http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/125/
I respect if you insist on using your Launchpad and Rosetta platform for translations, but please at least offer a way to use the translations from upstream. What about "language-pack-XX-upstream"?

[153 votes] Solution #1: Auto-generated solution of idea #125


]]> en-us Thu, 28 Feb 2008 18:24:47 +0000 Fri, 23 Oct 2009 06:40:58 +0000 QAPoll module http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/125/
as far as i know, they still use maillist as their main method of commiting the translation result. the maillist poses as a big obstacle to those who are not familiar with how it works. those who can manage a web browser can help too if so.

]]> Fri, 21 Mar 2008 05:22:52 +0000 Tue, 08 Apr 2008 12:08:18 +0000 Tue, 08 Apr 2008 22:39:56 +0000 Mon, 14 Apr 2008 11:08:31 +0000 Wed, 23 Apr 2008 11:21:38 +0000
Pavolzetor: This is really a problem... Have you already contacted the problematic translation team?]]> Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:25:43 +0000
> Launchpad already provides the option to export the
> translations, so if upstream wants them they can just go
> there and download them.

I don't want to have to chase after Ubuntu's translations. Ubuntu is not the only one in the Free Software World, but they behave like they were.

If you distro people fix a bug in an application it's *you* who should forward it to upstream. It's not the developers' job to dig through gazillions of Bugzillas and see if any distro fixed a bug.

That's the same for translations -- if you know of or fix a bug tell upstream about it, so that *every* distribution profits, not just Ubuntu. Not doing so is anti-social.


> This [Ubuntu degrading Upstream's tanslations] is really
> a problem... Have you already contacted the problematic
> translation team?

I did, and the German team found out that the policy they had at first (allowing everybody to change translations) actually worsened the quality. Now there is only a limited amount of people with the rights to change translations, but there is still the problem that Rosetta is not good enough.

For example, if they fix a simple typo in Rosetta, then there are two problems:
- Upstream doesn't get notified about that (and only Ubuntu profits)
- If Upstream later changes the translation that change isn't automatically applied in Rosetta (since Rosetta's translation differs from the previous Upstream one since it was changed by fixing a typo)

That has the effect that Upstream's translations and Ubuntu's differ more and more as time goes.

Just have a look at a localized Debian GNOME and a localized Ubuntu GNOME. You'll see that Ubuntu has an inferior quality of the translations (at least for languages which have high quality Upstream translations).]]> Mon, 12 May 2008 10:36:30 +0000 I don't want to have to chase after Ubuntu's translations.
> Ubuntu is not the only one in the Free Software World, but
> they behave like they were.
> [...]
> That's the same for translations -- if you know of or fix a
> bug tell upstream about it, so that *every* distribution
> profits, not just Ubuntu. Not doing so is anti-social.

Agreed, but it's not that Launchpad could do anything here, this is rather a job that Ubuntu's translation teams should pursue (*). An automated system can't know where it should send the translation changes for each different project, nor would all upstreams be happy about this.

* Actually, I don't really understand why applications (that don't officially use Launchpad as their translation platform) are translated in Launchpad by Translation Teams instead of directly sending them upstream.]]> Tue, 13 May 2008 18:57:00 +0000 Sun, 18 May 2008 22:07:39 +0000
> Agreed, but it's not that Launchpad could do anything
> here, this is rather a job that Ubuntu's translation
> teams should pursue (*). An automated system can't know
> where it should send the translation changes for each
> different project, nor would all upstreams be happy about
> this.

Sorry, but that sounds like just the easy way for you. "We're offering the functionality, but people should not use it"!


> * Actually, I don't really understand why applications
> (that don't officially use Launchpad as their translation
> platform) are translated in Launchpad by Translation
> Teams instead of directly sending them upstream.

Perhaps because they don't even know that there exists something like "upstream". Why not write in big, bold, red letters: "Please do not translate GNOME and KDE applications via Launchpad. Instead, send your translation to gnome-$LANG@gnome.org or i18n-$LANG@kde.org so that every distribution benefits from your work, not just Ubuntu."]]> Mon, 02 Jun 2008 15:24:38 +0000
This said let's continue the discussion.


> Sorry, but that sounds like just the easy way for you.
> "We're offering the functionality, but people should>
> not use it"!

I haven't said that Launchpad shouldn't be used, but that I think that getting Launchpad to automatically submit translation changes to upstream projects is a difficult thing. The only thing I can think of is adding a way to allow configuring, for each individual project, an email address (eg, a mailing list) where translation changes is send, but I doubt that upstream would be happy of such automatic messages.


Also, it seems like there are two proposals being discussed here:
a) providing a way to use upstream translations (which I find pointless, if the Ubuntu translations are bad then this should be fixed; just making it possible to not use them is not the right solution).
b) improving the contact with upstream (which indeed needs improvements in Launchpad, but IMHO also is a responsibility of translation teams).
Perhaps one of those discussions should be moved to a separate idea?]]> Sun, 15 Jun 2008 11:14:51 +0000 Tue, 23 Sep 2008 19:29:33 +0000 Wed, 24 Sep 2008 07:42:45 +0000