Hi, I am Peter von Kaehne, a developer in CrossWire Bible Society (open source cross platform Bible software project) and Farsi translator of Xiphos (formerly GnomeSword - a Gnome/GTK based frontend to Crosswire's offerings).
Xiphos relies in parts on translations coming from central Gnome related libraries. Over the last year or so I have noticed that these centrally provided translations suffering quite a bit under bit-rot and this is now affecting us as a project quite badly as central items like "quit" etc are not anymore covered. Looking at the translation statistics http://l10n.gnome.org/languages/fa/gnome-2-28/ui/ and http://l10n.gnome.org/teams/fa it is clear that the current state is not good and that there is steady decline over the last couple of years. Looking at the steadiness of the decline, the large number of fuzzy terms, the list of open bugs, the number of patches submitted (sometimes complete new po files), the lack of review, the number of pings by Andre Klapper and the date of most of these (nearly all in 2008) I am not sure if there is any action at the moment. http://bugzilla.gnome.org/buglist.cgi?product=l10n&component=Persian%20[fa]&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=REOPENED&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=UNCONFIRMED I have tried several times in 2008 and 2009 to contact Roozbeh directly (never yet on this mailing list) about matters of Farsi translation, lists of approved words etc but got no response. I am not even anymore sure that the email addresses publicly listed are those which are currently still active. I most certainly do not want to kickstart a new round of the rather upsetting thread from last year on this very subject http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg09525.html , but am wondering what I can do about the matter. Personally I would like to get the various underlying libraries updated. I believe that the even going through the "fuzzy" translations and "unfuzzying" things which are clear cut, would improve the state of affairs enormously. I am not even remotely as accomplished a translator as many contributors here in the past, but in the light of current and lasting inactivity I would rather step up to the mark and deliver something potentially incomplete and buggy, then leaving things as they are right now. My personal experience with these matters is that producing something/anything in such sensitive areas as translations is often enough to get others, better qualified but less motivated into action. The embarassement of buggy translations is just too big to keep shtum :-) So, what is it I am asking for? I would like to get direct write access to the translations for the underlying libraries. I intend to limit myself to the matters most concerning to my own projects and to refrain from doing anything controversial. I most certainly would not touch the stuff causing so much aggro last year. I am willing to work closely under some sort of guidance/mentoring scheme/coordinator/whatever. I would also relinquish my write access immediately once it becomes obvious that I can not keep up with the relevant commitment. As I am an unknown here on Gnome I can understand if this is asking for too much, but I do ask you to consider this please anyway, in the light of the obviuous decline of Farsi Gnome. If Roozbeh re-emerges and starts doing things (now or later) I would obviously immediately cease working independently and submit to his guidance in things (or indeed withdraw completely) as he is a much much better translator that I can ever hope to be. Karl Kleinpaste, the lead developer from Xiphos ([email protected]) can provide a reference for me in terms of my working practices, willingness to work in a team and subject to authority etc. Any passing Iranian can obviously have a look at xiphos and see if they are deeply dissatisfied with its translation into Farsi. yours Peter _______________________________________________ gnome-i18n mailing list [email protected] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-i18n
