt>package-name</dt>
<dd>The name of the package the translated file belongs to.
If it is a web page, then <em>www.debian.org</em> has to be used as the name
of the package.</dd>
<dt>file-name</dt>
<dd>The name of the translated document or file.
If a man page is translated, this file name will also contain its
section, and for a web page the-path-to-that-page is part of it's
name. That way any possible confusion with another document or another
file of the same package is excluded.</dd>
</dl>
<p>Here you may find some examples of pseudo-URLs. Right now we still ignore
the status element for a while:</p>
<ul>
<li>[status] po-debconf://package-name/nl.po</li>
<li>[status] po://package-name/path-in-the-source/nl.po</li>
<li>[status] wml://www.debian.org/web-page-address</li>
</ul>
<p>The status element of a pseudo-URL always has to be put within brackets.
The following status indicators are likely to improve cooperation
and facilitate tracking and follow up by the localisation tracking system:</p>
<dl>
<dt>ITT</dt>
<dd>(Intent To Translate) With this status element a translator indicates
that he will take care of the translation of the specified element.</dd>
<dt>RFR</dt>
<dd>(Request For Review) The attachment to this message is a
draft translation and the translator invites the colleagues in his translation team
to review it.</dd>
<dt>ITR</dt>
<dd>(Intent To Review) With this status element one indicates that
one is preparing a review of the specified draft translation.</dd>
<dt>LCFC</dt>
<dd>(Last Chance/Call For Comments) In this stage the discussion on a
draft translation has been completed and the comments were incorporated
in the translation. An updated draft translation is attached
so that everyone has a chance to take a final look at it and read it over
once again. If no reaction arose from a previous Request For Review,
which on the mailing list often has the meaning of an implicit approval
of the translation, one can send a LCFC to make sure that the previous
mail (the one with a RFR status indicator) did not unintentionally pass unnoticed.</dd>
<dt>BTS#bug-number</dt>
<dd>(Bug Tracking System) This informs the mailing list and the tracking system
that the translation has been sent to the maintainer via a bug report which
was assigned the said number by the bug tracking system.
The package maintainer closes this bug report when he/she
uploads a new version of the package with the translation included.
This event will be noticed and taken into account
by the localisation tracking system.</dd>
<dt>DONE</dt>
<dd>With this status element one reports that the translation has been
completed and committed. One uses this status element in those cases
where the translation has not been committed via a bug report. This happens
for example when a web page or a package description has been translated.</dd>
</dl>
<p>The above stages of a translation cycle do advance a structured cooperation
among the Debian Dutch localisation team members. Nonetheless applying them rigidly
to the extent that they are experienced as being a bureaucratic rigmarole and
a hindrance for a real cooperation, is for no reason a good idea. On the contrary,
they only are meant to support cooperation by making it more effective and efficient.</p>
<h2>Tools</h2>
<p>If you would like to start translating, you are advised to use one of
the tools that are explicitly conceived to ease the accomplishment
of such a task. You can choose from a wide range of tools, among others: </p>
<ul>
<li>for the translation of pot-files:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://packages.debian.org/stable/gettext-el";>gettext-el</a> - Emacs
po-mode for editing gettext .po files.</li>
<li><a href="https://packages.debian.org/stable/poedit";>poedit</a> - A
commonly used editor for gettext catalogs (.po files).</li>
<li><a href="https://packages.debian.org/stable/virtaal";>virtaal</a> - A
graphical localisation editor.</li>
<li><a href="https://packages.debian.org/stable/lokalize";>lokalize</a> - A
po file editor, based on the KDE desktop libraries.</li>
<li><a href="https://packages.debian.org/stable/gtranslator";>gtranslator</a> - A
po file editor, based on the GNOME desktop libraries.</li>
<li><a href="https://packages.debian.org/stable/omegat";>omegat</a> - An
editor, written in Java, suitable for the translation of documents
with a variety of file formats.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>for the translation of wml-files:
<ul>
<li>Most editors support syntax highlighting, horizontal and/or
vertical window splitting, line numbering etc, and in most cases
this suffices to feel comfortable while translating web pages.</li>
<li><a href="https://packages.debian.org/stable/xmlcopyeditor";>xmlcopyeditor</a> - An
editor supporting multiple markup languages and able to open a preview in
a browser window of the page being translated.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part