Dirk Stöcker <[email protected]> writes:

> On Fri, 11 Jun 2010, Matthias Julius wrote:
>
>> It might be a good idea to declare a feature and string freeze and
>> issue a call for translation updates for a few days before each
>> testing release.  This would give translators a chance to catch up.
>> It might also boost their motivation a little bit when they know that
>> their perfect 100% translation actually will make it into a release.
>>
>> Are there any translators on this list?  How would you like that to be
>> handled?
>
> Yes. I'am. I always tell me before release that everything must be 
> translated. Usually I try to do so :-)

That's a good first step.  Now, you just need to tell the other
translators as well. ;-)

>
> No really. Usually in the time after announcing tested stage first time 
> only bug-fixes are done and they don't usually add new user visible 
> strings, but mainly error messages or the like (or new plugin strings). I 
> also take care that the translators have a chance to catch up before, so 
> the languages which currently try the 100% (German, Ukrainian, Russian, 
> Italian, ...) have the chance to do so.

All I am suggesting is to make this a bit more explicit by saying
something like "Translators: please update your translation now if you
want it to be in the next release. Developer: please don't make any
major changes and don't change any translated strings." in your
announcement of an upcoming release and give a deadline for this of a
few days.  Of course, this only helps if translators get to see the
announcement.

>
> On the other hand JOSM is in flux always, so texts in updated plugins 
> become outdated and many language miss newer strings anyways. Until now it 
> seems impossible to get a release handling for JOSM translations. There 
> are always only few people who really actively translate texts and most 
> languages stay in the incomplete state. And there are really many strings 
> in JOSM and always comming a lot of new strings.

It is a bit weird that plugin localisation is done in JOSM core, but
this is a different can or worms.

>
> I know this situation from other projects and it seems it is unsolvable, 
> so I don't really want to stop development because of missing 
> translations. Only solution would be a release branching each time we hav 
> a tested, but due to various reason explained in length in other mails I 
> still don't think the currently working josm process should be changed 
> without need.

We don't really have to stop development, but maybe we can restrain
from introducing new features for a few days.  Bug fixes are always
welcome as long as they don't change translated strings.

Maybe we could just not update Launchpad for a week or two after a
-tested release.  And if there are significant improvements in
translations after that time we can still consider creating a branch
and update the translations in -tested.

>
> This does not mean that when there is a chance to better motivate our 
> translators we shouldn't try it.

We can speculate about what would motivate translators forever.  It
would be good to get some input from actual translators (besides
yourself).

Matthias

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