<p></p>
<p>You are all probably aware that there have been ongoing changes in
the structuring of the development process of the Sugar software that
you have all done so much to make available to children in their
native tongues. The majority of the software development process (and
therefore the source of strings to be localized) has been migrating to
repository (repo) infrastructure hosted by Sugar Labs. To date, this
has resulted in very little change in how the localization community
does it's work because the current stable 8.2 release and many activities have remained
hosted on the OLPC repo. Sayamindu has continued to do his usual magic
in taking care of the administrative tasks and integration of the L10n
process with the build systems (at either Sugar Labs or OLPC). </p>
<div>As the Sugar Labs infrastructure has stabilized and with OLPC's
unfortunate loss of staff to support software development and a
reduction in their server admin staff, there have been discussions
among those parties at Sugar Labs and OLPC that have been taking care
of the various tools and servers as to how best to continue providing an
environment in which the localization of the Sugar UI (and activity)
strings can continue to grow and be maintained on behalf of the Sugar / OLPC L10n community which has done such amazing work and for the
benefit of the children that use the XO laptop (or indeed, Sugar in
other forms such as packages from various linux distros or
Sugar-on-a-Stick).</div>
<div> </div>
<div>The Sugar Labs Infrastructure Team (Bernie Innocente, et al.) are
looking into hosting solutions, OLPC is reviewing it's current collection of servers and there has been some preliminary discussion about the possibility of transferring a server to Sugar Labs to host Pootle. Basically everyone on all sides (Sugar Labs Infrastructure team, OLPC Volunteer Infrastructure Group (VIG), OLPC management and server admin staff) are committed to identifying the best long-term solution and to providing a smooth transition. It seems very likely that a migration will be accompanied by an upgrade in Pootle version to either 1.2 or 1.3 (if it is released and stable in the right time frame) from the currently installed 1.1 instance.<br>
<br>In the mean time, Sayamindu has already been
fiddling all of the bits that need to be adjusted on the back end to
make the migration go smoothly in terms of plugging into the repos at either OLPC or Sugar Labs. OLPC's sysadmin, Stephan Unterhauser, has created a virtual-machine sandbox where testing of new Pootle versions and pre-staging of modifications in scripts, etc. can be performed without disrupting the production Pootle instance. The general idea would be to establish a new server at Sugar Labs (as soon as the necessary resources like hardware and hosting can be arranged)
and that the new server would be running a newer version of Pootle.
The new (Sugar Labs) and old (OLPC) servers would run in parallel for a
time while stability and usability of the new system is tested (L10n community help will certainly be needed for that part). In general, it is important that the L10n community step forward and contribute not only translated UI strings, but also some effort on the administration and management of the tools. It is in that spirit that I am writing to the list to contribute to community organization and communications so that Sayamindu's valuable time can be focused on those tasks that require his remarkable technical skills or in depth understanding.<br>
<br>For now, localization work should continue
on the OLPC Pootle system until such time as a formal cut-over is declared
and announced to this list. As this process moves forward, there will
be further communication (in advance) to this list about progress and next steps. The ongoing discussion of the options and details will continue in forums like the Sugar Labs and OLPC sysadmin lists (serving the OLPC VIG and Sugar Labs Infrastructure team, respectively) and on various IRC channels as things develop. General questions or concerns from the L10n community should probably be voiced/discussed on the L10n list and I will endeavor to address them or I will communicate them to those who can. Sysadmin-skilled localizers are certainly welcome to join in discussing the technical details in those other forums, but the goal is that for most of the L10n community, this will be accomplished with as seamlessly as possible with a minimum of disruption and a maximum of transparency as further details/plans develop. <br>
<br><p>cjl<br></p><p><a href="http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Cjl" target="_blank">http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Cjl</a><br>
</p><p><a href="http://bugs.locamotion.org/show_bug.cgi?id=652" target="_blank"><br></a></p><br></div>