Bug#1042779: developers-reference: overhaul of chapter about i18n / l10n
Package: developers-reference
Severity: normal
Hi,
yesterday I was a bit shocked when reading chapter 8 of the developers-ref:
https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/developers-reference/l10n.en.html
That chapter has several wrong/bad sentences (or is heavily outdated, if that
things have been correct like that at some time).
I comment here on the different parts; a complete patch which integrates all
this proposals is attached to this mail.
<quote>
"For program messages, the gettext infrastructure is used most of the time.
Most of the time, the translation is handled upstream within projects like the
Free Translation Project, the GNOME Translation Project or the KDE Localization
project.
</quote>
... is used most of the time. Most of the time, the translation ...
Please avoid this doubled use of "most of the time" in direct repeating.
(only cosmetic, yes.)
<quote>
The only centralized resources within Debian are the Central Debian
translation statistics, where you can find some statistics about the translation
files found in the actual packages, but no real infrastructure to ease the
translation process."
</quote>
... where you can find some statistics ... but no real infrastructure to ease the
translation process.
This is not true. The statistics page provides the possibility to directly
download the po files by one click! This is for sure much easier than
loading the whole source package, uncompress it and pick the po file out from
there! So, it's much more than just a statistics page, and it makes translators
work much easier!
(What was meant here is probably, that Debian has no own pootle or Weblate
server, where the translation can be done directly online?)
<quote>
For debconf templates, maintainers should use the po-debconf package to ease
the work of translators, who could use the DDTP to do their work (but the
French and Brazilian teams don't). Some statistics can be found both on the
DDTP site (about what is actually translated), and on the Central Debian
translation statistics site (about what is integrated in the packages).
</quote>
Here we have some wrong facts. The DDTP infrastructure is only for translating
the package descriptions!
It does not handle debconf template translations!
And the DDTP site does not have statistics about debconf template translations.
(Don't know, if this was different in the past, but this is the status quo.)
<quote>
For package-specific documentation (man pages, info documents, other formats),
almost everything remains to be done.
</quote>
This is also not true!
We have many translated manpages now for example, so we cannot say
"nothing has been done on this".
<quote>
For all other material (gettext files, man pages, or other documentation), the
best solution is to put your text somewhere on the Internet, and ask on
debian-i18n for a translation in different languages. Some translation team
members are subscribed to this list, and they will take care of the translation
and of the reviewing process. Once they are done, you will get your translated
document from them in your mailbox.
</quote>
... the best solution is to put your text somewhere on the Internet ...
This seems rather weird for me. Debian is such a huge community with much
infrastructure, we should not recommend to "put the text somewhere on the
Internet". That sounds poor.
... Once they are done, you will get your translated document from them in
your mailbox. ...
There is a big consensus, that translations are sent via wishlist bugreports.
Please find a patch attached (can be seen as a proposal, of course).
So long
Holger
--
Holger Wansing <hwansing@mailbox.org>
PGP-Finterprint: 496A C6E8 1442 4B34 8508 3529 59F1 87CA 156E B076
diff --git a/source/l10n.rst b/source/l10n.rst
index c66173d..8935907 100644
--- a/source/l10n.rst
+++ b/source/l10n.rst
@@ -42,7 +42,7 @@ manual task, and the process depends on the kind of text you want to see
translated.
For program messages, the gettext infrastructure is used most of the
-time. Most of the time, the translation is handled upstream within
+time. Often the translation is handled upstream within
projects like the `Free Translation
Project <https://translationproject.org/html/welcome.html>`__, the
`GNOME Translation
@@ -51,7 +51,7 @@ Localization <https://l10n.kde.org/>`__ project. The only centralized
resources within Debian are the `Central Debian translation
statistics <https://www.debian.org/intl/l10n/>`__, where you can find
some statistics about the translation files found in the actual
-packages, but no real infrastructure to ease the translation process.
+packages and download those files.
Package descriptions have translations since many years and Maintainers
don't need to do anything special to support translated package
@@ -59,12 +59,9 @@ descriptions; translators should use the `Debian Description Translation
Project (DDTP) <https://ddtp.debian.org/>`__.
For ``debconf`` templates, maintainers should use the ``po-debconf``
-package to ease the work of translators, who could use the DDTP to do
-their work (but the French and Brazilian teams don't). Some statistics
-can be found both on the `DDTP site <https://ddtp.debian.org/>`__
-(about what is actually translated), and on the `Central Debian
-translation statistics <https://www.debian.org/intl/l10n/>`__ site
-(about what is integrated in the packages).
+package to ease the work of translators. Some statistics
+can be found on the `Central Debian
+translation statistics <https://www.debian.org/intl/l10n/>`__ site.
For web pages, each l10n team has access to the relevant VCS, and the
statistics are available from the Central Debian translation statistics
@@ -74,8 +71,9 @@ For general documentation about Debian, the process is more or less the
same as for the web pages (the translators have access to the VCS), but
there are no statistics pages.
-For package-specific documentation (man pages, info documents, other
-formats), almost everything remains to be done.
+Another part of i18n work is package-specific documentation (man pages,
+info documents, other formats). At least the man page translations are
+po-based as most other things mentioned above.
.. _l10n-faqm:
@@ -94,17 +92,18 @@ enhanced.
How to get a given text translated
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-To translate package descriptions or ``debconf`` templates, you have
+To translate package descriptions, you have
nothing to do; the DDTP infrastructure will dispatch the material to
translate to volunteers with no need for interaction on your part.
-For all other material (gettext files, man pages, or other
-documentation), the best solution is to put your text somewhere on the
-Internet, and ask on debian-i18n for a translation in different
+For all other material (``debconf`` templates, gettext files, man pages, or other
+documentation), the best solution is to ask on debian-i18n for a translation in different
languages. Some translation team members are subscribed to this list,
-and they will take care of the translation and of the reviewing process.
+and they will take care of the needed coordination, to get the material
+translated and reviewed.
Once they are done, you will get your translated document from them in
-your mailbox.
+your mailbox or via a wishlist bugreport.
+It is also recommended, to use the ``po-debconf`` tools for i18n integration.
.. _l10n-faqm-rev:
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