[Localization] How do we manage translation effort in Release, process/roadmap?

[Greg Smith]

Hi Sayamindu,

Great work, thanks for taking up the gauntlet on this!

One question for you, how much lead time do you need to do the translations?

Assuming something like "final test" starts 15 days before the target 
release date, when do we need to tell the developers to "freeze" all of 
their strings?

Possible dates are 90 days before target release day and 60 days before 
target release day.

Let me know which of those you prefer or if you think a different lead 
time is warranted.

Thanks,

Greg S

Sayamindu Dasgupta wrote:
> Hello Korakurider,
> Thanks for your input. I have put up a basic document at
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Localization/Workflow Comments and brickbats
> are welcome :-).
> Regarding you questions - please see inline :-)
> 
> 
> On Fri, Jul 4, 2008 at 5:51 PM, Korakurider <korakurider at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 8:38 PM, Greg Smith <gregsmitholpc at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Now, my turn to ask :-)  I don't know who is the right one to ask though...
>>
>> (1) They say SugarLabs is upstream of Sugar software and OLPC is one of distro.
>> Then, which POs are still "owned" by OLPC?
>> (Packaging/Pootle/Activation Server/OLPC Web site projects are obvious
>> :-)
>> For Sugar. will commit from Pootle go to upstream(SugarLab)  or distro(OLPC)?
>> Which will POT come from ?
>>
> 
> My personal opinion (I am open to suggestions) that all translations
> should go directly upstream as much as possible. Distro specific
> efforts for translations (unless you are talking about distro specific
> tools, etc) have been badly bitten in the past.
> 
>> (2) SugarLabs have declared string freeze for 8.2.  But I am not sure
>> specifically which POT/POs are governed by their declaration.
>> sugar.po/sugar-base.po/sugar-toolkit.po come to mind.
>> And I think other activities in XO-Core (that are also included in
>> their software stack as "Demo activities") aren't governed. right?
>>
> 
> I think I answered this.
> 
> * sugar-base
> * sugar-toolkit
> * sugar
> *  chat-activity
> * web-activity
> * read-activity
> * log-activity
> * write-activity
> * calculate-activity
> * terminal-activity
> * pippy-activity
> * etoys-activity
> 
> I will probably try to arrange the projects in our Pootle server at
> some point to reflect this.
> 
>> (3) OLPC have stopped to bundle activities with base software.  Now
>> release cycle for them doesn't have to be aligned to XO software from
>> OLPC's point of view.  But I think It would be still better to try to
>> let them aligned for refreshing translations.
>> Note that even if the package is enough mature, additional build would
>> be needed to pull new translations (new languages for instance).
>> Right now it is hard to know when my updated translations for some
>> activities will be pulled into the packages :-<
>>
> 
> For the sugar stuff - expect a following of the release cycles. For
> other stuff - there is really no way to know. However, I would like to
> request developers to announce releases a few days in advance in the
> localization list, so that translators can prioritize and/or commit
> appropriately.
> 
> Thanks,
> Sayamindu
>