Hi TG :) Welcome to Pootle!
On 11/11/2006, at 7:18 AM, TG wrote:
I have been fallowing the development of pootle and rosetta for a long time since i was looking for an easy and accessible collaboration tool for translation. Though I did not like the non free status and uncooperativeness attitude (towards pootle) i found rosetta to be a much polished and less intimidating. Not least it's fast servers. But by far the most appealing part of rosetta is that it is presented as part of ubuntu. Most linux gurus might not be impressed by this. But for a novice translator who most probably is new or never used linux it makes all the difference. I translate in rosetta. my copy of ubuntu is updated automatically every week bringing back the translation i made. My mostly English ubuntu installation is transforming in to my language amharic ubuntu week after week magically. Those who have an idea how to download the .po files and where to stick their .mo files might even see the result of their work and have more fun and better idea about their job quality.
I can certainly see how this would appeal to an Ubuntu user. :)However, that close integration with Ubuntu comes at a price: Rosetta is not closely integrated with the upstream projects which supply the software packages. _You_ may see the results automatically, but the users of those projects don't.
I started out translating in Rosetta, and wasted many hours working on PO files which turned out to be old versions. :(
But the recent developments at Rosetta (the unending request and discussion about QA, and lack of adequate response) and the smooth running and responses of the pootle team is a proof of the wisdom of free software.
Yes, the QA issues were another reason I left Rosetta. :(Pootle may appear not as convenient to you, because it's not integrated with your installation, but that's because it's a translation tool which _any_ project can use. Ubuntu can afford to customize Rosetta for their needs, because they're the only ones who will use it. Pootle is used by a wide variety of different projects, who all customize it in their own way.
So there's certainly nothing to stop you, or any other group, customizing Pootle to feed translations back into your distro. It's just that the default Pootle won't do that, because it wouldn't work for other projects.
As an example, Debian is currently working on integrating Pootle into their translation process. By the time they're finished, it will fit exactly where they want it, and have data feeding in, and out, to suit their own process.
But that wouldn't work for GNOME, or KDE, who have their own processes. In fact, one of the frustrating things I've found in my time in free-software translation, is that _every_ project has its own, very different, processes. That makes the task of creating a tool to integrate with all projects, or even some of them, impossible.
Think of Pootle as your generic translation tool. It does a lot of things translators need. But it doesn't tie you down to _any_ particular process or software, because it's available to everyone. It tries to meet their needs, without becoming too complex, or limited to any specfic project. It's like trying to create the perfect car for people who all want a different colour, style, engine, fuel and exhaust process!
This might be a wiled idea.
On the other hand, the Pootle developers are very willing to try and build in anything that can work for most people, can be applied in different ways to different situations. For example, they're building in file-syncing via source control, which most projects use, and for major projects, there are specific checks you can run.
As appealing as it is there is one thing that is missing from pootle. That is a destro. To day installing linux from a live cd has become ridiculously easy. If pootle distributes a destro that people can install and do their translation work and test and submit it would become a complete system that not only where people translate but learn to use linux on the prosess. Of course live updating of the system goes with out saying.
I think you're talking about a translators' distro. I'm not sure how well this would work, since we really need to have the versions of software _as distributed_ so we can test them. Creating our own distro might mean everything works for us, but it might not work for our users.
However, the idea of combining Pootle with installable and updatable software is interesting. We've talked before about live updates for translators: it's complex, but it's something everybody would like to have.
But it's not easy to do.At last count, I translate for 20 different projects. They all have different software. I like the idea of being able to build my translations via Pootle and test them, but I think it would be a very complex matter.
One can go further and provide tools to build a destro based on the languages. I can suggest a candidate destro http://www.gnewsense.org/
This does look very customizable, which is useful.
In my country there is a say. To that who sits all day long the sky seems nearer. I am not a developer. I am a translator. I have no idea what would go in to making the above reality. As a non professional translator my Christmas wish for pootle team would be a destro dedicated to translation and localization.
I do understand where you're coming from. I firmly believe there are way too many barriers to participation by translators, and the different procedures of all these different projects are the biggest problems.
So, what do you want in your translators' distro? How much of this can we build into Pootle, and still make it a tool any project can use? How much could we build into a translator-support site instead?
I've been thinking about this for some time, based on the same aims as the Translate Wiki: a central resource for translators. Something which contained the info we need, and did things Pootle can't do without limiting its application. Quick links to the things we need. Interactive functions for the tasks we need to perform.
I don't know how difficult this would be to achieve, but ideas are definitely the start. How about you write down exactly what you need from a central translators' resource, exactly which tasks you need to perform, and we'll see which bits fit with the Pootle roadmap [1], and which bits could be done to complement Pootle. There are a lot of things which now integrate with Pootle. This could be one of them.
Thanks all for the idealism and the results.
Ideas and interest are also important. That's where things start. :)from Clytie (vi-VN, Vietnamese free-software translation team / nhóm Việt hóa phần mềm tự do)
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/vi-VN[1] http://translate.sourceforge.net/wiki/wordforge/ functional_specificaions
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